by Rod D. Martin
May 2, 2020

Joe Biden, Herman Cain, Paige Patterson, Brett Kavanaugh and Roy Moore: A Study in Contrasts, In Politics and the Church 

As the Tara Reade story finally gains a tiny bit of traction, after weeks of crickets, it occurs to me to write to you some thoughts on how it all relates to recent scandals past, and particularly to the meaning of the reactions by some in politics and some in the church. It ain’t pretty.

The Democrats — and more than a few on our side, friends of ours, people who frequent my Facebook wall — gleefully destroyed Roy Moore. Roy was accused by seven separate people of acts that were not crimes, not even if he committed them, not one with corroboration, and the most prominent of his accusers was forced to admit that her “evidence” — a mere yearbook signature! — was forged. 

They happily and zealously participated in Moore’s destruction despite no hint of scandal on the man through all of seven statewide elections. They told us “everyone in his hometown knew”, but never explained why those people never “knew” before, during all the years of national controversy surrounding the man, not until exactly one day after he couldn’t be replaced on the ballot, and a Democrat thereby gained his one and only possible chance of winning an Alabama Senate seat.

For this, they joyfully ruined the reputation of a man who’d lived as close to a spotless life for 40 years as anyone I’ve ever met. Because “we have to believe the women.” 

This was not just Democrats. This was our people. 

Some of those same people believed the 12 women who did the same thing to poor Herman Cain — even after discovering that Cain’s final accuser was actually Rahm Emanuel’s next door neighbor! — and never questioned why Cain’s accusers, like Moore’s, immediately disappeared the instant the political hit was complete. After all, Cain, a American success story, a black CEO and former Federal Reserve governor, was a real and growing threat to both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. All of a certain type of people in both parties were more than happy to see him go.

So asking about motive was proof of misogyny. 

Like Moore’s 7 accusers, none of these 12 women accusing Cain corroborated each other. There was no (Biblically required) “two or three witnesses”. There was never any evidence for any of these accusations, and never any supporting account — such as a friend the accuser had told at the time the abuse or harassment had allegedly happened — for any of them. There was only a media bloodbath of raw quantity: throw enough mud on the wall and see if some of it will stick; or, throw enough mud and the guy will look guilty because with that many accusations no one will look closely at the details.

Some of our Christian brothers gleefully joined in. They told us that the Bible’s positions on the sinfulness of accusers and accused alike didn’t apply, that the “two or three witnesses” standard was misogyny. A few couldn’t bring themselves to say that directly, so they mumbled pious Precious Moments gibberish and told us we were hateful. 

They did NOT answer questions as to how they would like to be treated should such accusations be leveled at them.

Suddenly, the left trotted out the same playbook against Brett Kavanaugh. And (oops!) they discovered they liked Kavanaugh — because he was more socially acceptable than Moore or Cain in the circles they run in — and they rediscovered the Bible, and fairness, and due process. They defended Kavanaugh,(as well they should have), despite the fact pattern and the nature of the accusers and the accusations themselves being identical to that arrayed against Moore and Cain. When asked why they’d changed, why they suddenly applied standards they’d decried not long before, they sputtered and called people hateful and the questions irrelevant. 

This exact dichotomy played out in the #ChurchToo. Some of these same people did these very same things to great but newly inconvenient men like Paige Patterson and Jerry Vines, while conveniently giving passes to fashions du jour like, oh, how about John Piper and C.J. Mahaney?

Are any of those men guilty of anything? I don’t think so. But if two of them are guilty of anything, the other two are guilty as sin by the standards of the accusers. But guilt or innocence is not actually their standard. That’s exactly the point.

So now, it’s Joe Biden. He is, in the terms we’ve been taught, “credibly accused”. But this time the accusations and the accuser actually are reasonably credible. The woman is a Democrat accusing a Democrat, not a Republican accusing a Democrat or vice versa. She did actually tell multiple people at the time, who have actually corroborated her story. Verifiable actions were actually taken at the time. A police report has been filed, subjecting the accuser to prosecution for perjury. And so on. 

Tara Reade may be lying, but she’s done all of the things than NONE of Moore’s, Cain’s or Kavanaugh’s accusers ever did. Not a single one of them.

Hers is clearly not the normal playbook. That doesn’t make it all true. But if the standard is — as our friends told us — #BelieveAllWomen, then where are they? And not just the Democrats?

Where are the men and women who lashed out vehemently at Roy Moore, Herman Cain, Paige Patterson and so many others, now that the target is the Democrat candidate for President? Are they loudly, daily beating the drum as they were not so long ago? 

No. They are not. They’re dead silent. 

Perhaps someone should ask them why.

But in the meantime, consider well what’s happening. Both outside and inside our camp, this strategy of is being used again and again not to serve women, not to rectify wrongs, not to exalt victims, but as a weapon, a terrible and highly selective weapon of mass personal destruction aimed only and ever at those whom certain people find inconvenient, or don’t especially like. 

It is wanton, and horrifying, and utterly destructive not just of justice or the rule of law, but of civil society. 

There’s no justice for women in any of it. Certainly none of these people are rushing to #BelieveAllWomen if those women’s names happen to be Tara Reade, or Juanita Broaddrick. At best they draw a “yeah but”. 

So we’re learning our awful lesson: that certain elites (and elitists), both in politics and the church, measure the worth of a woman by whom her story might harm. And what a bounty of justice for real victims that is! Oh how these “enlightened”, or should I say Woke, ones are #CaringWell.

You need to know the self-proclaimed Socialists will do whatever they have to do to take and keep power: they always have, in every country they’ve infested. #AllSocialistsAreTheSame, and they require the absolute annihilation of justice and due process, because the only goal of Socialism is power.

But you need to keep track of their witting and unwitting apologists and co-belligerents, the ones who are (allegedly) in our camp. Because some of those are too gullible to be allowed to lead. And others will willingly, intentionally sell your entire future down the river for one instant, one crumb of approval from the keepers of the fashion of the moment.

The self-identification of those people has been one of the principal benefits of the last four years.

— A Study in Contrasts, In Politics and the Church originally appeared as a Facebook post by Rod D. Martin.