NYT's Correction on Kavanaugh Smear Shows How Slimy Its Reporters Really Are
It’s been the talk of the town since Saturday.
The New York Times, in its continual quest to undermine anyone who could be a threat to Roe v. Wade, ran an excerpt from an upcoming book written by two of the paper’s journalists, titled, “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation.”
The title of the excerpted essay which would later receive a correction is “Brett Kavanaugh Fit In With the Privileged Kids. She Did Not.”
The piece focused on Deborah Ramirez, a woman who alleged Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a fraternity party at Yale.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, concluded during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing that there was “no corroboration of the allegations made by Dr. Ford or Ms. Ramirez.”
The Times’ piece quickly glossed over that fact, though it did admit that “Ms. Ramirez’s story could be more fully corroborated.”
This sentence should be interpreted as “Ms. Ramirez’s story was absurd and outlandish, but if we had had more time we could have made her look totally credible.”
Given that kind of banal reporting, it’s a wonder that the piece provided anything interesting at all.
But it did. And the excerpt below was catnip to the Kavanaugh-haters.
“We also uncovered a previously unreported story about Mr. Kavanaugh in his freshman year that echoes Ms. Ramirez’s allegation. A classmate, Max Stier, saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student,” the report said.
That’s a big allegation, bolstering the old claims of Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual misconduct toward women.
What The Times left out, however, is that the female student who was reportedly the victim refused to be interviewed, and her friends say she does not remember the incident.
A Times’ editor’s note now reads, “An earlier version of this article, which was adapted from a forthcoming book, did not include one element of the book’s account regarding an assertion by a Yale classmate that friends of Brett Kavanaugh pushed his penis into the hand of a female student at a drunken dorm party. The book reports that the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident.”
BOMBSHELL: New York Times corrects Kavanaugh smear to note alleged victim does not recall any such incident. pic.twitter.com/yigeOyOCzo
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) September 16, 2019
There are all sorts of damning material here, but three things in particular stand out.
First, the New York Times simply chose to exclude a key piece of evidence that calls into question the accusations against Kavanaugh.
Second, the book “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation” was written by two New York Times reporters. It’s unclear exactly who made certain that the exculpatory portion of the piece was left out, but it’s inexcusable that such a blunder took place in The New York Times in an essay excerpted from a book by New York Times reporters.
Third, nowhere does the piece mention that Max Stier, the man who brought forward the new allegations — claiming to have actually witnessed the incident — previously worked with the Clintons.
Now, in all fairness, Stier has worked across the aisle for years, but those defending his integrity right now are not exactly a bunch of choir boys.
Loud voices defending Stier include Michael Avenatti and Jennifer Rubin.
Sean – you are completely full of shit. Do you actually believe this nonsense? Stier has worked on both sides of the aisle for decades and is widely respected by Dems and Repubs as you know. Stop trying to cover-up for your hand-picked "federalist."
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) September 15, 2019
I know Max Stier. He is scrupulously honest and nonpartisan.
— Jennifer Truth Over Phony Balance Rubin 🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@JRubinBlogger) September 15, 2019
Avenatti is well known as the slimy attorney who took on adult film star Stormy Daniels’ case and has been accused of malpractice.
Rubin famously called for the Republican Party to be torched to eliminate those who support Trump.
“We have to … burn down the Republican Party. We have to level them because if there are survivors, if there are people who weather this storm, they will do it again,” Rubin said.
Now, Steir can’t be judged solely on who is defending on him. But it is telling that those flying to his defense are those who have a great interest in seeing Trump and everything related to Trump burned down — to borrow a phrase.
The Times’ choice to publish the essay makes little sense. The information on Ramirez is blasé at best. Far and away the most interesting part of the piece was the Steir allegations — the part of the piece that The Times had to correct.
With this being the case, it’s not hard to imagine that the piece was 100 percent politically motivated, as is most everything Times’ news journalists do.
Kavanaugh’s never been tried. He’s never been found guilty. Power and privilege make no difference — in America, every man is still innocent until proven guilty.
In fact, Kavanaugh’s record is so clean that he has not even had a criminal hearing about the spontaneous bevy of allegations that arose during his confirmation hearing.
The New York Times piece is a smear, targeting one of the left’s political enemies.
It’s not the leftist fealty of The Times that bothers most conservatives. It’s the Time’s refusal to admit that bias.
And if there has ever been an example of that bias, it is this nothing story that was published so the media could crucify Kavanaugh all over again.
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