Originally Posted by
Oneuli
I don't see why you'd picture any of that going against the idea she initially wanted to keep anonymous. Assuming for a moment that what she said happened actually happened, try to picture it from her perspective. She was trying to have it both ways -- she didn't want to see a man she knew to have been a violent sexual predator being put into a lifetime position of great power over women..... but she also didn't want to have a terrible trauma from her youth become the defining thing everybody thought of upon meeting her. She didn't want a complex and highly accomplished lifetime to get reduced in people's minds to a one-dimensional character, such that when people thought of her they always thought immediately of the allegations.... the same as happened with Anita Hill. And she sure didn't want to be the target of the inevitable conservative smear campaign -- the "Real Anita Hill" style character assassination books, the dredging up of every allegation against her, the grilling of her friends, family, coworkers, students, acquaintances, etc., looking for dirt to use against her. So, she tried to have it both ways, while also taking steps to respond if her name did end up getting leaked. After all, if the event really did happen, that would mean Kavanaugh would know exactly who this anonymous woman was, and would be in a position to get her name out there if he thought doing so would help.
So, I don't see any of that as either hurting or helping her credibility. As for the question of where the burden of proof lies -- this isn't a criminal trial, or even a civil one. It's a political process. There are no formal rules about where the burden of proof lies. It is, in effect, more like a job interview. If you were interviewing someone for a position at your company, and were checking his references and wound up speaking with a former acquaintance of his, who warned you not to hire him because he did something terrible, how would you react? Would you demand she prove it beyond a reasonable doubt before factoring it in? Would you take it on board but give it minimal weight unless there were more accompanying evidence? Or would you disregard it completely?
I've been part of a hiring process, before, and heard a couple of former coworkers of job applicants speak negatively of them. Fair or not, I've got to admit I take it on board and give it some weight, even if all I have is a personal testimonial. There are lots of great candidates out there who'd like the job, and so if I've got a red flag waving on one of them, even if it's a pretty uncertain red flag, I might well pass on to the next option.
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