Sexual Harassment: Revolution, Or Witch Hunt?

I had thought we were done here, the rules made clear 25 years ago with Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill. But apparently a lot of guys still didn’t get the memo. Well, they’ve gotten it now.

A recent Michael Gerson column talks about this as a national moral renewal. A social revolution can be a long time in coming; things may seem frozen; then all at once the ice breaks apart. Those who insist nothing ever changes are repeatedly proven wrong. But Gerson notes here a spectacular incongruity. The president is often seen as setting the nation’s moral tone. Yet this revolution against sexual harassment is happening even while the president himself is a disgusting transgressor. In fact, by electing him America had seemed to go the other way, throwing its former ethical standards down the toilet. Thus it’s really a surprise to see those standards resurge with a vengeance. Not a top-down phenomenon, but bottom-up — the nation rising to a new moral consensus despite its president.
As Gerson notes too, America’s most vocal moral posturers are missing in action here: the “family values” religious fundamentalists. He quotes James Dobson, founder of “Focus on the Family,” defending Roy Moore. This Gerson calls “beyond hypocrisy . . . the ideology of white male dominance dressed up as religion.” But (as I’ve written) in today’s America politics trumps everything.

The comeuppance of guys like Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose, and Matt Lauer, is a good thing. It is indeed a moral lurch forward. Al Franken did wrong too, but not remotely in their class. And he showed a lot of class in the humble and sincere way he has responded.

Here again is White House Filth Apologist Sarah Huckabee Sanders: “Senator Franken has admitted wrongdoing and the President hasn’t. I think that’s a very clear distinction.” Indeed.

And now Garrison Keillor; the revolution transmogrified into a witch hunt. The other day, conversing with my wife about this stuff, she opined that in the workplace men can no longer touch women at all. I disagreed, saying there’s a difference between a pat on the back and one on the behind. Well, my wife was right (as usual). Keillor apparently patted a woman on the back — a gesture of sympathy after she spoke of unhappiness. He touched bare skin. Horrors! He’s toast. Fired by Minnesota Public Radio. Off the air. A scheduled public performance abruptly cancelled. A distinguished career of half a century ended in ugliness.

This has now gone way overboard. We’ve lost our minds.

What ever happened to the idea of due process? Of innocent-until-proven-guilty? Don’t any of these guys even get a hearing, to answer charges? Nope. Punishment upon accusation is instantaneous. And call me a benighted troglodyte, but even if the accusation against Keillor is completely true, it’s still a mile short of a firing offense. A minor momentary lapse of decorum. If this is now the required standard of behavior, there’s not a human being on the planet — not even the Dalai Lama — who can meet it.

Like the French Revolution, this one too now has proceeded to the next stage: a Reign of Terror and daily spectacle of guillotining.
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