Taking One for the Team

The left has attempted to pressure the woman accusing Al Gore of a chakra-related assault into silence, because they fear that accusing Gore of a real assault will hurt Al’s ongoing Assault on Reason:

“Not that being an environmentalist makes a guy a saint, but Gore seemed almost desperate to have us see him as more moral than the average Al. . . . The greenest of the green people I talked to felt betrayed. Gore was their leader and the movement is now, um, stained. The woman even said, according to the transcript of her interview with Portland, Ore., police made public on the Internet, that her ‘Birkenstock Tribe’ friends told her to ’suck it up’ and not tell anyone or the ‘world’s going to be destroyed from global warming.’”

And it’s far from the first time the left has asked an alleged victim to take one for the team, Jay Nordlinger writes:

A few days ago, I mentioned this nugget from Byron York’s piece on the Gore-masseuse business: “Later, she talked to friends, liberals like herself, who advised against telling police. One asked her ‘to just suck it up; otherwise, the world’s going to be destroyed from global warming.’”

And I said that that reminded me of a great hit from the Lewinsky era. Remember Nina Burleigh of Time magazine? “I would be happy to give him [Bill Clinton] a [particular sexual favor] just to thank him for keeping abortion legal. I think American women should be lining up with their presidential kneepads on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs.”

Then I recalled the old, rotten congressman Gus Savage, who went to Zaire and sicced himself on a Peace Corps volunteer. He appealed to a perverse racial solidarity: “Oh, come on, baby, when you help the shepherd, you help the whole flock.” He also said that, if she gave in to him, she would be helping “the movement.” Later, when the young woman reported the congressman’s actions, he called her “a traitor to the black movement.” Of course.

Anyway: Just one more, which I thought of this morning. You remember what Melissa Lafsky wrote at the Huffington Post, talking about Ted Kennedy’s glorious career for the Left? “Who knows — maybe she’d feel it was worth it.” The “she” was Mary Jo Kopechne.

Sometimes, you take one for the team (as Mark Krikorian observed the other day). Sometimes you take a lot.

It all boils down, as Glenn Reynolds quipped the other day, “Suzy, if you tell what Joe did to you after the dance, we’ll lose the big game!”

Ann Althouse adds that “It’s painful when your own hero falls. Quite aside from global warming, what about feminism?”

If the massage therapist’s story is true, we are looking at the same problem we saw with Clinton. There are politicians who give the appearance of caring about the equality of women. It’s a principle that, conceptually, is a necessary part of a political ideology they need to appear to hold. But maybe they don’t really believe it at all. What a dirty secret, thinking that women exist to serve you!

ADDED: What makes a man treat a woman like that? Generally, I think it’s because he’s done things like that before, many times, and gotten away with it. We’re talking about an older man, with a big reputation and a lot to lose. Why would he proceed in such a crude fashion? I would guess that his sensibilities have numbed over the years, as women acceded to his moves. The moves became less and less elaborate.

“Why would he proceed in such a crude fashion?” If the allegations are true, one could say that Al acted like a digital brown shirt, to coin a phrase.