The inevitable “celebrities assure Ford they believe her” @MoveOn video hotair.com/archives/2018/…
A fun fact about @MoveOn, the creators of this spot: The group got its name from its efforts to get the country to move on from Republican efforts to impeach a credibly accused, perjured left-wing sexual predator (see: Bill Clinton).
That’s the sort of feminist bona fides I always prize in woke attack ads involving rape.
I try to resist Whataboutism, but whenever the left starts sermonizing at Republicans about treating victims of sexual assault properly a variety of leering Democratic ogres waddles out onstage in the right-wing imagination.
It’s led by the Kennedys, grinning broadly, drinks in hand, pants around their ankles, but not limited to them. Which is not at all to imply that Kavanaugh should get a pass because Ted Kennedy got one for 50 years.
But it is to say that, despite their alleged wokeness, progressive outrage at sex offenses and judgments about who deserves the benefit of the doubt and who doesn’t remain mainly a matter of political expedience. Hint that you might blow up Roe and you’re guilty as charged.
Hint that you’ll storm the ramparts if Roe is blown up and you’re entitled to a robust presumption of innocence. And that’s not just a historical relic; it continues to the present day.
Which is why, although her reasoning is nonsense, Kirsten Gillibrand’s not entirely wrong in calling Monday’s hearing a “sham.” It is a sham in the sense that it’s being presented as a fact-finding inquiry when it’s not.
No facts or lack thereof will be produced that changes any Democratic votes. This is a political exercise, not an investigative one.
One other thing. Befitting how rote and thoughtless the true message of the @MoveOn ad is — “Ford is telling the truth because I *heart* legal abortion” — the format of the ad itself is painfully familiar.
This style of staccato cross-cutting between people repeating each other’s lines to emphasize the message is so stale that even the parodies of it seem old. It’s phoned in, figuratively and apparently literally.
