What if Barack Obama had been accused of rape?

[EffieBlack]

What if, in 2007, a well-respected professional woman said that Barack Obama had raped her in his apartment in 1992 when he was attending Harvard Law School? She hadn't mentioned it to anyone at the time and there were no witnesses or other evidence to corroborate her claim. Sen. Obama said he knew the woman and that they'd had consensual sex but denied there was an assault.

Should Obama have been presumed to be a rapist based on this allegation?

Should he he have been forced out of the presidential race?

Would the fact that he had an impeccable reputation with no history of ever abusing or assaulting women matter? What about the fact that there was absolutely no evidence that he had committed the act other than the woman's claim that he had?

Is there any reason that he should or should not have been given any benefit of the doubt?

And is there anything he could have done at the time to prove that he was not a rapist once the allegation went public?

[LongtimeAZDem]

1. We have promoted a "no benefit of the doubt" hysteria here. Such things come back to bite us.

[Hekate]

2. There are things I would not believe of Barack Obama, & nonconsensual sex is one of them...

But then I believe people should be judged on a more comprehensive basis than seems popular these days.

[EffieBlack]

3. How well did you know Obama in 2007?

Might you have been more likely to have believed such an allegation against him then before you knew him as well as you do now?

[Hekate]

16. Well you got here in 2007, but you never seem to know who I am, so I'll explain again...

I remember the speech Obama gave at the DNC during the BushCheney administration. 2004? It made a huge impression here at DU -- wow, we all said, this guy's an up-and-comer. I live 2 hours out from Los Angeles, and some of my activist Dem friends filled a van with people to go hear him speak at a neighborhood park somewhere in LA. 2006? It was outdoors and it was packed. We had to park blocks away. He told a story -- all politicians tell a story, but this was pretty much the story of this country as I would tell it myself, and of course I liked that.

I heard about his book and made a point of reading it. I discovered there were only a few degrees of separation between us -- His parents and I went to the same university, though they were a bit before my time. I supported the first campaign of a man who turned out to be a close friend of his mother and father when they were all students: Neil Abercrombie, who by the time I met him was a university prof running for the legislative seat in the 3-M District (Makiki, McCully, Manoa) where I lived. You may have heard his name because he ended up in the US Congress and later became Governor of Hawai'i, but no matter.

Barack Obama's autobiography went straight to my heart as a fellow kama'aina. I never in my life thought my small remote home state would produce a man who might actually end up as president. His grandparents had a very similar reaction to moving to the Islands as my parents did when they came: this is an ethnically-blended paradise. It's not really Heaven, real people with real troubles live there, but in the 1950s and 1960s it was very different in atmosphere from the Mainland.

And there was so much more that he revealed. To you, he is a black man with a white mother. Right? To me, I see how his haole mother fostered his African American identity even when they moved to Indonesia. To me, I see the choices of identity he had, and how he chose to move to the Mainland and how he chose Michelle Robinson. And -- I see the stamp of Hawai'i on him to his core.

But here at DU we had some good old battles over his identity -- I can't remember who said he didn't seem black enough, but there it was.

Be that as it may, although my first choice in 2007-8 was Hillary, I was happy to support Obama. We all want to imagine we understand our preferred candidates' character -- but it would seem so out of character to me if someone accused Obama of nonconsensual sex. As far as I can tell, the man has not had a breath of scandal on him. It would take a lot of convincing for me to lose faith in him.

I don't know what you want me to say. Perhaps you chose the wrong example to use on me and should throw out another challenge.

All things being equal, despite being #MeToo , I try to not make snap judgments when someone I really know nothing about is accused of something, and it has nothing zero zilch nada to do with the color of their skin. I don't know very damn much about Virginia except it is Southern and is allegedly turning Blue, but I sure know Nixonian ratfucking when I see it, and we just keep falling for it.

[EffieBlack]

20. Oh. I apologize for not committing your history, views and impressions of Obama to memory

My bad.

And I didn't "choose" an example to "use on you." I posted an OP that you voluntarily engaged in but you seem to resent being asked a simple question (and the fact that I "never seem to know who" you are).

Anyway, thanks for clarifying your position.

[Hekate]

21. smdh

Didn't read a word of it, did you?

[EffieBlack]

24. I read every word of it

And thanked you for sharing it.

Have a nice evening.

[pnwmom]

33. But that's because we KNOW him now. Pretend this was back in 2004 and we didn't know him. What then?

[Hekate]

38. I addressed the questions put to me by EB, and told her more about me than I probably should...

...tho not everything, by far.

However, the answer to your question is firmly embedded in the long reply I gave to EB.

[Hekate]

41. Check your mail

[Initech]

4. They would have impeached, indicted, imprisoned and popped the champagne by now.

And they would have totalitarian rule by now.

[Blue Owl]

5. Or what if he barged into the Miss Teen USA locker room?

The double standard is beyond nauseating...

[brooklynite]

6. He wasn't...

Perhaps that says something?

[EffieBlack]

8. Yes. It says that he was never accused of rape

Which is completely beside the point of my OP.

[brooklynite]

9. Perhaps he wasn't accused of rape because there was nothing approaching evidence?

Yes, Trump claimed he wasn't born in the US; that doesn't begin to approach accusing him of a felony?

[EffieBlack]

22. You think evidence is the prerequisite for someone to be accused of rape?

Surely you are aware that some men are accused of rape without any evidence and that some people who are perfectly innocent are accused of being rapists?

In Justin Fairfax's case, so far the only "evidence" people are relying on to assume that he may have raped someone is the accusation itself. That's it.

But again, you've completely missed the point of my OP. Care to answer the questions or do you just want to keep insisting why Obama wasn't accused of rape?

[pnwmom]

43. What evidence has been produced against Fairfax? Did I miss something?

All I heard was that the WA Post spent months on the story, and couldn't find any witness to back up her allegation, and couldn't find a witness saying his behavior had ever been untoward.

Was there something I missed? Hiring a law firm, if she did that, could mean she was concerned because he said he was considering legal action against whoever was spreading defamatory statements.

[theboss]

45. Have you read her very detailed statement? n/t

[pnwmom]

46. No, I'll go look for it now. Thanks. nt

[uponit7771]

7. Republicans are turning #metoo into guilty by accusation vs believe the accuser and investigate

[oasis]

12. Since the Franken hatchet-job went so well, the GOP believes they

have an effective weapon in their toolbox.

[brooklynite]

13. So now ANY accusation against a Democratic Office-Holder should be discounted?

[theboss]

15. If there's anything Dems are good at, it's the unnecessary over-correction

I mean, we have poor Elizabeth Warren drinking Schlitz on Skype to prove that she's more fun than Hillary.

[oasis]

29. Dukakis in the tank. nt

[oasis]

18. case by case. But then, you knew that.

[brooklynite]

37. Okay - case by case. There's no evidence that this incident is a "hatchet job"...

How should we proceed?

[uponit7771]

32. Come on with the obvious strawman fallacy ...

[wildflower]

39. A good article about this

Regarding false accusations:

https://www.thecut.com/article/false-rape-accusations.html

[pnwmom]

44. No, not discounted. But there should be some EVIDENCE beyond a Facebook post. nt

[EffieBlack]

26. It looks like they may be right.

[oasis]

28. Democrats will prevail. The GOP always overplays its hand. nt

[theboss]

10. Then he probably wouldn't have been president

So, I guess it's good that he didn't rape anyone.

Democrats have painted ourselves into one hell of a corner here, and we need to figure out a way out.

[EffieBlack]

23. Yes. I's good that he didn't rape anyone. And it's also good that no one accused him of raping them

Because to some people the mere accusation of rape is proof enough.

[pnwmom]

36. You mean, it's good no one accused him of rape. Because that's all we have right now.

An indirect accusation, backed up with no evidence that anyone has seen. And a WA Post story saying that they couldn't find anyone she'd told her story to. And they couldn't find any other woman with similar claims against Fairfax.

[brooklynite]

11. Has Lt. Gov. Fairfax been forced out of anything?

He's been accused. By someone with no apparent links to the Republican Party, or Roger Stone, or any other conspiracy. I'm willing to listen to her and see where an investigation goes.

[UTUSN]

14. O.K., this particular hypothetical is over the top. Why something about OBAMA that

is totally imaginative and totally out of character for him? Really.

To play along, *IF* such any allegation were lodged against HIM, it would and should get whatever test of credibility that could be mustered.

This is a totally strawman argument. If we're really talking about the LT Governor of Virginia (let's not be coy), it is completely irrelevant to an artificial parallel to OBAMA.

These posts, yes, by you/somebody I would tend to support/EffieBlack, previously led me to the post below. I'm asking you to be honest: Are you on a tear just because allegations are being made about an African American? I'm on the lookout constantly for Repuke Dirty Tricks. I have no idea about the LT Gov, and after the sources being wignut, doubts about the Governor of Virginia either.

Anyway, for me, IF somebody in my Demo coalition is guilty, that person is not a Dem for me anymore, that person is on their own. I just have to be SURE either way. But for now I'm really upset at the hypothetical false crap dragging OBAMA into it.

*********** O.P. I posted before because of previous straw:
so as not to be coy::

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211774060

Each of us probably has membership in a "home" facet of the coalition: Racial/ethnic, gender, social/civil/economic justice, environmental, et al. - each sub-set with their individual #1 agenda item, but below that one, it's all subsumed with all the rights issues we all have in common.

I will say that in our current iteration of being divided among ourselves it appears that in the foreground among some of us is individual loyalty to our own sub-group, precedence over our ultimate unity to the coalition.

Iow, if a member in my own smaller sub-group gets accused of whatever criminal or other wrong-doing, the accusations being true, that fellow member of mine is dead to me. They lose all claim to the "Democratic" label.

Remember when there was "an abortion doctor" who committed crimes of death of both women and/or their newborns? The wingnut outlets kept labeling him as an "abortion doctor" as their usual way of denigrating Pro-Choice. I say now as then that he was neither a doctor nor performing abortions: He was simply a serial killer who used medical techniques as his m.o. of choice. It had nothing to do with his being supposedly a member of the Democratic coalition, nothing to do with "pro-Choice" or of whatever race or ethnicity usually associated with the Dem coalition.

Iow (again), if a member of whatever sub-group of the Dem coalition commits crimes or malfeasance, that person is on their own. If somebody doesn't "get" what I'm saying, please just pass on by.

*****END of the lack of coyness.

[theboss]

17. This is the danger inherent in identity politics

This is a trend in the Democratic Party for decades, and demographically, it favors us.

But, if you are really only in the party for "women's issues" or "black issues" or "Latino issues" or what have you, you are susceptible to seeing other groups as your enemy.

Why this issue involving a black woman and a black man is somehow cutting across one of those divides is curious. And dangerous, because this discussion is getting very close to "You can't trust a woman, especially when she is accusing a black man."

Back to the original question. If the accuser of Barack Obama was a respected law professor, specializing in civil rights, I would probably have had to done some serious soul-searching.

Part of the reason I believed Ford is because I actually generally have faith in people and don't think someone would make up that horrific an accusation just to score a political point. I actually don't agree with James Carville and the idea of dragging a dollar through a trailer park so I certainly don't agree with the idea of dragging a dollar through Harvard Law.

[UTUSN]

19. To be clear for ME, "identity politics" & "trend in the Dem party" & "black woman/black man"

is blunting my point which was addressed to the O.P. All of those other phrases, like "You can't trust a woman, especially when she is accusing a black man" and the part about what CARVILLE said are not what I'm talking about.

[pnwmom]

35. But we don't have any more reason to think that Fairfax was capable of this

than we would have had to think, in 2004 before most of the country knew Obama, that he would have been capable of it.

Effie's asking you to go back and remember a young Obama, the Obama we didn't know yet, and think about what would have happened if someone had made this kind of accusation against him.

Because right now, I haven't heard any evidence that would support this kind of behavior on Fairfax's part, either. The WA Post supposedly dug into his past and couldn't find any women with similar stories.

So this doesn't appear to be a Kavanaugh style situation. But an untrue allegation like this (assuming it's untrue) could have happened to Obama, if he had come along after the Metoo movement. And then what? Would Obama's career have been over? Simply because one woman made an unsupported allegation against him?

Right now, this is still early in the process. Evidence could still come out, but it hasn't so far, that I know.

[UTUSN]

40. Since the thread kicked up I'll reply here. There's something just flawed about bringing OBAMA in.

"IF O. had been *ACCUSED*" ... ----------and what, had been proved guilty? or proved innocent?

How many hypotheticals are we supposed to pile on? Embedded in the premise is that OBAMA is a good/decent human, which I thoroughly believe him to be, AND that the hypothetical accusation would have deprived us of the benefits of his leadership. Which, back at the beginning of our knowing him we would not realize that we would miss somebody of wonderful potential. It's like the going-back-in-time meme to kill HITLER before he could become what he became.

I suppose that premise supposes that OBAMA would have been falsely accused. Because, I submit, that if OBAMA had been guilty of whatever horrible thing, he would *NOT* be the wonderful person and therefore we would not be deprived of benefitting from his later self.

What I sort of was seeing when the whole thing started was that just about everybody, including me, were willing to ditch NORTHAM from the get-go, but when it came to FAIRFAX not so much - when there seems to be just about the same level of credibility or lack thereof in the allegations against both. Once the second case came around, I came to reverse what I thought about NORTHAM and had doubts, mostly because of the wingnut sabotage source, about *both* set of allegations. But what I saw was that some/many here treated the two differently. Once FAIRFAX's accuser went public, her credentials were at least as solid as KAVANAUGH's accuser, yet I was seeing pandering to exonerate FAIRFAX without examination, which crosses my mind as being because of his race.

I fully agree that NORTHAM came off as clueless and as a goofball in his reaction to everything, but his later seeming to be convinced of not being in the picture and having been taken by surprise at first, put me more in doubt. While FAIRFAX's lashing out vs the accuser's being credible at least by credentials lessens my presumption of his innocence.

But to me the OBAMA comparison is a false parallel. And my whole point is that no member of any of our Democratic coalition sub-groups gets any get-out-of-jail-free card based solely on membership of the sub-group and of the coalition at large.

[pnwmom]

42. Yes, I was assuming that Obama would have been FALSELY accused,

and that no other information had ever come out to show guilt.

And I don't think any evidence has yet about Fairfax (though I haven't read about him this morning -- has something changed?) The situation was different with Kavanaugh. He had a LONG and varied history of inappropriate behavior while drunk. He'd attended multiple parties while drunk, he allegedly had been seen standing in line to go into bedrooms where a drunk girl was being raped. Also, there was a woman at Yale, while he was in grad school, who said that when he was drinking he shoved his penis into her face -- in front of other people. And she had corroborating witnesses.

On the other hand, with Fairfax, the Washington Post spent several months interviewing witnesses at their work, school, and among friends. The Post couldn't find anyone this woman had told about the incident. And they couldn't find any other woman who had something untoward happen to her.

So Effie was asking how do we treat men -- especially black men, given the history of false accusations in the past -- if there is an accusation but no evidence. If they really were alone in a room, differ on how consensual it was, and she told no one after the fact how upset she was. And there is no pattern on anyone's part.

The funny thing is, before she wrote her OP I'd already thought the same thing myself. What if this had happened with Obama. It could have. Anyone could be the subject of a false allegation, for any number of reasons.

All that being said, the situation with Fairfax is fluid. I suspect there will be some kind of investigation, and maybe some credible information will come out. Or maybe some women will decide to take Jacob Wohl up on his offer of the $15K. Or maybe this will encourage somebody else to quietly offer even more. What a nightmare. I NEVER would have thought this could happen before, but nowadays, in a Presidential race? It looks like anything goes.

[JI7]

25. he was accused of killing his gay lovers who he did drugs with

Larry Sinclair accused him of many things.

[jberryhill]

27. He wasn't?

Jesus, how did they manage to overlook that omission?

Is there anything that Barack Obama has NOT been accused of?

[jberryhill]

31. Wait wait, ooh pick me! Pick me! I know!

Because no one would believe such an accusation against a secret gay-married Muslim who was smuggled in from Kenya as a baby and raised in a madrassa by Cuban communist pornographers!

There’s only so much you can accuse someone of.

https://www.thenation.com/article/whats-behind-rights-obama-gay-conspiracy/

You probably know by now that President Obama is a Muslim who professes socialism and that he was born in Africa, which makes him ineligible to occupy our highest office. But here is something you may not know: Obama is gay. Not only is he gay; he frequented gay bath houses in Chicago along with his former chief of staff and current Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel. And not only did he frequent those bath houses; he was under the influence of a “transgender nanny” when he lived as a boy in Indonesia. Plus, he was “married” to his Pakistani roommate while attending Occidental College (one theorist says that the ring he wore at the time was a “homosexual symbol for ‘women stay away’”); had a cocaine-fueled romance with a right-wing activist and ex-convict named Larry Sinclair in 1999 (who, of course, wrote a book about it); and orchestrated the murders of another gay lover and two gay associates from the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church just before the Iowa caucuses in 2008—all of which helps to explain why he married, in the words of one Obama investigator, a “mannish wife with big, muscular arms.”

[PTWB]

30. I admire Barack Obama more than any other modern day politician

I honestly don’t think I would ever believe such an accusation about him and certainly not without a heap of evidence.

In the case of Lt. Gov Fairfax.. it’s so difficult to weigh the accusations of a seemingly credible accuser against the denials of a seemingly credible man.

In a WaPo story about this situation it quoted an anonymous acquaintance of both of theirs who said:

"It doesn't sound like anything he would do," he said. "It doesn't sound like anything she would lie about."

[pnwmom]

34. But that's because we know Obama well now. What if this happened when he was just a state politician

in Illinois, who had decided to run for the Senate?

[Joe941]

47. Do you think the fact we railroaded Al Franken is coming back to haunt us?

[EffieBlack]

48. Yes.

Which was probably the point ...

[moriah]

49. To be honest, all of this is far too triggering for me.

It was when it was Brett Kavanaugh, and it is when it's the Virginia Lt. Governor.

Unless a victim goes straight from the encounter to the police -- something that is easier recommended and said than done in the exact moment -- and they can find enough evidence to deem it non-consensual, or the victim is able to handle and police support them in getting the perpetrator of an assault to admit to it (and the perp does actually say something damning)....

Sexual assault is so difficult to prove -- or disprove. I didn't immediately try to seek an exam that could demonstrate non-consent, because to be frank I was passed out drunk, woke up to penetration, and couldn't think of anything beyond making him stop. Once I wasn't being raped anymore, I was conscious but with a sky-high BAC, and my one thought about how I could get away -- my car -- was I couldn't drive myself to the ER because I would be a danger to myself and others.

After I was sober.... the evidence that would have demonstrated the lack of consent, the fact I was blitzed, was gone. Nothing else could have demonstrated lack of consent aside from getting him to admit it, and I knew he'd never admit it over the phone. Even though I knew it was legal because it was done in a friend's case, they refused to let me meet him wearing a recording device in a public location. (I certainly didn't want to be alone with him, but I figured I could at least establish what he admitted immediately after, that he carried me from the couch I'd passed out on to his bed without me speaking a word or moving beyond trying to balance myself). I still tried with the phone thing, but it didn't work.

Fortunately no one who has assaulted me has run for public office. Even more fortunately, no newspapers decided to run things I posted on FB without my consent, should my privacy settings have failed.

The accusation is terrible. Yet unless there was evidence that conclusively proved assault -- and not everyone bruises spectacularly... she might have felt there wasn't enough evidence and didn't want to go through what I did by reporting. I still don't know if I'd report again given how unlikely it is they'd actually get a conviction -- or even pursue the case. I did it because I hoped that even if they didn't feel they could act on it, should he do it again they'd know it wasn't the first time and take a potentially better case more seriously. But because I wasn't thinking clearly to have ran and started knocking on doors, etc, and gotten someone to get me straight to the ER... well, it meant I didn't report in time either.

I couldn't help but talk to people, because I was a wreck -- I couldn't sleep, I kept waking up convinced someone was in my house, because that adrenaline surge when I first regained consciousness to realize something terrible was happening to me had been enough to terminate the assault. I still take medication. There was an email chain, and texts from him after I stopped speaking to him, where he didn't deny the basics. It still wasn't enough to even put it in front of a jury in the minds of prosecutors. It doesn't mean it didn't happen. And just because someone didn't seek help like I had to doesn't mean it didn't happen, either, or that they aren't suffering.

I don't know this Lt. Governor. I'm not from Virginia, I've kinda been focusing on getting the red out of Arkansas. I also had known the man who assaulted me for three years prior and felt safe enough to drink far beyond what was healthy for me in his apartment. If I couldn't trust someone I'd known that long, how on earth do I know what a stranger could be capable of?

-------

But all of this -- my experiences both with sexual assault and with the way police handled my case -- would totally exclude me from any jury in a sexual assault case.

At the same time... how many people, men and women both, have experienced sexual assault in some form? Should all victims be excluded? I know I should be, because frankly, it'd be too much for me to deal with a jury trial, etc, it'd hurt my own mental health. It's also why I know I can't be objective in these cases.

If not from the jury, from the court of public opinion? Well, the court of public opinion is certainly an unfair one, and one even more triggering perhaps than a court of law. I certainly don't *want* to believe he did such a thing, nor do I want to believe that anyone would deliberately lie about a sexual assault. In regular reality, I'm more inclined to believe the victim -- at least insofar as getting them to get the help they need (and if they're a minor, reporting it, as I'm a mandated reporter).

In a world as twisted as our current political sphere is.... well, I probably need to just stop here, put "Fairfax" as a trash keyword, and take care of myself. I had a hard enough time with pundit commentary during the Kavanaugh hearings. I wasn't there that night, I don't know either of them, and when trying to make points people sometimes say things that they don't mean to be hurtful, but just aren't that good for my own health to hear.