Goldberg Discovers Due Process Too Late

I vaguely recall thinking that maybe, just maybe, the New York Times uber-millennial progressive columnist was growing up, only to have my hope dashed on the rocks of simplicity the next week. And yet, ever the optimist, here it comes again and maybe, just maybe, this time it will be real.

called on Franken to resign from the Senate, not because I thought his alleged actions were irredeemable, but because I thought Democrats should free themselves of the burden of defending him.

Today, Goldberg concedes she was wrong to throw Franken under the bus, even though she’s still fairly convinced that he deserves it.

By the time Franken resigned, eight women had accused him of either groping or trying to forcibly kiss them. Even if you dismiss Tweeden’s account, it seems to me overwhelmingly likely that he acted in a way that left women who’d admired him confused and humiliated.

This is the sort of “evidence” that strikes the naive as significant, that eight women hopped on the “me too” train to become victims of the he-devil and heroes of the cause. One person can be wrong, even lie if one is a misogynist who doubts women, but eight? It’s the 6 Million Flies rule, and they can’t possibly be wrong. But that, Goldberg realized, wasn’t the point.

Due process is important whether or not a person did what he or she is accused of, and the absence of it in this case has left lasting wounds. Carried away by the furious momentum of #MeToo, I let myself forget that transparent, dispassionate systems for hearing conflicting claims are not an impediment to justice but a prerequisite for it.

“Let herself forget” is a curious way to phrase it.

During #MeToo, many feminists tried to find a way to move beyond the reflexive doubt that too often greets people who speak out about sexual misbehavior. But a reflexive assumption of guilt is not a decent substitute.

If Goldberg “let herself forget” before, then what’s her excuse for being ignorant now? The issue isn’t “reflexive doubt” but burden of proof, a critical element of that due process thingy she let herself forget. Did she forget again? The reason we “doubt” the accuser is that the burden of proof must be on the accuser since the accused cannot prove the negative. If “j’accuse” is all that’s needed to shift the burden to the accused to do the impossible and prove the accusation false, then we have the Spanish Inquisition. And that was exactly the point of #MeToo, all accusation, no evidence, women win!

Some feminists argue that the concept of “due process” doesn’t really apply outside the legal system; it’s possible that I’ve said something similar myself. “Losing Your Job for Sexual Harassment Is Not a Violation of Due Process,” said a 2018 headline from Rewire News Group. Due process, wrote Caroline Reilly, “is violated when the government takes away a right.”

Need it be explained yet again that there is both a legal rule and a principle involved? The legal rule didn’t get pulled out of Madison’s butt purely by chance, but arose from the principles of fundamental procedural fairness, that a person accused should first be presented with the evidence against him and then have an opportunity to challenge that evidence. It’s a concept, Mich. Do I really have to explain this again?

Technically, this is true, but colloquially, due process usually means hearing people out and treating them according to clear and neutral rules. In the Franken case in particular, I was wrong in thinking it was possible to separate what was fair to him and what was fair to everyone else.

Due process isn’t a mere technicality, even if rules of law appear that way to the great unwashed and other stinky folks. The feminists were crafting a rationalization for the unwary, the overly emotional, the well-educated who desperately needed a lie upon which to rely so they could achieve the outcome they desired under cover of plausible bullshit. And while Goldberg now, far too late to matter, is finally coming around to realize that she was wrong, she still can’t bring herself to admit that all her friends from the lean-in meeting were full of shit.

If there had been a Senate investigation into Franken’s behavior, it probably would have been an ordeal for Democrats, and might have slowed the momentum of #MeToo. But a more cautious, deliberate movement wouldn’t have been such a bad thing. In the end, Franken might have had to resign anyway, but it wouldn’t have seemed that he’d been railroaded. Due process may not be convenient, but there’s no legitimate way around it.

Even now, Goldberg struggles to recognize what #MeToo was all about and why poor Al Franken had to be sacrificed for the cause to manufacture legitimacy for a notion that was so outrageously wrong as to have no other way to gain momentum and take down every man in the path of a women either miffed or feeling left out so she created a story of victimhood in her own mind to make the other women ohh and ahh over her pain.

We had laws and policies before and mechanisms by which these law and policies were vindicated. But they required the accuser to step forward, be questioned, present proof of their claim and be subject to challenge, just like everyone else. It worked pretty poorly, just as it did with others, even if they pretended it worked perfect for everyone else.

So when the official system was too onerous by expecting women to come forward timely, provide truthful and accurate information and prove their claims, this alternative method arose where all they needed to do was point and sniff. And Goldberg still doesn’t get it, even if she feels badly about Franken. Now. When it doesn’t matter

5 thoughts on “Goldberg Discovers Due Process Too Late

  1. jfjoyner3

    Man, some days you really are at the top of your game. Today is one of them. The sarcasm is perfectly wicked, the points are sharp as razors. The “target” imagined herself a Mt. Olympus-quality philosopher but was exposed as a soporific navel-gazer. I’m renewing my subscription today (I see the button below).

    Yes, yes, I know, tummy-rub comments are frowned upon. Give me a free pass today, I’m just a southern redneck trying to be nice to a lawyer.

  2. B. McLeod

    “What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were laying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

Comments are closed.