Avenatti calls Kavanaugh a H.S. rapist; Kavanaugh says he was a virgin; Media pounces
by Becket Adams
| September 24, 2018 08:46 PM
Members of the news media once again thought they found a solid “gotcha” against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Once again they were wrong. They took his comments out of context in order to misrepresent his defense of himself.
On Monday, news broke that Kavanaugh and his wife, Ashley, would appear on Fox News to respond to allegations he sexually assaulted two separate women in the early 1980s. As news of the impending interview broke, certain journalists began tweeting context-less excerpts from the judge's pre-taped sit-down with Fox’s Martha MacCallum.
The Washington Post’s James Hohmann, for example, tweeted the following:
MACCALLUM: “Never had sexual intercourse with anyone in high school?”
KAVANAUGH: “Correct.”
MACCALLUM: “And through what years in college, since we’re probing into your personal life here?”
KAVANAUGH: “Many years after, I’ll leave it at that. Many years after.”
Some in the news media saw their opening.
The New York Times Maggie Haberman was one of the first out of the gate, notifying her 940,000-plus Twitter followers that the neither of Kavanaugh’s accusers claim to have had sexual intercourse with the man.
“This however is neither here nor there re the allegation, which is a forcible attempted assault,” she tweeted.
The first Kavanaugh accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, alleges only that Kavanaugh tried to have sex with her. The second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, claims Kavanaugh exposed himself in front of her during a drinking game in college.
The Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale had a similar take, tweeting, “Kavanaugh, accused of sex assaults that didn't involve intercourse: ‘I've never sexually assaulted anyone. I did not have sexual intercourse or anything close to sexual intercourse in high school or for many years thereafter.’ Fox treats this as relevant.”
The Washington Examiner’s Phil Klein and Kelly Cohen made the same point, with the former tweeting “Still struggling to understand why Kavanaugh felt it was necessary to go into this detail. None of the allegations suggest he successfully raped anybody – all could be true even were he still a virgin” and the latter tweeting, “just need to point out that none of the accusations against kavanaugh preclude him from being a virgin."
The New York Daily News even tweeted this dishonest headline: "Brett Kavanaugh claims he couldn't have sexually assaulted anyone who has accused him — because he was a virgin 'many years' into college."
READ MORE:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/avenatti-calls-kavanaugh-a-rapist-kavanaugh-says-hes-a-virgin-media-pounces