A CliffNotes version of the case against Graham Platner,
Maine’s Democrat Senate frontrunner, may be found in the Connecticut Centinal under the
byline Reese On the Radio.
Revelation followed revelation, most of them debilitating:
“The most recent revelation: Platner exchanged sexually explicit text messages
with multiple women early in his 2023 marriage. His wife discovered them,
reported the matter to campaign leadership last year, and the issue was handled
privately—reportedly with counseling. When the New York Times and Wall Street
Journal published the story days before the primary, Platner dismissed it as
‘gossip’ and ‘journalistic malpractice.’ His wife called the coverage
‘shameful’ and urged focus on ‘the issues.’ Some Democrats muttered about
‘questions to answer,’ but the campaign and base largely treated it as a
distraction.”
Connecticut’s U.S. Senator Chris Murphy recently was given
the opportunity by Margret Brennan of CBS News to
defend the indefensible, and he rose limply to the occasion.
MARGARET BRENNAN: …
the campaign for Graham Platner confirmed to CBS on Saturday that the Maine
Senate candidate had sent sexually explicit texts to women other than his wife.
This is in addition to other past controversies. Does he pass the character
test?
SEN. MURPHY: Yeah, I
mean, I have not followed this story as closely as others have, but Graham
Platner is somebody that served our country, he served his community, he's also
made mistakes.
MARGARET BRENNAN:
Yeah.
SEN. MURPHY: And he
has admitted that. Character also involves standing up to people who are
bankrupting and corrupting this country, and this race is going to be a
contrast between somebody that has put his life on the line for this country
against somebody that is literally empowering the moral hollowing out of our
nation from the White House. So he certainly admitted that he has made
mistakes, but I think this is going to be a pretty clear contrast in Maine between
somebody who has spent his life protecting us, versus somebody who seems to be
protecting Donald Trump's corruption.
The “somebody that is literally [emphasis mine] empowering
the moral hollowing out of our nation from the White House” is Republican U.S.
Senator Susan Collins. Collins, in Murphy’s view “seems to be protecting Donald
Trump’s corruptions.”
Someone friendly to Murphy should point out to him the
difference between literally and figuratively hollowing out the United States
before he moves onto his next media availability. With what tool did Collins
literally hollow out the United States? Somewhere during his political journey
to the far-left Murphy should have noticed that Collins is not a Trump
lickspittler – not even figuratively. She was the only Republican U.S.
congressman in New England voted to impeach Trump.
Reese On the Radio struck exactly the right note when he
wrote, “The deeper issue is not Platner’s fitness—voters in Maine will judge
that. It is the left’s demonstrated willingness to abandon every standard it
spent years imposing on the opposition the moment one of its own becomes
useful. This is not evolution or forgiveness. It is the substitution of
partisan utility for consistent principle. When sexual conduct, victim-blaming
language, racial generalizations, Nazi iconography, and calls to armed struggle
are disqualifying only for Republicans, the claims lose all credibility. #MeToo
becomes selective enforcement. Racism becomes a club rather than a category.
‘Character matters’ becomes a slogan deployed against enemies and ignored for
allies.”
And, of course, the slogan need have no relation to reality.
Democrat campaigns in New England, content in accusing Republicans of all
manner of associational offenses, need not mention their departure from sound
state and federal policy.
We’ve been around this block several times. Murphy’s
compatriot in the U.S. Senate Dick Blumenthal self-assuredly accepted a
characterization of Supreme Court prospect Judge Brett Kavanaugh that he had,
thirty years earlier while in high school, molested Christine Blasey Ford. Ford
named a witness to the event who claimed under oath that it had not occurred.
If true, the unsupported claim might have cost Kavanaugh a seat on the high
court. It is literally true to say Judge Kavanaugh had been unjustly defamed by
both Ford and a credulous Blumenthal.
In an account of the now forgotten smear campaign that bears
revisiting -- “Blumenthal Revisited, Down The Memory Hole”
– Connecticut Commentary noted, “Looking back on these events with the benefit
of hindsight, we now know that Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony before the
committee was dubious. She – and anyone listening to Blumenthal’s hearty
assurance that she was telling the truth when she said that Judge Brett
Kavanaugh had molested her when he and she were students at different high
schools thirty (30) years earlier – had assured the committee that a witness to
the molestation would testify on her behalf. That witness later testified that
she had not witnessed the event as Ford had claimed. Three direct witnesses
Blasey Ford identified as having been present when the molestation had occurred
testified under oath that they could not support her charge.”
Blumenthal, up for re-election in the next non-presidential
campaign, wittingly or not was never held to account by Connecticut’s media for
promoting what appeared to be a fraudulent assessment of Kavanagh’s publicaly
brutalized character. In a section of the country dominated by Democrats, the
media, national and state, should have been, as a matter of course, more
contrarian and more vigilant.
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