Or How to Recognize Sexual Abuse Enablers (the kind who put their party first).
Johnson, our sorry excuse for a Senator(R), has upped his game. This latest revelation not only cements his reputation as an under-qualified dolt, but reveals he is dangerous to the health and wellbeing of other human beings.
What strange bedfellows, Tea Party "true-believers" and sexual predators...The former trumpet their supposed political fundamentalism, the latter channel their self-loathing into loathsome, despicable, cowardly crime. Both cliques are running, full speed, away from accountability, responsibility, truth, justice, virtue, wisdom... and therapy. Put'em in the arrested development camp...
While you're at it, you can add that sorry cabal called the “editorial board” who “adjudicate” for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Seems they're equally eager to sacrifice professional ethics and responsibility to avoid ruffling the feathers of the stuffed-shirt conservatives who run the paper (and the ones who read it). Wait, make that, “control the message”, at the paper.
The early edition of the Sunday, April 6th paper featured a front page story about Republican Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin Senator who has distinguished himself for incompetence. Guess who learned that one of his aides had been sexually assaulted and didn't counsel her to report the crime...
This coddled, clueless, married-into-money-and-got-set-up-in-bidness-by-daddy-in-law nitwit is famous for gaffes. Ron Johnson on climate change: “The science is far from settled.” Strike one for Ronnie. Big mistake here was trying to say this to climatologist James Hansen, director of the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions at the Columbia University Earth Institute. DOH!!!
Okay, maybe give him a pass. Johnson might've been too busy at his former job, the one where his official title was “Accountant”, but his actual duties remain obscure. It might be more accurate to picture him as something like a very well-dressed Wal-Mart greeter: An empty suit trained to smile, shake hands, make small talk. Avoid content. (Does this sound like prime senate material?)
Strike two came when he swung at a softball: Asked about the proposed mosque to be built in New York City near the site of the twin towers, RoJo showed his statesmanlike mastery of the issue by saying: "Those folks are trying to poke a stick in our eye. I just hope the zoning officials and the city, the state revisit that, rezone that piece of property."
“Those folks” happen to be Muslims. Nice, Ronnie. Slip in a bit of dog whistle politics. Passed another Tea Party litmus test...
(Psssst! Ron, hey, over here. Listen, uh, one little problem. Wish you'd actually researched that a little bit. We have this nagging little pissant of a document called the Constitution, a real downer for Tea Party types. I know your kind claim to own it, but it renders your idea, uh...it's one of them multi-isalamic words...unconserva...unconstipa...unconstitutional. Yeah, that's it. Sucks, hey?)
Not a word from the extinguished senator about respecting the diversity that has made this country strong...no mention that these “other folks” happen to include Americans.
Strike three came early and with no effort on Ron's part. (And that pretty much describes RoJo's work ethic.) Summoning up as much righteous indignation as his freshman acting skills could wield, he launched into a...clumsy, stumbling, she-knocked-me-down-with-a-flick-of-her-eyelash-and-wiped-the-floor-with-me “confrontation” with Hillary Clinton at the circus sometimes misidentified as the Benghazi hearings.
Johnson showed himself to be such an incompetent fool, so out of his depth that Clinton held him underwater with nothing more than a baleful stare until he drowned. Witnesses confirm it was suicide by ignorance.
But the latest hammer applied to the shards of Johnson's reputation and credibility, and there are many, many, many more gaffes (he rivals Bush II for public bumbling) suddenly threatens to do more than just cement his status as a circus side show.
Three years ago, an aide in his office reported to Johnson's Chief of Staff that she had been sexually assaulted by a Republican state Representative, Bill Kramer. The victim did not report this crime to police. No. She did not report the assault.
Now the story gets strange. The victim had her attorney send a letter to Kramer stating that he needed to enter a treatment program for his drinking. She would not report the incident to police, but would reconsider if she discovered he committed similar offenses henceforth. The article makes no mention of whether Kramer did, in fact, seek any kind of treatment.
Wait a minute.
Wait...a...minute.
What? You, the victim of an assault, try to bargain with the perpetrator?
Kramer gets a free pass?
Go ahead, Reader. Ask why.
Quoting from the Journal-Sentinel article, which cites a recent criminal complaint the victim (finally) made, “...the woman decided not to go to police at the time of the incident because she didn't want to embarrass her family, the Republican Party, Kramer, and Johnson as her employer.”
Guess what Billy Kramer did. No need to think too long about it...
Since that incident some three years ago, Kramer continued his undistinguished career as a serial abuser and assaulted several other women. His most recent foray into pathological behavior happened in Washington DC during a fundraising trip. Starting to wonder what exactly Kramer really “represents”, aren't you.
But something more is happening here. The victim remained silent for three years...because she didn't want to embarrass the Republican Party. Or the perpetrator, a Republican State Representative. Or her boss, a Republican Senator.
What?
Sorry, doesn't wash. Not a good enough “reason”. This justification is unjust, this cause and effect rationale is seriously diseased, seriously diseased.
This woman has major, major baggage if this statement reflects her priorities. Party loyalty trumps the sanctity of her own body, trumps her right to say “No!” and have that “no” respected? Is she living in the moral equivalent of the antebellum American South?
Her first priority was protecting the “image” of a political party, that glorious, cherished institution? Her first priority was not to prevent other women from becoming victims?
Does she really think so little of other women? Of herself? The Party first? That sounds a bit...communist...
What would she counsel her daughters to do in such a case? Protect the party? How exactly does keeping silent about abuse protect the party or its image? Hasn't this victim achieved exactly the opposite? Hasn't she helped to damage the image of the party, signaled that it is a haven for sexual predators?
It boggles the mind.
And the perpetrator went on to commit more assaults. Several. Will this victim from three years ago reach out to the more recent victims and apologize? She could have prevented several other women from experiencing the trauma of sexual assault.
Someone explain this thinking. What is this political party, some kind of cult?
Ron Johnson knew. He knew three years ago. So did his chief of staff, who told him about it. And they behaved like bishops and archbishops.
They covered it up.
They took it upon themselves to “manage” the “situation”. They, too, enabled the perpetrator. In a bizarre twist on vigilante mentality, they took matters into their own hands. These GOP political animals, unqualified to evaluate Kramer's condition, unqualified to evaluate the wellbeing of the victim, unqualified to evaluate the incident or its legal viability...wrested control and adjudication from legal authorities. Justice delayed is...
They had a moral and ethical responsibility to counsel this woman to come forward, to report Kramer to the police, to end his reign of abuse and assault.
Something truly twisted, sick and reprehensible stopped them, and the victim: Their cult.
The misdirection has other facets, too. The victim's letter to Kramer spoke only about his need to seek treatment for his drinking, but not, apparently, his need to seek treatment for sexual predation. The first is being used to mask the second.
No. Sorry. Doesn't wash either. You don't protect a sexual predator by calling him an alcoholic or a drunkard. When the victim learned of Kramer's more recent spree, she came forward and filed a police complaint. It begs the question: What's been going on for the past three years, in the victim's life, in Kramer's life...?
And the Journal-Sentinel article? It was in the early Sunday edition and the online edition... and completely missing from the regular Sunday edition. So the paper gets to have it both ways: they can claim diligence by having it appear in the early edition and online, but won't upset the conservative readers who get the regular edition and might get miffed enough to cuddle with the WSJ instead.
The bizarre, “Close ranks!” behavior doesn't end there. Keith Best, Waukesha County GOP vice chairman, was with Kramer and the victim at that bar. He didn't see the assault, but he did see the victim distraught later. No mention if he bothered to ask her why, but he did identify Kramer and the victim as “friends” of his. If this is the level of connection that passes for friendship in Best's world, how does he interact with strangers, or his enemies? Seems he did see Kramer drink too much on previous occasions, and make offensive comments...
Take an antacid before you read the following.
Despite rumors about Kramer's predisposition to make offensive comments, drink too much, and manhandle female staffers without their consent, Republicans elected him to the post of state Assembly majority leader. “On, Wisconsin, on Wisconsin...(the opening words of the Badger fight song).
According to the police report about this assault, which took place outside the bar, Best told a police officer that he hoped Kramer's “promotion to Assembly majority leader would “give Kramer the motivation to clean up his act.”” (Quote from the Journal-Sentinel article, early edition.)
So giving a dissolute, reprobate, unrepentant scoundrel...a promotion(!)...might persuade him to...what, just stop? Forever?
Huh? Walk me through that reasoning, real slow now...
Best is another enabler. He can't seem to wrap his head around the possibility that a promotion sends the opposite message, that Kramer now understands he can indulge his addictions and his pathological behavior with impunity. Keep silent about his “activities” and the message Kramer gets is “It doesn't matter what I do off-camera.” In Kramer-land, hell, why not see a promotion as a signal that “You're doing it right, Billy-boy!”?
How many Republican male legislators see women as mere objects for their amusement, and see Republican women as...what? Tramps? As the Old Testament prostitutes who hang around outside the temple? As “asking for it”?
This nation has an entire political party in need of intervention and deprogramming. It's filled with sociopaths and enablers. And the mass of Republicans don't want to see, don't want to know. Just massage their irrational fears with talking points that function as cattle prods, pander to their infantile need for saviors, keep the herd distracted with manufactured social crises...excuse me, kids, is there an adult in the room?