Media's Anti-Kavanaugh Campaign Reaches New Levels of Deception
The anti-Brett Kavanaugh campaign was an inevitability after the accusations of Christine Blasey Ford were finally aired. It was also a given that the media would be complicit in amplifying whatever anti-Kavanaugh sentiments might be bubbling up.
However, it would have perhaps helped all of America if this process weren’t so blatant.
Two stories seemed to pop up with repetitiousness on social media Monday. The first a report from two Politico journalists that few of the 65 women who were classmates of Brett Kavanaugh and signed a letter supporting him couldn’t be reached or wouldn’t comment. The other was that 200 women from the all-girl’s school Ford attended had signed a letter in support of her.
Let’s go with the 65 women who came out in support of Kavanaugh first. The claim that they wouldn’t go on the record came from Daniel Lippman and Andrew Restuccia of Politico.
.@AndrewRestuccia and I called many of Kavanaugh's 65 female HS acquittances who signed a letter supporting him. After his accuser came out on Sunday, only TWO said they still stood by him. More than two dozen didn't respond, and two declined to comment. https://t.co/Q7ux6pmzrf
— Daniel Lippman (@dlippman) September 17, 2018
However, that doesn’t tell the entire story, as Caleb Hull, formerly of Independent Journal Review, pointed out:
This is so misleading it's incredible.
Two still stood by him, yes. However, the other 63 were either never contacted, did not respond, or declined to comment.
Exactly ZERO of them reversed their support. https://t.co/KN56eojzam
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) September 17, 2018
In other words, none of the individuals disowned the letter — they simply didn’t talk to Politico, which is probably understandable, given that the publication is popular in the kind of places where they debate whether soda taxes ought to encompass diet sodas as well since privileged folks tend to drink them.
Indeed, here are the relevant paragraphs: “Five of the women who signed the letter declined to comment when reached by POLITICO following the public revelation of Ford’s identity.
“Dozens of others either didn’t respond to POLITICO’s inquiries or could not be reached.”
They got hold of seven people who signed the document, two of whom gave statements in support of Brett Kavanaugh and five who declined to comment. No one disowned the letter in the face of new information.
Okay, so how about that letter signed by people who went to Ford’s school? According to Yahoo News, 200 signatories from the prestigious Holton-Arms school in Maryland have come forward to support Kavanaugh’s accuser.
“We believe Dr. Blasey Ford and are grateful that she came forward to tell her story. It demands a thorough and independent investigation before the Senate can reasonably vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to a lifetime seat on the nation’s highest court,” the letter reads.
You may notice that I haven’t used the word “classmates” in describing the signatories, however. There’s a reason.
The response to Kavanaugh's letter from 65 women who knew him in HS is a letter from 200+ students who … went to the same school as the accuser sometime "between 1967 and 2018"??
The one person quoted in here graduated in 2005, never knew either of themhttps://t.co/Jvf8wQrCQt
— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) September 17, 2018
Also, seems like anybody can sign the letter. Here's the form: pic.twitter.com/ZdKVHDhcHB
— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) September 17, 2018
That’s right, the letter is basically the imprimatur of people who attended the same school as the woman making the allegations any time over a 51-year period. This is insulting on multiple levels; beyond the fact that we don’t know how many, if any, of these women ever went to class with (much less actually knew) — Christine Blasey Ford, what’s the statement being made here? “We attended the prestigious all-girl’s high school that Ford did, too — don’t you believe us?”
There’s no way you can take this reporting seriously. It isn’t even like a biased story where you can extract a few pertinent facts and just discard the chaff. This is all chaff, no wheat. It’s substance-free boosterism.
If the media wants us to take these allegations seriously, it would help their cause if they started doing the same thing.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
