Moving the Goalposts

 

     Two days ago Megyn Kelly hit a new low.

    The Dollar Store Laura Ingraham actually said that an unnamed source informed her that Jeffrey Epstein wasn't a pedophile, an ignorant opinion that she leaned into. On her show, she said,

     "Jeffrey Epstein, in this person's view, was not a pedophile. This is this person's view, who was there for a lot of this, but that he was into the barely legal type. Like, he liked 15-year-old girls. I realize this is disgusting."

     What's disgusting is that Kelly actually seems to be believe this or is pretending to. One thinks of other media figures in the past who were sacked from their networks for saying less provocative things, such as Phil Donahue and CBS legend Dan Rather. Kelly herself was fired by NBC for defending blackface.

     But Kelly runs her own podcast and for now, she gets to call the shots, at least until she gets deplatformed. And she should.

     Saying Jeffrey Epstein wasn't a pedophile is like saying the earth isn't round or that water isn't wet. It's beyond debate. At least 27 women have came forward claiming that Epstein sexually abused them and had trafficked them. That was why he was originally arrested in 2007 in Florida and again 12 years later when he came back from France. His right hand woman, Ghislaine Maxwell, is currently serving a 20 year stretch for sex trafficking.

     And even an idiot like Megyn Kelly must know at least the basics of the age of consent in the United States. In Florida, for instance, where Epstein was first arrested, it's 18. So to claim 15 is acceptable and perfectly legal is fallacious.

     Kelly herself is the mother of a 14 year-old daughter. It would be amusing to ask her if she'd accept that her daughter next year started sleeping with a man in his 50s or 60s. Would she be OK with it, then?

     She'd remember the actual age of consent pretty damned quick.

     But it's obvious why Kelly is doing this. She's not doing this to defend Epstein. She's doing it to pre-emptively protect Trump so she can say, "So what if the president had sex with a 15 year-old girl when he was in his 50s or 60s?" when the Epstein files in toto finally come out.

     Elsewhere on her podcast, Kelly said that she hadn't heard of anyone accusing Epstein having sex with anyone under the age of 15. I would refer her to Katie Johnson, who filed two lawsuits against Trump and said in her testimony that Trump and Epstein had both raped her when she was 13. She'd also said that Trump forced her and a 12 year-old girl named "Maria" to perform fellatio on Trump in Epstein's Manhattan townhouse.

     So maybe Kelly should talk to Katie Johnson or at least to read the transcript of her 2016 testimony.

     Moving the goalposts is a tried-and-true tactic of Republicans. Kelly may pretend not to know what the age of consent is but she certainly knows about guilt by association. She knows Trump and Epstein back in the day were the Frick and Frack of the pedophile community.

     It's one thing to defend Trump. Koolaid swillers like Megyn Kelly do that every day. But to posthumously try to rehabilitate a scumbag like Epstein to that end is beyond credulity.

     It's also another tried-and-true right wing tactic to advance a ridiculous opinion and then to claim it was fed to them by an unnamed source. "Don't shoot the messenger. That's what she said!" But something else that Kelly never realized is that, if this source actually exists, claiming that she "was there for a lot of this" automatically undermines her credibility.

     Because I'd like to think most of us know that witnessing a crime and not reporting it immediately makes one an accessory after the fact.

     Yes, this should have been career-ending and Megyn Kelly should have been deplatformed by the end of that same day. But we all know the rules are different for right wingers. Dan Rather lost his job at CBS over a font on George W. Bush's military record. Phil Donahue lost his job for criticizing the Iraq War, something we now know was illegal. But, hey, when Megyn Kelly says it's perfectly acceptable for late middle age men to have sex with girls who should be in 9th grade, it''s just another day in Mr. Rogers' neighborhood.