General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: How about we do this? We don't demand people resign without an investigation being completed [View all]Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Fairfax was a rising star, and now we're talking about trashing his career, his life potentially, as if it meant as little to most of us as it actually does. Discussion will move on with the news cycle.
Here's another question:
What do we then do when investigation finds nothing to support exoneration or establish guilt? This will almost always be the case, of course, in these he-said/she-saids. And coming after the devastating accusation bomb, the case for innocence has to be built of much stronger timbers than the accusation's. Lifelong friends saying the man they know just wouldn't do something like that aren't worth quoting and aren't.
These situations are not fair. Digging up evidence to undermine the credibility of female accusers, no matter how true, would be decried as victim shaming and would most often backfire spectacularly. But the accused man's background is supposed to be mined for dirt, and producing anything results in lots of clicks on articles.
Btw, others may have noted that the "credibility" of accusers carries great weight. As long as their stories hold together and they look sincere, they're credible and various people issue statements saying they believe their story.
The accused? When's the last time a very sincere-seeming denial that doesn't trip over itself factually has been interpreted as conferring credibility and therefore innocence? Doesn't work that way.
In strategic terms for dealing with these political attacks, if investigation is expected from the beginning to be a dry hole changing nothing factually, how about investigation as a delaying tactic, with principled response both excuse and other goal? Capricious national media and political junkie attention will have moved on to new events before investigations are completed, and the investigations' ends eventually reported on page 2 (or not bothered with, since often the political hash will have been effectively settled before then).
Hmmm? We really could use a better strategy than looking cold, hard situations in the face and expecting those accused to fall on their swords. Or at least another one.