Imagine, if you will, that Republicans had run a candidate with a Nazi SS Totenkopf on his chest, who posted in public forums that women should take some responsibility for being sexually assaulted, called them "hatchet wounds" in reference to their genitalia, and had a credible record of actual domestic violence on a partner. Would the media consider a focus on those scandals by his Democrat opponents to be "pouncing," especially in the first days of the general-election campaign?
Absolutely not. The Protection Racket Media would go into full Kavanaugh Lynching Mode at the merest hint of any of the above. When a liberal Republican draws attention to a Democrat with this record, however, it's suddenly a Republicans Pounce™ story, and the Totenkopf gets transformed into a "resembl[ance] of a Nazi symbol" at ABC News:
ABC’s Mary Bruce frets on Wednesday’s ‘World News Tonight’ that “Republican Senator Susan Collins [is] pouncing” on the series of scandals against “oyster farmer” Democrat Graham Platner, including “the tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol” pic.twitter.com/cw5PzeLP2O
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 10, 2026
The Journ-O-List bat signal has gone out. The story will no longer be Graham Platner's Nazi tattoo, domestic violence allegations, weird Kik account trolling up until last week, or Der Oysterführer's sexting with a half-dozen women not his wife over the last couple of years. The story will now be meanie Republicans and conservatives pointing out all of these peccadilloes, not to mention Platner's victims.
That brings us to Jodi Kantor, the New York Times reporter who went full-out to paint Brett Kavanaugh as a serial sex offender based on no evidence at all in 2018. Mark Judge certainly remembers Kantor's journalistic temperament from that period:
@jodikantor is making excuses for Graham Platner and is fine with no one asking him questions. @EdMorrissey @instapundit @JMacNYC @redsteeze @amuse @LeeSmithDC @Heminator @MZHemingway @guy_next_to_me @peterschweizer @CurtisHouck @AnnCoulter @EdDriscoll @ScottJenningsKY pic.twitter.com/ENhujT8xbo
— Mark Judge (@markgjudge) June 11, 2026
Christine Blasey Ford couldn't recall the date or place where a teenage Kavanaugh supposedly assaulted her, and the four people she named as witnesses had no recollection of the incident at all or of being in the same place as Kavanaugh and Ford at the same time. One of the witnesses, Leland Keyser, later said she'd been threatened if she didn't corroborate Blasey Ford's account. Yet this NYT reporter, who covered #MeToo stories extensively, insisted that Blasey Ford was credible and reliable as a witness to Kavanaugh's teenage character.
Surely Kantor will apply this same standard to Lyndsey Fifield, who not only accused Platner of domestic violence as an adult but has contemporaneous documentation and testimony to corroborate it. Er, no, Kantor absolutely does not apply that same standard:
WATCH: New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor – who wrote many of the #MeToo stories – DEFENDS Graham Platner and DISMISSES the allegations against him by @LyndseyFifield and other ex-girlfriends because they were not “abuse” and women saying they just “did not like what” they saw… pic.twitter.com/qMSSXa3XNU
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 10, 2026
“Well, let’s talk about what they may or may not be willing to overlook the accusations against Graham Platner are not classic MeToo accusations. They’re not about a boss and a young female employee being subjected to sexual advances. They’re — they were mostly made in the context of consensual relationships. There are these, like, very sensational texts about sex. There are allegations from former girlfriends that are not — the way my colleagues reported them were not like classic abuse allegations. They were mostly like being his boyfriend gave me a view into him and I did not like what I saw. His character was scary. He had this Nazi tattoo. Et cetera.”
“There was one allegation of crossing a line physically, but I think that means that these are pretty different accusations than, say, the one that — the ones that President Trump faced. And, of course, in the Access Hollywood tape, President Trump bragged about grabbing women against their will. And so I think it speaks to the kind of confusion of the long post MeToo moment in which, like, gender related accusations get bundled together. But they’re actually very different.”
Yes, it was a lot (D)ifferent, actually. When #MeToo aimed at Republicans, no allegation needed corrorboration, and no complaint was too small to send the pitchfork-and-torch media after the target. When the allegation involves Democrats, suddenly, all allegations require video evidence, any claim has to be taken in some mitigating context, and nothing matters when compared to Orange Man Bad. Anyone in a "consensual" relationship has no right to complain about domestic violence when their partner wants to run for the US Senate as a Democrat.
Jonathan Turley calls this "a Classic Coke pitch for Platner," and an entirely unprincipled one:
In a statement that would have produced a torrent of condemnations if used during the Kavanaugh controversy, Kantor insisted that “they were mostly like being his boyfriend gave me a view into him and I did not like what I saw. His character was scary. He had this Nazi tattoo. Et cetera.”
In fairness to Kantor, she was attempting no small feat: to allow liberals to continue to claim Me Too outrage while grabbing Maine.
Of course, Kantor quickly brushes over the other controversies beyond the abuse allegations as simply a Nazi tattoo. She omits his mocking of a wounded veteran, rural people, and rape victims while praising Hamas and embracing communism.
However, her diminishing of the account of women like Lyndsay Fifield as “they were mostly like being his boyfriend gave me a view into him and I did not like what I saw.”
What Fifield alleges that she “saw” were marks left on their body after being yanked and grabbed by Platner. In one case, she claimed “he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out, telling her to remain there until she was ‘calm.’”
Democrat strategist Ally Sammarco is, to her credit, equally appalled by Kantor's dismissive attitude toward domestic violence:
To be clear, what Lyndsey described is physical abuse. Just because the New York Times didn't label it that, doesn't mean it isn't. To downplay it is to endanger millions of women who are experiencing something similar. https://t.co/RkFBifJ7Fj
— Ally Sammarco (@Ally_Sammarco) June 11, 2026
Lyndsey Fifield posted a lengthy response to Kantor's remarks about abuse:
My friends have pointed out that that's not normal. I shouldn't feel the need to insist to the public that I didn't do anything to deserve or provoke physical intimidation, control, or abuse. No one does.
I forgave Graham years ago and was glad to see that he had gotten sober and seemingly had gotten help for his mental health issues—I sincerely wished him well but when I realized I was not the only woman he had done this to, that he has a lifelong pattern of deep contempt for women, I realized he had suckered me once again.
And instead of support for coming forward, Jenny and I have been met with horrific smears, told it was “karma,” or that it wasn’t “that bad.”
So... yeah, that is actually pretty classic.
It's not just Kantor or Bruce. It's the entire, corrupt mainstream media that works hard to turn every story about a Democrat behaving badly into a narrative about Republicans exploiting it. Even in normal scandals, it's a strategy to manipulate and misdirect readers and viewers. This case is so extreme and bizarre that these efforts are both far more obvious and expose the ideological and partisan corruption of the American legacy media more completely. The progressive establishment is throwing real victims under the bus to push a Naziphile abuser over the finish line, and wants to make anyone pointing that out the problem. Basta!
In case this post hasn't convinced readers of the complete moral and integrity collapse of the Protection Racket Media, read David's earlier post on Leslie Stahl and 60 Minutes. Trust me.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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