Just FYI, The New York Times Did Not Retract the New Kavanaugh Allegation (Sorry, Meghan McCain)

To the surprise of literally no one, Meghan McCain and Abby Huntsman combined to form the two-headed conservative hydra known as MY FATHER McHUNT and quickly went to work defending the shit out of Brett Kavanaugh on The View after a new allegation in the New York Times sparked an effort to have him impeached from the Supreme Court.

Via Jezebel:

Instead of focusing on the significance of this third allegation about Kavanaugh and the total failure of the FBI to take his conduct seriously, Abby Huntsman began the discussion by criticizing the Times’ standards of reporting, lamenting that the piece was “sloppy” and “lazy,” while also imploring journalists to not “drag other people’s lives through the mud” and think about Kavanaugh’s daughters.

Meghan McCain added onto Huntsman’s critique, arguing that continuing to re-litigate Kavanaugh’s behavior was not a “winning strategy” for Democrats, so essentially why should they even bother?

“Who cares about bringing rapists to justice if it can’t win you an election?” Cool, cool cool. You gotta love how Meghan McCain will be the first to froth at the mouth that immigrants are BREAKING THE LAW by entering the country ILLEGALLY (they’re not), but when it comes to stocking the Supreme Court with pro-life zealots, when has a little bit of rape hurt anybody? Honestly?

Naturally, MYFATHER McHUNT’s hypocrisy didn’t stop there because you know who else has daughters that people should be thinking about? The parents whose kids are locked in concentration camps. Not really seeing a whole lot of conservatives losing sleep over those particular daughters, or you know, the ones who are being shot during one of America’s almost daily mass shootings. In fact, here’s Meghan’s reaction to both of those things.

On child concentration camps:

“There’s a big difference between a Hanoi Hilton and what’s happening at the border right now!”

On babies getting shot in the face:

“I’m not living without guns!”

If you don’t give a f*ck about kids in those situations, spare me the crocodile tears on dragging Brett Kavanaugh’s name through the mud. If he didn’t want his daughters to read about him in the paper, maybe he should’ve kept his dick in his pants (allegedly) or weighed the very real chance that his actions would come back to haunt him. It’s not like public life suddenly became a shit show the second he was nominated for the Supreme Court.

Anyway, that was Monday. By Tuesday, Meghan was literally berating Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly to their faces over how the NYT reported the Christina Ramirez allegation in their book, which even I thought went sideways. In fact, that’s why you’re reading this piece 24 hours later, because the situation did look bad for the Times and seemingly opened them for fart bucket rape apologists like Meghan to score some cheap shots not even a day after she said she’s “not one of those people who hate the New York Times.”

Via The Daily Beast:

“I’m going to try and make this as clear as possible,” McCain said. “The New York Times ran an excerpt of your book over the weekend in the opinion section that included a new allegation of sexual misconduct against Brett Kavanaugh but you guys left out a key detail of the alleged victim—who you name in the book but we’re not going to name on the show—quote, refused to discuss the incident and several of her friends do not recall it happening.”

“She doesn’t,” the reporters confirmed.

“I think this is sort of ground zero for why so many people mistrust the media, why the New York Times is nicknamed the ‘New York Slime’ by many people in conservative circles,” McCain continued. “The Times actually had to run an editor’s note following up. How did this vital fact get left out?”

Here’s the thing: The conservative talking point is that the NYT retracted its reporting on the Ramirez allegation, and it’s safe to say that narrative made its way into the mainstream and left-leaning publications because, again, even I was under that impression from the reporting I saw at the beginning of the week. (Full disclosure: I’m also half-stupid.) But according to PolitiFact, the NYT “did not retract or reverse its reporting.”

A retraction would include removing the allegation entirely because it cannot be corroborated. The source of this allegation is Max Stier, a classmate of Kavanaugh’s.

In conclusion, the New York Times said it did not initially publish all relevant information when it ran the article, and the omitted information may call into question the credibility of the accusation. But the Times has since added that information and wrote an editor’s note explaining their decision.

The Times has not retracted its reporting on the allegation or admitted it was incorrect. Sites claiming so have gone too far.

Is this situation way more messy than it needed to be? For sure. Is it the silver bullet Meghan McCain was hoping for to defend an alleged rapist sitting on the Supreme Court? Nope! Is it telling that she immediately scrambled toward a chance to discredit sexual assault victims like Danny DeVito’s Penguin seeing a dead fish? OH YEAH. As much as Meghan likes to front that she’s a “cool” conservative who’s not afraid to buck the Republican Party because she’s a “maverick” like her dad, she’s right there loyally toeing the line by sticking it to women and brown people.

Just like her dad!