Passing The Smell Test – By John Reed

Passing The Smell Test
When I was a kid, my friends and I would play a card game called “I doubt it“. When the grownups weren’t around, it went by its more colorful name involving bovine manure. The point of the game was to bluff your opponent into thinking you had certain cards… Or not.
These days, politics resemble a riskier version of that game. Our so-called leaders, supposedly elected to do the people’s business, spend more time trying to call each other’s bluff. Some of those bluffs don’t pass the smell test, but like in that old kid’s game, I call “I doubt it.”
People’s reputations are being called into question over actions that occurred decades ago in high school or college. A Supreme Court candidate is facing character sabotage. There are several things about this that bother me, and should bother most fair-minded people.
Let’s talk about setting first. I went to high school and college in the 1970s, when the only people not “hooking up“ were those who were either socially or physically incredibly unattractive…. or they were attending convents and monasteries. I doubt that situation has changed much since then.
The next issue I have problems with is the timing: not just the decision to wait 30 or 35 years to come forward, but also the decision to wait until a strategic political moment to publicize it. If the event was as traumatizing as claimed, it should have been reported right then and there. By waiting this long, it’s impossible not to have doubts.
Before the #metoo folks start burning torches in my yard, I will be the first to say that there should not be a statute of limitations on true sexual assault… By either gender. But in order to have equal justice you must have equal fairness. Otherwise probably 80% of those who were ever age 15-25 should be locked up by now.
Finally let’s talk about the mindset of the past. Once again I feel compelled to point out that we cannot judge people’s actions of yesteryear by today’s ethical standards. I find it incredibly ironic that the liberals who supported the “free love“ movement in the ‘60s and ‘70s are now having conniptions about people who seem to have practiced it.
Enough. I call “BS” on the whole mess. It took years to finally sniff out Joseph McCarthy‘s mistreatment of the system. Surely we are smarter by now.