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

[Tommy_Carcetti]

15. Again, you're not understanding what I'm saying.

I'm not saying that people don't lie under oath. I'm saying that when they do, it's almost always for defensive reasons, not offensive reasons.

When Bill Clinton denied his consensual affair with Monica Lewinsky while under oath, he wasn't doing it for the objective of hurting anyone. He was ashamed and embarrassed to admit the truth. He was a husband, a father, and as President of the United States, considered a role model by many, and admitting to breaching people's trust was too much for his pride to handle. I'm certainly not excusing that, but I'm not saying it's that abnormal for a person to deny having an extramarital affair.

But denying an affair is in no way similar to accusing another person of sexual assault. We're talking about two completely different situations.

I think you're also not grasping the disparity between Christine Blasey-Ford and Juanita Broaddrick.

First, you say that the biggest factor for the hell Blasey-Ford was forced to endure was not because she testified, but because she made the claim. But remember that several women actually accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault (one of those turned out to be false, by the way). Yet how many people can remember off the top of their head the names of these women, the details of their allegations, or what they looked like?

Very few. Because Blasey-Ford was the only one who testified publicly (although at least one other wanted to, IIRC).

Christine Blasey-Ford went to the Senate, raised her arm, took an oath, and testified under that oath to something--that if indeed was true--was one of the worst moments of her life. This was televised live on every broadcast network and news channel. She fielded questions from a lawyer and from members of the US Senate, half of whom thought she was just there as a ploy to derail Kavanaugh's nomination. Afterwards, the internet and right wing media was full of people mocking her appearance or her voice or her answers, including from shitstains like Juanita Broaddrick herself.

Meanwhile, what has Juanita Broaddrick done?

For 20 years, she's gone on friendly right media, whether it's Sean Hannity on primetime Fox News or Jim Bob Joe's local AM radio hour, and gets tossed friendly softball questions from people who have long convicted Bill and Hillary Clinton of every imaginable crime under the sun. She happily rushes to Donald Trump's side (literally) right after the Access Hollywood tapes come out. She spends a lot of time on Twitter nastily spitting poison at all sorts of people, including other women who have made allegations of sexual assault if she doesn't like who they're making the allegations against. (I'm not just talking about casting doubt on their claims, I'm talking ugly school girlish taunts about their appearance and such.) She writes a book and goes on a book tour in small, conservative friendly towns.

And apparently she puts together jigsaw puzzles and then autographs them and then sells them to her fans. Which isn't anything bad...just random, I suppose.

But the point is, she had the chance to do what Blasey-Ford did, but didn't do that. And I completely understand, not all victims of sexual assault want to go public with their claims, especially if the perpetrator is a high profile figure. But it's not like she doesn't want to go public; she does want to go public, just in a fashion where she's not actually subjected to any actual scrutiny or face any sort of consequences if it turns out she's just full of shit. And she actually had a chance--she filed a lawsuit, she could have testified during that suit about all that she has happily spilled to the likes of Hannity. But she decided not to.

And that, in my mind, speaks volumes about her credibility. And in a case like hers, where all we have is her own word and no other evidence, her credibility is absolutely everything that there is.