Even The Wolf likely can't clean up Harvey Weinstein's pending troubles

This is a good read.

The Hollow Rage of Tom Brokaw

 

Woody Allen isn't in the Academy.

 

Cross him off, then!

 

I think Brokaw probably acted in the manner he was accused of, but if you were accused of something you didn't do, isn't this how you would react, as well?

This is the Bill Clinton, Clarence Thomas, and Bill Cosby playbook: Discredit the woman. Complain that she overreacted to a little fun. Accuse her simultaneously of career failure and of being too ambitious—her ambition a symbol of her voracious, smothering sexuality. Wildly overstate her own claims to make them appear ridiculous.

I also don't see where Brokaw "complain[ed] that she overreacted to a little fun," or that she was "too ambitious," in a vacuum:

In his 4 a.m. email the following morning, Brokaw wrote that Vester had “failed in her pursuit of stardom.” She “complained,” he said, “that I tickled her without permission (you read that right).” She “had limited success”; yet was “not frightened” and “eager for advice.” In other words, whatever efforts she made to overcome her mediocrity should convince us she would stop at nothing. Presumably to offset her so-called “failure,” Brokaw surmised, Vester “married a wealthy man”—but nevertheless, he reckoned, she hungered for fame by “portraying herself as [#MeToo’s] den mother [and its] ‘keeper of the flame.’” (A couple of allegations made to help a Post reporter describe a workplace culture, of course, constitute no such self-righteous portrayal: When Brokaw talks about positioning oneself as a “den mother” and “keeping the flame,” he is describing himself.)

 

A way to think about TNR Brokaw take:

It's common to write, Ah, a sexual harasser would deny and discredit! They are all working from the same playbook!

OK, but that's the same playbook that an ... innocent person would work from, no?

Hypothetical:

Crazy Person Whitman Used to Know: Dick Whitman abused heroin in high school. I actually did heroin with him.

Whitman: I have never touched the stuff. I don't know what he's talking about This guy is not a credible witness.

The New Republic: That's exactly what an accused heroin abuser would say!

 

What I really think is dumb - is that fellow journos use their platforms to defend the accused, or say something to the effect of "people are piling on" - but have no problem piling on when the accused person is not a friend of theirs.
You can't believe every one of these cases then suddenly demand people not jump to conclusions when it involves a friend.

 

I don't know if your rebuttal to the heroin rumor rises to the level of "outsized outrage and fury tends not to distinguish those who are falsely accused, but those who know, deep down, they have done something wrong."

 

This was why people flipped out on Lena Dunham, who has been pretty quiet since then, actually.

 

But this is just another way of saying that Brokaw doth protest too much.

It's like when conspiracy theorists see a denial of a conspiracy as "exactly what someone covering up a Sandy Hook false flag operation would say."

 

For instance, @YankeeFan continues to insist the timing of his trip to Paris was perfectly coincidental and in no way related to this message board.

 

I know. It's what someone taking a trip to Paris to avoid OOP's devastating inquiries would say.

 

"Your honor, we know that the defendant is guilty of first-degree murder. And how do we know the defendant is guilty of first-degree murder? Because the defendant denies being guilty of first-degree murder!"