Hirono Says to Believe Accusers, Silent When 9 Women Accused Her Mentor
Of all the liberals who have come out in support of Christine Blasey Ford’s vague and decades-old uncorroborated allegations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Democrat Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono has been one of the more outspoken.
Hirono has uncritically accepted the unverifiable accusation of Ford — as well as the even more ludicrous and implausible accusations that followed — and has tossed aside the societal foundations of due process and a presumption of innocence to declare Kavanaugh guilty, guilty, guilty of the disgusting charges lodged against him, while also fundraising off the travesty at the same time.
Her disbelief of Kavanaugh’s repeated and strenuous denials of the accusations are not surprising, given she objected to his nomination immediately on ideological grounds and has insinuated that, should Democrats regain control of the Senate, neither Kavanaugh nor any other appointee named by President Donald Trump will be confirmed for the next two years.
The senator is also one of those who’ve loudly proclaimed that all women accusers must be believed, without question, and infamously asserted, “I just want to say to the men in this country: Just shut up and step up. Do the right thing for a change.”
But John Fund at National Review noted that Hirono was singing a vastly different tune in the early 1990s when a popular and powerful Democrat politician — her mentor, the late Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye — was “credibly accused” of rape and sexual misconduct by several women.
In fact, Hirono wasn’t signing any tune at all, as she remained silent throughout the scandal and most certainly declined to offer any support or an automatic belief to Inouye’s accusers. She also failed to speak up in support of any of former President Bill Clinton’s several credible accusers just a few years later.
The accusations against Inouye first emerged during the 1992 election, during which a Republican campaign worker recorded the testimonial of Inouye’s longtime hairdresser, Lenore Kwock, who alleged that Inouye forcibly raped her in 1975 and repeatedly groped her on several occasions after the incident.
Given the “one-party rule” of the island state and unabashed power held by the incumbent senator, Kwock’s allegation was largely ignored or downplayed by the media and political establishment. Kwock declined to press the matter further, claiming she had “forgiven” Inouye and was worried about a potential negative impact on her livelihood.
Even though the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill debacle at Thomas’ Supreme Court confirmation hearings had occurred a year prior, few, if any, female political leaders expressed any support for the alleged victim of the Hawaiian senator. Most female politicians either remained silent, said they had no desire to delve into the details, or even outright dismissed Kwock’s claim since no police report had been filed and she didn’t want to press any charges for the alleged decades-old incident.
There was at least one female Democrat politician who may have believed Kwock, but it certainly wasn’t Hirono. Former Democrat State Rep. Annelle Amaral — leader of the State Senate Women’s Caucus in 1992 — spoke with reporters in 2017 about the allegations against Inouye, who died in 2012 at age 88 and was heralded by the Democrat Party as a great statesman and leader who would be sorely missed.
Amaral told reporters that Inouye “had been accused and I have said there were nine women I talked to who had told me stories of molestation and rape.”
Unfortunately, none of those nine women ever filed official complaints or reports of the alleged sexual assaults, and a Senate ethics committee investigation into the matter was summarily dismissed.
Odds are, most or all of those women were quietly intimidated into remaining silent about their allegations against Inouye due to the substantial power he wielded, and the fact that his Democratic Party apparatus was in full control of virtually everything on the islands.
Imagine how things may have played out differently if female political leaders — like Hirono, who at that time was an Inouye protege in the state House — had expressed even a modicum of support or displayed an open mind toward the allegations of criminal misconduct against the powerful senator.
Instead, Hirono remained silent. But now, as vague and uncorroborated allegations are lodged against an ideological opponent, Hirono can’t seem to stop herself from speaking out loudly in support of any and every unsubstantiated smear hurled toward Kavanaugh.
Thus, we see that hypocritical Hirono only “believes all women” when those women are making allegations against Republicans, while she studiously avoided saying a single word in support of women making allegations against Democrats.
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