wait, so this is the person responsible for network TV being littered with 10,000 variations on "CSI: Wherever"?

Fuck that guy.

OT (but adjacent) I just remembered my charlatan Plato lecturer was a Louis CK fan. I don't know if lecturer was otherwise a sleazebag but based that fact I'm going to go ahead and assume he is.

I don't think being a fan of a creep is itself creepy. It's not contagious.

The unnamed actress molested by him is strongly implied to be Angela Lansbury, right?

CBS detective show, "iconic" female lead, ended mid-90s.

I think the Hollywood Reporter might have lower standards for an "iconic" TV actress than us plebeians. But yes, that looks like the only thing that could fit the description.

Sure. OTOH, Plato.

4,5: Appears to be consensus on Twitter and we know about the Wisdom of Crowds.

https://decider.com/2018/09/13/les-moonves-assaulted-angela-lansbury-theory/

Anyway, the demise of Moonves clears the road for the re-consolidation of CBS and Viacom under a plutocratic heiress. Lose-lose!

Charlatans Plato was my college philosophy punk band.

Reading that about Lansbury and thinking back to Jessica Walter, would it be so wrong to provide every venerable actress in Hollywood with a single-shot handgun and give them carte blanche?

I think her story is really important because it's the kind of situation where you just don't know if you're being discriminated against or not. I have way more of this kind of experience than of the overt sexual harassment kind. "Why are all the other grad students better friends with the charming outgoing professor than I am? I can't really pinpoint what's going on for sure" or "Why have I been here so long and yet X hasn't happened for me yet?" or whatever.

With the Avital Ronell story as well, it seems like the bigger problem is a career of bullying, psychological manipulation and attempted cultlike indoctrination. The "sexual" element which she especially indulged in with that one student just happens to be the prosecutable element.

In the group interview with the Arrested Development cast, I got a feeling that the actors were trying to revive Tambor's image as not a mistreater of women, but an all-purpose jerk who mistreats everyone. Which is less bad somehow? Or at least still something that the younger actors maybe still think is a powerful and manly archetype, whereas they do not respect or emulate the gross lecherous type.

11.last: Definitely. Same family of apologia as "I'm not a racist, I make fun of every group!"

12 makes a good point, and it's definitely the last line of defense for cretins, but I think an all-purpose jerk is marginally better than a misogynist: in a world full of only the former, everyone is held down by them. In a world with a bunch of misogynists, women are selectively held down and men float to the top, which then self-perpetuates.

11,12,13: When the Weinstein thing first hit the news, there was some talk about how the general culture of big time producers and directors abusing and humiliating their underlings provided the environment where folks like him could thrive.

I'm not sure the evenhanded jerk truly exists in any significant numbers. If you're a jerk, there's no reason not to indulge yourself more at the expense of whoever it's less socially risky to demean.

Good point. I shouldn't assume a perfectly spherical jerk, and even given one our landscape is tilted towards misogyny, etc.

I think Dirty Harry is the prototype. I was going to cut and paste the quote from the movie but it's too offensive.

According to a Huffington Post report, sources say that the matter involves a decades-old episode between Kavanaugh and a woman.

Multiple sources have told HuffPost that the document in question is a letter sent to Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) that concerns an incident involving Kavanaugh and a woman when they were both in high school.

Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer are on it.

I've got a list of 65 people from high school who will swear I never smoked weed out past the library, just in case.

Of all the many reasons to reject Kavanaugh this is the one I'm least comfortable with.

22: If it actually prevents him from getting on the Supreme Court I'll get over it.

21: That's really the most suspicious part of it. He went to an all boys high school! How did he even know 65 girls?

Easy, he started coaching girls' basketball teams when he was 12.

It's not a great sign that Farrow already has an article out on this. It probably means he doesn't think he's going to nail down the story in a way that would succeed in blocking the nomination.

That letter is really bizarre. Why would anyone sign a letter like that? No one knows that many people well, so why would you stick your neck out like that for an acquaintance? How many people did they contact to get 65 people willing to sign? Is everyone on this list a republican?

I literally can't think of anyone from my HS for which I'd sign such a letter. In practice, I'm pretty sure my best friend never did such a thing, but I wouldn't swear that he never did. And anybody else? How the fuck would I know?

Furthermore, in the era we're talking about, behavior at least adjacent to what's been described* would've been considered... not OK, but not criminally awful. So the idea you could say that someone would never have done such a thing is just ridiculous. Like, I'd sign off that my BF wasn't a B&E rapist, but that he never attempted date rape? Before that was even a widespread term? No way.

*I don't know the details of the allegation, but do know the outline. What AFAICT he's accused of would've been over the line for non-rapey guys, but holding a girl down and trying too kiss her would've been viewed as inappropriate, not "WTF is wrong with you?"

I literally can't think of anyone from my HS for which I'd sign such a letter.

Your friends must have been a lot less nerdy than mine. I have several friends that I can vouch for never having been in that kind of party when they were in high school. Of course, I have no idea what they got up to in college.

Oh... I think I get it now. MNone of these women *knew that there were allegations* when they signed the letter.

29: Hmmm. I couldn't swear that none of them ever went to such a party. As I've mentioned before, my HS was unusually non-cliquey*, and so even the nerdiest guys I can think of (who may not have been the nerdiest; there were probably a couple nerds whom I don't recall, bc they were just that nerdy and low-profile) would have been friendly with people who threw that kind of party. I mean, I was at a party like that once, and I was fairly nerdy, didn't drink, and had a non-partying GF that I was completely devoted to.

Like, I'd say the two guys I'm thinking of probably didn't go to parties like that, and almost certainly wouldn't act that way. But put my signature to it? Hell no.

*cliques existed, but weren't very exclusive, and pretty much everybody partied in the woods together. Like, a cheerleader who wouldn't party with a metalhead ("sweat") because that's what he was would be an uptight weirdo.

I'd always assumed that Trump picked Kavanaugh because Kavanaugh said he'd cover for Trump's crimes, but maybe Trump knew about these allegations and that's why he picked him.

I literally can't think of anyone from my HS for which I'd sign such a letter. In practice, I'm pretty sure my best friend never did such a thing, but I wouldn't swear that he never did. And anybody else? How the fuck would I know?

I think about this sometimes... is there anyone on earth whom I would reflexively defend on the strength of their character and my bond with them? I think the answer is no. It's probably worth asking how forcefully I would defend myself against plausible but untrue accusations, though. On the rare occasions when people have lashed out at me online, I've assumed immediately that I can't do or say anything to make myself look good, and haven't even backed down so much as tunnelled away. I underestimate the tactical usefulness of persuasion in general.

I've signed an affidavit for three different people asserting that they honestly thought domestic turkey could fly.

It's not a great sign that Farrow already has an article out on this. It probably means he doesn't think he's going to nail down the story in a way that would succeed in blocking the nomination.

Or he wanted to get what he had so far out there in time to affect matters. The committee confirmation vote has been postponed but if they had kept rushing it through they might have moved it to the floor this week.

Grassley releases letter, people accuse him of having done the legwork ahead of time which means 1) he knew about it and hid it from the committee, 2) almost certainly he knew about it from Kavanaugh since it was never public, 3) Kavanaugh must have admitted it might come up in vetting which means it's not something this woman randomly made up.
But now Grassley is claiming Kavanaugh's former clerks activated a heroic effort last night at 5pm to get 65 people to sign by 9 am. Is that even remotely possible? If it was enabled by Facebook, enter another black mark against them. I'm reminded of the story in the HHGTTG series about people removing a moon using dump trucks in one night.

They're not even people who went to the same high school with him -- he went to an all-boys school, and the 65 signatories are women who attended five different all-girls schools in the area.

37: The dude got around.

He's only 2 years younger than me and we lived in the same town. Maybe I should vouch for him.

36: It's difficult for 67+ people to keep a secret, especially when the majority of them might have become involved under false pretenses, so I'm sure we'll find out.

I knew this guy grew up in a bastion of the wealthy elite, but there were FIVE nearby all-girls high schools?

holding a girl down and trying too kiss her would've been viewed as inappropriate, not "WTF is wrong with you?"

Uh, what? The whole point of writing that letter is to say she viewed the encounter (and still views it) as a big WTF.

Trying to be charitable: is your point that it wouldn't have been prosecuted back in the early 1980s?

41: https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-all-girls-high-schools/c/montgomery-county-md/

I had only heard of Holton Arms ( they were the all-girls high school that whipped us (Walt Whitman High School, my acclaimed public high school) at It's Academic.

43: Holy Cross is right down the road from Georgetown Prep - probably a half-mile away.

42: I meant by the guy's buddies/peers. I didn't mean to suggest that girls were ever OK with that sort of thing.

Also, as I noted, I wasn't clear on the specifics when I wrote that. I now know the hand-over-mouth part and the turn-music-up part, which are both super-rapey details. But anyway, I never thought that what he was being accused of--which clearly included attempting something far beyond a kiss--was something that would've been shrugged off at the time. I was saying that milder stuff, which would now be readily identified as rapey, would've been viewed less harshly. I mean, Trapper John. Sixteen Candles. The Overton Window on sexual assault was in a really different place 30+ years ago.

41- Maybe he attended St. Stud of the Holy Conception.

I'd always assumed that Trump picked Kavanaugh because Kavanaugh said he'd cover for Trump's crimes,

I thought Trump picked Kavanaugh because it was part of the package to get Kennedy to retire, that Kavanaugh had clerked for him or something.

And sometimes, regular assault.

they were the all-girls high school that whipped us (Walt Whitman High School, my acclaimed public high school) at It's Academic.

That's because WHITMAN SUCKS!!!!

Montgomery Blair HS all the way....

That's because WHITMAN SUCKS!!!!

Why, yes, I do from time to time. Indeed some of my companions even refer to me as wizard cocksucker.

Okay, sure. Brett Kavanaugh versus Norman Mailer versus Walt Whitman. Twelve rounds. Go.

I am pretty sure I could not get 65 women to sign a document attesting to anything about any aspect of my school career, including that my school career even happened at all.

I graduated in a class of 17, so I might have trouble also.

Well, I'm fairly sure my mother would sign, so that's one...