Originally Posted by
detltu
This is the problem with politics in a nutshell.
If what she says really did happen 30+ years ago, does anyone blame her for not coming forward all those years ago. What she is describing is sexual assault (or attempted sexual assault if viewed 35 years ago). The police and everyone else probably would have dismissed it then. Attitudes were very different about these things in the 80s.
If she is 100% correct about what happened, that is damaging to his reputation and shows a lack of character when he was 17-18 years old. I don't know if that is enough to ruin his career. He's had 30 years of history since then that seems to refute this being a regular character flaw for him. Maybe it will encourage other women to come forward though.
There are numerous problems with this though.
1. It was 30+ years ago. Memories are unreliable even for traumatic events.
2. She claims they were both drunk and likely most other potential witnesses at the party were too.
3. They were both pretty young (15 and 17).
4. She waited 30 years to bring it up. To her credit she did bring it up to a therapist before any of the SC talk started, but even then it had been 30 years or so since the incident.
At this point it's unlikely that anything can be proven, but it may be enough to ruin his career. If he did it and it was discovered back in high school it probably wouldn't have been enough to damage his career, but since it came out now it might be. If there is some way to prove that it happened then it would change the debate, but as it is I'm uncomfortable with the fact that an unprovable allegation from high school is all it may take.