Question about instances where someone accuses a high-profile person of a long ago sexual assault:

[Tommy_Carcetti]

12. But how then do you explain someone like Juanita Broaddrick?

She's basically Schrodinger's Cat here--either she was sexually assaulted by Bill Clinton back in 1978, or she wasn't.

She has no physical evidence to support her claims. There's no eyewitnesses who have came forward and said they saw it happen. But as we both can agree, that alone doesn't mean it didn't happened.

So instead, we have her word. Except which is it--her sworn word or her unsworn word?

During the midst of the Starr investigation, and amongst vague rumors that she might know something about inappropriate sexual behavior on Bill Clinton's part, she issues a sworn affidavit, stating affirmatively (under penalty of perjury) that she neither had a consensual relationship with Clinton nor did Clinton ever sexually assault her.

Several months later, she starts saying the opposite to the press, now claiming that she was sexually assaulted by Clinton in 1978.

Mind you, for years already there had developed a cottage industry of sorts accusing both Bill and Hillary Clinton of all sorts of dastardly things, up to and including actual murder. And we know that cottage industry continues to thrive up to this very day.

So the notion that Bill Clinton could somehow be a rapist has itself a receptive audience and someone like Broaddrick making these claims has something of a support system in this community. And thus she gets booked on right wing radio, and on Sean Hannity, and when the Access Hollywood tapes came out, nobody less than Donald Trump himself trots her out by his side in an effort to deflect criticism.

That doesn't erase her sworn testimony though that it didn't happen. And if she was sincere in her unsworn allegations to the press that she was raped, wouldn't for the sake of consistency she then retract her old affidavit under the claim she was coerced into making it (as she now claims)? She filed the open records lawsuit against the Clinton administration claiming they were hiding evidence about the supposed assault, but when it came clear that her participation in the lawsuit would require sworn testimony from her, she chose to abandon it.

What happened to Christine Blasey Ford was a terrible thing. But Juanita Broaddrick hasn't suffered remotely the same outcome. In fact, we've been told even by some on the left we might need to consider her allegations, that we dismissed them out of some sense of cognitive dissonance on our parts.

And to me, that only speaks to the overwhelming contrast between the two women, despite the fact that they superficially seem to be telling similar stories.

I am sure Blasey-Ford probably knew her life would be turned upside down if she testified before Congress. She also knew she'd ever word of hers would be scrutinized for the purposes of perjury. She still chose to do what she did, and I think that speaks towards her sincerity in what she claimed. For if you claim something to be true, and you know telling the truth might upend your life but you value telling the truth over the inevitable fallout, more likely than not you are sincere in what you say is true.

Meanwhile, Broaddrick chose not to subject her scandalous allegations to perjury, and more or less enjoys the relative safety of the Twitterverse (where she herself attacks people like Blasey-Ford) and the right wing media echo chamber that gives her affirmation, up to and including from Donald Trump himself.