I have done an, admittedly crude, statistical analysis of rape and sexual harassment accusations of rich and powerful men in politics. I was not interested in whether the accusations were true (they almost always are), but whether upon hearing the charges, the intelligentsia cast scorn upon the accused or the accusations.
Conclusion: the more the accused tends towards conservative politics, the more we hear that it’s “The seriousness of the charges” that matters. Guilt is assumed. Conversely, the more the accused tends towards socialist politics, the more the women who make the accusations are scorned, vilified, attacked. Innocence is assumed.
Examples will readily bring themselves to mind (Clarence Thomas, Bill Clinton, Julian Assange, etc.).
Enter IMF chief and Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a socialist who was going to take on the more conservative President Sarkozy in the next election.
As you will have heard, Strauss-Kahn has been accused of raping a chambermaid at the Hotel Sofitel in New York City. According to one story:
Strauss-Kahn came out of the bathroom naked, chased her down a hallway and pulled her into a bedroom, the woman told police. Then he dragged her into a bathroom, forced her to perform oral sex on him and tried to remove her underwear, she said.
Whether or not Strauss-Kahn did the deed or not is not of interest here. What is are the comments made by those who would guide us.
French writer, author of the Free Roman Polanski! petition, supporter of socialist political candidates Bernard-Henri Lévy, admits in the Daily Beast that he does not know what happened at the Sofitel, but, darn it, he’s concerned.
“What I do know is that nothing in the world can justify a man being thus thrown to the dogs.” He calls Strauss-Kahn “a friend to women.” He is rankled that an American judge “pretended to take [Strauss-Kahn] for a subject of justice like any other.” He is “troubled” that in America “anyone can come along and accuse another fellow of any crime.”
He goes on and then goes on some more, misinterpreting the American justice system, offering theories of how Strauss-Kahn might be innocent, and so forth. The whole is an indignant sputter.
Many in France are “outraged” that Strauss-Kahn had to undergo a perp walk after his removal from a plane at JFK. So many complaints were heard that Mayor Bloomberg was forced to comment on the custom: “I think it is humiliating, but if you don’t want to do the perp walk, don’t do the crime.”
The News Real Blog found that Le Monde named Strauss-Kahn’s accuser, as well as publicized “The size of her breasts, the shape of her backside…” Further, “France’s RMC radio reported that Strauss-Kahn’s attorneys were surprised by how ‘unattractive'” the accused is. Not very gallant, that.
Mike Whitney at the socialist Centre for Research on Globalization, echoing the thoughts of many on the far left, said that Strauss-Kahn walked into a “honey trap.”
Whitney says the “whole matter stinks to high-Heaven.” If Strauss-Kahn was set up, it “was probably by members of the western bank coalition, that shadowy group of self-serving swine whose policies have kept the greater body of humanity in varying state of poverty and desperation for the last two centuries.”
Far left conspiracy theorists at OpEdNews.com are certain of treachery—but they are just as sure that Osama Bin Laden’s death was faked.
Socialist Party MP Jean-Marie Le Guen said the accuser was “not credible” and the story was “inconsistent with what he knew of the politician’s character. ‘Seduction, yes, but no way would he use constraint or violence.'”
“‘I am convinced it is an international conspiracy,’ said Michelle Sabban, a senior councillor for the greater Paris region” said the Telegraph. Also in that article:
“We cannot rule out the thought of a trap,” Henri de Raincourt, minister for overseas co-operation in President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government, said in a broadcast interview…Francois Hollande, the former Socialist party chief, said: “To commit an act of such seriousness, this does not resemble the man I know.”
MSNBC reports that former Socialist culture minister Jack Lang said, “He is a brave man on whom a contemptuous fate has been inflicted.” He called “Europe 1 radio” and complained of a “lynching.”
The torrent of abuse directed at the accuser and the comments in support of Strauss-Kahn has subsided over the last forty-eight hours as it became clear that Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers abandoned his original claim of not being at the hotel to tacitly admitting a “consensual” engagement. Experience shows that even if Strauss-Kahn is convicted or pleads guilty, his crime will not be held against him among the intelligentsia.
Maureen Dowd, too, gets it right: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/opinion/18dowd.html?_r=1&ref=maureendowd
I get it. It Bayes all over again. Summed over all circumstances, we have
Probability (Guilt|Left Wing Scoundrel) <0.95).
Now that this is done, we can go on to something else.
This certainly has the lefties spinning like a top. Remember the Duke lacrose team rape allegations? The templet was rich white boys rape poor black girl. The Duke faculty was leading street demonstrations against the lacrose team. So now we have the allegation a rich white guy rapes a poor black girl, but he’s a socialist. Well, nothing to bother yourself about here. It’s all a plot by the evil bankers.
“What I do know is that nothing in the world can justify a man being thus thrown to the dogs.†What a world we live in. What a world.
Here is what we know for sure:
1. The man is under arrest
2. The man is being held without bail
3. Law & Order SVU writers have completed a first draft of the script.
Everything else is speculation.
Speed,
It’s already in production. Croissants being served on the set.
I heard it said somewhere: “Life’s not fair.”
Strauss-Kahn is accused of committing a crime, he is not convicted. So how is Bloomberg able to say Strauss-Kahn has committed a crime? Isn’t that the judge’s job, or the jury’s in the US legal system, after examining the evidence?
I’m not inclined to condemn DSK if he’s guilty. But that’s not the point of the text anyway. Let’s see how such an affair looks like when there are such charges against a conservative! But people with good memory may show me other examples of the past.
Daniel Hannan:
Meanwhile …
Pingback: Are All French Like Strauss-Kahn? - Spurious Missives
Bolschoj Dom,
Besides the three notorious cases I gave, Today’s News has a more complete list. Ms Magazine reminds us of a few more, including the insane defense of child rapist Roman Polanski. That magazine also says, “Gérard Grunberg, a political scientist who studies the French left-wing, says, ‘If all this was a trap, he wouldn’t have fled in a panic.'” Seems right, no?
Perhaps not the most welcome source, and somewhat sarcastically, Rush Limbaugh quips that being accused of rape or sexual harassment is a resume enhancer for the left.
A blogger at Liberals Like Christ took great pains to detail every allegation against every Republican in recent years.
You’ll have to help us with German politicians.
“anyone can come along and accuse another fellow of any crime.â€
Spoken like a true elitist. Egalite, thy name is America!
Bolschoj Dom said, “I’m not inclined to condemn DSK if he’s guilty.”
Please explain why.
That Liberals Like Christ blog post is ridiculous. Crying “hypocrite” is one of my biggest pet peeves. Since we are all hypocrites, calling others hypocritical is about as hypocritical as it gets. I’m just about 100% sure that both parties commit an equal number of sexual indescretions (or close enough that measurement error comes into play). And then there’s this gem: “Although clearly the beneficiary of Affirmative Action himself, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas…” Well, that’s the most racist thing I’ve ever heard.
Speed,
FWIW: from this paper
Not sure what that says regarding the women or the legal definition.
Unfortunately, in a country where innocence is supposedly presumed, being arrested is often seen as evidence of guilt and reputations are permanently damaged regardless of actual guilt (ever seen “Have you ever been arrested” vs. “convicted” on a job or security application?). Public humiliation of the accused shouldn’t be permitted. I don’t really have much of an opinion of Strauss-Kahn but IMO the reported circumstances in Strauss-Kahn’s case are more than a little hard to believe.
The implication of Bolschoj Dom’s first sentence seems obvious; Rape is the natural right of [some] men, and therefore not to be condemned.
Thinking that way reflects an abusive, savage and uncivilized viewpoint rejected by modern cultures, and tells us way too much about Dom.
49erDweet,
Just a quick question: Should all found guilty of any crime be condemned (verbally, I presume)? If not then does that mean that those non-condemned crimes are really natural rights? I’m curious how you got from “not condemn” to “natural right”.
All,
It might help us to know that English is not Bolschoj Dom’s first language and there may be difficulties in translating thoughts.
We’ll probably never know how much DSK and the French Socialist Party pay her to drop it.
If DSK is found guilty one one or more of the six charges then he becomes a convicted criminal, pending any appeal. The Mayor of New York does not appear to understand his own legal system. As of now, DSK has not committed any crime at all. He has been arrested and charged on what the DA believes to be reasonable and probable grounds to suspect he may have committed a crime. Bloomberg seems to assume that being arrested is the same thing as having committed a crime, which is contrary to his own American and New York legal system.
These American perp walks inflict humiliation and disgrace upon a prisoner convicted, at the time, of nothing. They contradict a fundamental principle of the American justice system, innoncent until proven guilty. Bloomberg has no business commenting on what he thinks is the “Napoleonic” legal system when he is so obviously ignorant of his own.
Further, if these charges were against a poor, unemployed drifter for an act in a seedy hotel as asserted by a local ghetto girl, the same prisoner in the same cuffs on the same walk would attract no media attention at all. DSK was being punished differently because of who he was, and the New York police are complicit because they almost certainly let the media know exactly when and where the perp walk would take place. That is, they actively participated in his humiliation, the humiliation of a prisoner presumed innocent at this point.
America needs to make a law that forbids the taking of pictures of any arrested but not yet convicted prisoner other than by police themselves for internal purposes of recordor for evidence in court. And Mayor Bloomberg should either refrain from commenting about American law enforcement, which he clearly does not understand or learn more about his own system before he does.
On this issue, the Republic of France should demand a formal apology for the humiliation of one of its most prominent citizens prior to any finding of guilt and, failing that, should recall its ambassador “for consultations.” It should also forbid its citizens to travel to or do business with the United States due to the risk.