When a woman materializes at a politically crucial moment to voice accusations of sexual abuse from many years ago, is she a brave victim finally confronting her abuser, or a scheming liar with a political agenda?
It 100% depends upon the politics of the accuser and accused.
Wait, this is the supposed "Nazi tattoo"? I don't buy for a second that 99% of people seeing this would have the slighest idea it has anything to do with Nazis or Hitler. They'd just assume it's a generic "skull and crossbones" that a certain type of guy would think looks cool
@JSweetLI Nevertheless, the fact that she doesn’t characterize it that way, there’s no corroboration, she’s a GOP operative, etc, means I doubt it’ll have much electoral impact, which is what my post said, not a moral endorsement of the behavior.
This is super embarrassing for @nytimes. It looks like they went out of their way to target him, they missed and they ran it anyway because they wanted to get him so bad. What happened to pretending to be objective? And every time they go after the outsiders.
It’s ok that Platner is a bigoted, sexist, wannabe robber-raping, bigoted, sexist, troop-hating, jerks off in port-a-potties Nazi because he tells Democrat voters he wants to rob billionaires.
When Virginia Democrats elected Jay Jones I knew it was bad but holy shit.
These are serious accusations. They are also false.
Throughout this campaign, I’ve been open about a very dark period of my life, when I struggled with undiagnosed PTSD. I'm not proud of the man I once was, but I'm proud of the man I am today, and of the movement we've built.
I bucked all advice from my friends (and resisted my conservative bias) and decided to fully trust the Times journalists.
As they left my home they asked that I not talk to any other outlets and I insisted then and repeatedly over the following weeks that I would keep my word and only share this story with them.
But then the weeks dragged on. They kept coming back to us saying the editors needed more. I needed to go on the record (okay). We need more screenshots (okay). I met every bench mark they set, eager to provide more sources or evidence as needed.
After the story went up I began to ask them … wait, where are the stories from the other women? Where are their accusations of sexual assault? Why am I the focus? Why are there 11 paragraphs dedicated to detailing my work history (more than has been published about Graham’s by far)?
Why does it say “nobody could corroborate” when I offered them sources that COULD corroborate?
Why did they include an out of context quote from a friend joking “do not call Graham” after I called off my wedding? (Because she knew I would never).
Where were the screenshots they’d said they would use? Or the mention that I’d supported local democrats and that most of my family (and husband) are liberal?
The editors said it was too much, they explained.
The Times also failed to include any mention that I DID confide in multiple friends through the years that Graham had been abusive — long before he was running for office. Those friends confirm they told the Times so.
It dawned on me that this really was a set up all along. The journalists I trusted who convinced me to share a story I never wanted to tell methodically delayed and twisted this into a gift to the Platner campaign. Violating the trust of his victims. Shattering the trust I placed in them with the most vulnerable story of my life.
And at the end of my call with them I reluctantly accepted their insistence that this was still a powerful story and that I had done a brave thing. And I thanked them for all the hard work they had put into it.
Still fawning after all these years.