'Well, we have two cheeks and it was one of them' Says Publisher : Justin Trudeau Gropes Reporter in 2000: Editorial Accuses

Even if there is no more to this story, the haste to silence this conversation is unseemly. 

You didn't peruse too hard because most people here are sympathetic to Weir.

The reason this is not a huge scandal is being put down to many things including politics and even the look of the PM of all things. The first is ridiculous since there are people on all sides when it comes to politics and certainly a number who for their political purpose would like this to be a major thing. The second is beyond ridiculous and problematic.

The most likely reason is that details of the story, required to judge properly the behaviour of the PM, are not known to the people being asked to have an opinion about it. 

I also think that there is an issue here over the real intention of what it means to "believe her." I believe that we rightly expect that the accounts of events from women ought to be believed. The conclusions, without detail, remain her conclusions that are also to be believed as sincere but without the detail they cannot be fully endorsed as events. People are mostly judged based on the things they do rather than the impressions of those things in the absense of knowledge of the actual events. There has been no story shared as far as I know with detailed facts.

What we know is that there is an allegation of groping. The definition of the word includes intent.  Intent is infered by behaviour but it is not an event as of itself.  Any unwanted touching is inappropriate but is it groping? Unwanted touching of a hand, for most, is not groping. But what about unwanted contact with the neck, sides of the body? Inappropriate if intended, perhaps careless or accidental, and groping depending on intent.

We do not know where he touched her, how, or the circumstances. We know that she felt it was intentional. But to judge a a person, the allegation would have to include the kind of detail that would allow others to be able to form a basic opinion of intent vs accident and to form an opinion of the seriousness. What we have is the expectation of belief in an interpretation rather than a set of facts. Many will not make that leap.

It is enough for people to be uncomfortable. However, people may also feel uncomfortable by the decision to share the allegation without even an assertion of events to support it. Nothing can be done with this so far. We also do not have evidence that the victim is involved in this sharing now or wants this. There is legitimate concern that the sotry may be used by others without the woman at the centre of it having any desire to see this happen.

It is also true that women many years after the fact may not want to bring out details because so many years later some  details may be uncertain due to time and it can be difficult to support them no matter how certain she may be of the conclusion then and now. This is unfortunate but it does not change the reality that those details are essential for others to bring an opinion to the story.

Only the victim can decide to share further detail and without it there should be no surprise that this is not attracting more attention than it is.

The reason this is not a #MeToo moment, for now, is that #MeToo involves breaking a silence on the level of detail that is not being shared here. It is often characterized by an allegation that other people knew and covered up details of serious incidents. At this point we do not know if anyone else had details (that we still don't have) at the time that were covered up.

If the person decided to share details it could become a #MeToo moment. For now it has more of the characteristics of a person who has, for whatever reason, not made the decision to share her story.

Those are descriptions of her reactions not his actions. Sean's post does an excellent job of summarizing the Me Too pattern. An alternative to knowing the details is having a qualified third party identifying the behavior as sexual harassment. Nobody here is claiming that he is innocent or that the woman was lying. 

Sean made the excellent point that she hasn't stepped forward. This is a very old article. Since her identity is known I expect reporters are trying to track her down as we speak. If other women come forward with allegations it will be damning for him but so far that isn't happening. It's not like a woman would forget. The article also states "it" happened in the blink of an eye. Again, no one here is saying it is unbelievable. So far whatever happened doesn't appear to be a pattern of behavior.

“Lady” has made something of a come-back as a sort of retro descriptor—“Lady journo,” “lady blog”—but sounds condescending outside of a specific, ironic context. In The Guardian last week, sub-editor Maddie York points out that another word is catching on as an adjective: “woman.” According to York, “‘Woman’ and its plural seem to be taking over the role of modifier, so that now, there is no such thing, as far as much of the media is concerned, as a female doctor, a female MP or a female chef. Instead you hear or read about a woman doctor, a woman MP and so on.”

This is definitely an overstatement, but she has a point: When I started looking for it, I found that the opposite of “male boss” is often not “female boss” but “woman boss.” The BBC contrasts“women managers” with “male” ones.  And the Harvard Business Review says: “Only 16% of Republicans prefer a woman boss … young people (18 to 34) are more likely to want a male boss.”

York is on a mission to strip “woman” of its usage as a modifier. She doesn’t mind being referred to as a “female subeditor”—she identifies herself that way in her author bio—but she protests the use of “woman” as an adjective on the grounds that, unlike “female,” its masculine equivalent is almost never used in the same way. “There would be no real problem if we used both ‘woman’ and ‘man’ as modifiers, but we don’t,” she writes. She quotes a colleague: “The comparable male version sounds so ridiculous no one would ever run it outside a feminist standup comedy routine: ‘man cyclist,’ ‘man politician,’ ‘man writer.’” “Male cyclist” sounds less ridiculous.

https://newrepublic.com/article/119954/woman-female-or-lady-which-term-a...

In case you are unaware MegB is a moderator and can silence you any time she likes for any reason. 

Sean, good clarification. The victim herself wrote the editorial without any supervision or editorial direction. The fact that she put this issue into the public sphere herself puts some onus on her to explain.

thanks for posting this NDPP. I hope Pondering and Sean read it. 

The Ottawa Citizen weighs in. 

http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/macdougall-trudeaus-answer-to-old-groping-allegation-puts-lie-to-feminist-bona-fides

Andrew MacDougall is a London-based communications consultant and ex-director of communications to former prime minister Stephen Harper.

Does anyone doubt Trudeau would now find the nearest yard arm for a colleague who prompted an editorial similar to his own?

I doubt it. There is no complainant. The women from the article is not a complainant. She wrote something 2 decades ago. If she comes forward now to repeat the accusation then we would have a complainant.There would be someone for an investigator to question about the details of the event or what the possible interpretations are. 

No one else has stepped forward to say "me too".  

Given that there isn't a complainant there is nothing to respond to. 

She might want to avoid death threats, having her workplace and family harassed and life in general turned up side down.

Whether she comes forward or not the accusation is still there and the PM didn't deny it. His office came forward with BS poly speak. If a member of the NDP or CPC would have had an accusation from 20 years ago surface you can bet the PMO would be grabbing onto that like a dog on a bone.

The Me Too movement. Some of these commentators have been criticizing it for ages claiming that the men aren't getting a fair shake, innocent until proven guilty and all that. They are trying to connect this incident to the Me Too movement but it is not part of the Me Too movement. They also want to draw a parallel between how Trudeau is handling this incident versus his zero tolerance policy for others. But for "the others" there were women registering complaints. 

The fact that the "complainant" is refusing to complain is more than a minor detail or technicality. She has been reached out to so she isn't ignorant of the fact that the story has resurfaced. If she is unwilling to confirm her accusation, which seems to be the case, the story is dead in the water no matter what commentators say. Without fuel there is no story. 

By the way, not defending himself is classic Trudeau strategy. He does it whenever possible. Then it becomes yesterday's news. The stories that have legs are the ones in which there is some forward momentum. Some expectation of further development. No women's organizations that I know of are demanding an explanation or calling him a hypocrite.The outrage seems limited to the press. 

According to Warren Kinsella it was an M.P. that sent him the article.

An MP without a name. I'm talking about public comment from Scheer, Singh, or another upper level party rep. 

Yes the court of public opinion can prosecute for whatever reason they choose to, even hair colour, but they are not doing so. There is a reason for that. If that changes then he may have to step down but I don't think it's going to change. 

So far the pundits don't seem to be having much luck in manufacturing outrage. No twitter storms demanding answers. No mention in the international press that I have noticed. No nightly updates in the news. 

I bet if you went on the street and asked 100 random strangers if they heard about this accusation 90% would say "no" and 5% would say "vaguely". This is all because there is no active complainant. 20 years ago a woman made a public complaint. 

If she were dead maybe second-hand information would be given more weight but she is alive, known, and unwilling to confirm that anything happened. 

There is no such court. There are elections and there is not one now. There is no procedure such as suggested here.

He absolutely does not have to step down. If he loses confidence of the House which means Liberal MPs invovled then he can lose government as leader the process is his party's conventions. Not sure why people are suggesting that opinion has any strength on its own without a process.

This may be a serious allegation but that remains all it is untell there is evidence advanced that is more than we have now.

The idea of someone having to be above reproach is ridiculous -- the word means disapproval. No politician is above reproach as there are always people who disapprove of them.

Certainly we can agree that it is not okay for a man who would grope women to become PM -- but to establish that this has happened requires more than an allegation. The allegation would have to include sufficient detail to support its conclusion. This is without any consideration of the issue of proof that the detail is accurate. In this case not only is there no proof, there is no specific detail. Only the conclusion that what he did was groping.

As bad as it looks, this is a long way from enough to result in a consequence. The woman in question can bring it much closer and it remains her choice as to whether she wants to.

As bad as it is, groping is an interpretation of an act and not an act in itself. It is truly strange that we would have such a conversation proceed in the absence of specifics.

Believing the victim is important but it does not go so far as running ahead without even the most basic of specific allegations.

The allegation is that he touched her where? As I said before you have to infer a conclusion of groping from the detail how do you do that without the detail?

This is not a case where the woman at the centre of the story is stating that she is expecting a result or even wanting one.