The most important victim impact statement I’ve ever read

I’m late to this, because I consciously avoided it.  I didn’t want to read what she wrote, because I figured it would leave me wanting to drown the rapist swimmer with my bare hands.  Then resuscitate him, and watch him die again.  I figured it would leave me feeling, yet again, how loathsome my gender is compared to the other gender.

But that didn’t happen.  What stood out – when I finally read it – was this young woman’s intelligence and resilience and grace.  She is also one Hell of a writer, too, in a way that most of us could not be in a lifetime of trying.  She is extraordinary.  When you read what she wrote, you will find yourself blinking at the power of it.

Anyway, here it is.  I finally got around to reading it, and now I’m pretty sure I won’t ever forget it.

**

And finally, to girls everywhere, I am with you. On nights when you feel alone, I am with you. When people doubt you or dismiss you, I am with you. I fought everyday for you. So never stop fighting, I believe you. As the author Anne Lamott once wrote, “Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.” Although I can’t save every boat, I hope that by speaking today, you absorbed a small amount of light, a small knowing that you can’t be silenced, a small satisfaction that justice was served, a small assurance that we are getting somewhere, and a big, big knowing that you are important, unquestionably, you are untouchable, you are beautiful, you are to be valued, respected, undeniably, every minute of every day, you are powerful and nobody can take that away from you. To girls everywhere, I am with you. Thank you.


This was the talk of #Daisy10 last night

Ryan (1)

 

Most of our guests were appalled, and rightly so: “Trump’s a racist, but I won’t not support him.”  Personally, I think I see Ryan’s “strategy,” if you can call it that.

  • If Ryan withdraws his support for Trump, as one GOP Senator did yesterday, the default position is that he supports Hillary, or he is indifferent to the implications of her winning.
  • If Ryan doesn’t condemn Trump, as many in the GOP didn’t do yesterday, he risks being lumped in with the sonofabitch.

So, he chose a middle course: he did both.  Call Trump’s textbook racism “textbook racism,” but continue to support the racist.  That’s the only way, he figures, he can remain the candidate to beat President Hillary in 2020.

The problem? Paul Ryan is sucking and blowing at the same time.  He’s trying to be all things to all GOP people.

I don’t think it’ll work.  You?

 


In this week’s Hill Times: personal is personal

George Clooney, of all people, said it best: “I don’t like to share my personal life. It wouldn’t be personal if I shared it.”

Personally, I’d have to agree with that.

Now, pithy, quotable quotes like George’s always prompt a response. For many, the response is: “What’s George got to hide? Who is he sleeping with? Why isn’t it me?” For others: “Have truer words ever been spoken? Why isn’t George sleeping with me?” (For me: “The woman I live with repeatedly says she plans to leave me for George.”) But he gets us thinking, George does.

Up here in Trudeaustan, with which George may be only passingly familiar, delineating what is personal and what is public has again become the stuff of newspaper opinion columns and Ottawa water cooler chit-chat. The case at hand: the abrupt resignation from cabinet, and the Liberal caucus, by MP Hunter Tootoo.

Before the Liberals’ Winnipeg policy convention, Tootoo was Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard. He was a pretty powerful guy, and well-liked, too. After the convention, he was out of cabinet, out of caucus, and straight into rehab. PMO issued a terse statement that conspicuously lacked the usual felicitations and good wishes: “Effective immediately, the Honourable Hunter Tootoo has resigned from his position as Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard. He will also be leaving the Liberal caucus. Mr. Tootoo will be taking time to seek treatment for addiction issues.”

And that was that. Trudeau refused to take any questions on the matter. Accordingly, the Ottawa gossip engine immediately kicked into high gear. Twitter was ablaze with indignation. Resign from cabinet, sure, tweeted the tweeters. But why caucus? What’s that all about? We demand answers, in 140 characters or less!

Um, personally, I’m not so sure about that. Personally, my advice to the social media mob was this: if you have an allegation to make, make it. But it’s not particularly fair to condemn a guy for the fact that you have yet to unearth evidence he did something wrong. It was akin to this, I thought: “Hey! We think there might be some damaging shit about you, and we demand you offer it up, because we’re convinced it exists.”

But Trudeau didn’t, and Tootoo didn’t, either. And that’s right and proper, because – per the Clooney Muse, above – personal means personal.

There are exceptions, yes. Back when he was making one of his many quixotic runs at the presidency, the mouth-breathing knuckle-dragger named Pat Buchanna started promoting the Trumpist “America First” tagline everywhere. Hire only Americans, buy only American, pay attention only to Americans. It was manifest destiny, except on steroids.

So the advisors to George H. W. Bush (the smarter father, not the dumber son) discovered a key factoid about Buchanan’s “America First” private life: he personally drove a Mercedes, made in far-away Germany. They passed along that little revelation out to the media hordes, and that was the end of Pat.

Another example: Democrat Gary Hart. Back in 1987, when the family-friendly Senator was making his second run at the top job, rumours were rampant he was following his little soldier into battle a bit too frequently. Gary was indignant about this scurrilous assault on his personal life. Said he: “Follow me around. I don’t care. They’ll be bored.”

The media followed him around. They weren’t bored. Gary – thereafter photographed with model Donna Rice balanced on his senatorial knee – ended up caring, quite a bit. And that was the end of Gary.

Final example, from up here in the Great White North: Stock Day. For months, those of us in the Liberal war room had known all about Day’s religious views. He was a creationist, and believed that the world was just a few thousand years old, and that dinosaurs cavorted with humans. Good. Fine. Those views, however wacky they were, were constitutionally-protected and personal. We said nothing.

But then Stock gave an interview. In May 2000, he said this: “It is not possible to demand that the convictions I express on Sunday should have nothing to do with the way I live my life the other six days of the week.” As Day, soon to be competing for the highest office in the land, also made clear: his personal religious views influence, and would influence, his public duties. “Ah-ha,” said the Liberal war room. “Gotcha.”

I won’t bother recounting what happened next. Barney the Dinosaur, Flintstones, unhelpful CBC documentaries. That was the end of Stock. Chretien crushed him.’

The above-noted case studies are the three clear exemptions to the Clooney-esque “personal is personal” rule. One: don’t be a hypocrite – the Pat Buchanan Rule. Two: don’t invite people to take a look at your personal life, and then be upset when they do – the Gary Hart Rule. Three: don’t say your private, personal views influence your public duties, and expect people not to care – the Stock Day Rule.

Ottawa, of course, is undeterred. There’s always something “personal” that folks want to push and pull over the line into the “public.” There’s been unseen affidavits allegedly floating around about one party leader, filled with allegedly sordid details. There’s been allegations about an alleged hotel room and a police officer and another party leader, allegedly. There’s been – full disclosure – a former member of the Press Gallery circulating copies of my divorce pleadings, and a senior (and still there!) Liberal staffer doing his utmost to simultaneously cause pain. That’s not alleged – it all happened.

Anyway: that’s Ottawa, that’s D.C. Capitals operate that way. Outside the Beltway, South of the Queensway, however, real folks think like George Clooney does. That is, in the absence of (a) rank hypocrisy, (b) reckless dares or (c) on-the-record confirmations, the personal should always remain one way.

Personal.