Kayleigh McEnany didn’t mind that 26 women had accused her boss of sexual misconduct, including assault, nor that he had been caught on video boasting about sexually assaulting women but now that Democrat Andrew Cuomo is in hot water over sexual harassment, #LyingKayleighMcEnany has completely changed her tune.
Compulsive liar McEnany spoke today about the news that an investigation found that Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women and retaliated against one who went public. She said that stepping down would be “the right thing to do” and called the allegations “grotesque” and “appalling.” She added, “This is a classic example of a man who is drunk on power, who abused his position … This man was a monster! I mean, an absolute and total monster.”
It was the big news all day on Fox and probably the big story tonight, too. Never mind that the network that worships at the altar of Donald Trump mostly served as PR agents who helped whitewash allegations of his sexual misconduct.
But, not surprisingly, McEnany whined about praise that Cuomo got from the media (which was for his handling of the pandemic, while her former boss spectacularly botched it).
I’ve never been a fan of Cuomo’s and I’m not here to defend him. But a review of Super-Duper Christian McEnany’s previous thoughts on sexual harassment, when it came to Donald Trump and his SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh, show someone with quite a selective set of sensibilities.
Of the 26 women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, 15 have accused him of sexual assault or rape and another five of inappropriately kissing them on the lips, by my count. McEnany shrugged them all off:
.@colvinj asks what makes the multiple allegations of sexual impropriety against the president any less credible than what Tara Reade has been accusing Biden of. @PressSec says "leave it to the media" and says these are old allegations about Trump.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) May 1, 2020
After the infamous Hollywood Access video, in which Trump boasted about grabbing women “by the p***y,” was made public, in the fall of 2016, McEnany, a Trump-supporting CNN pundit at the time, said on the air, “We don’t have proof that Donald Trump acted in that way. There’s one person out of both of these families who has been accused of sexual assault in a court of law. One. And that is Bill Clinton.”
Also, in 2016, after the Hollywood Access video, McEnany insisted that voters care about public policy, not sex (another guest, attorney Lisa Bloom, repeatedly pointed out that it was a matter of sexual abuse, not sex).
And it wasn’t just Trump. In her infamous, “I’ll never lie to you” press conference, #LyingKayleighMcEnany lied about the accusations against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, saying, they were “verifiably false” (they weren’t) and that Tara Reade’s accusation against Joe Biden was “far more compelling” (it wasn’t).
You can watch #LyingKayleighMcEnany selective concern about sexual harassment below, from the August 3, 2021 Outnumbered.
The Right Wing of course wants to use this and anything else it can to try to bury Cuomo. Not because they particularly care about harassment (see E. Bolling) or actual assault (see R. Ailes and B. O’Reilly), but because angry Right Wingers are desperate for a scalp in the wake of their humiliation last November. They’re hoping they can chase Cuomo out of office and even into jail, just as they’re hoping to somehow throw Gavin Newsom out in California. This is revenge in the simplest terms.
In reality, it’s more likely that Cuomo will continue to be roundly criticize and will keep his office until the next election, and then step down of his own volition. (Newsom’s situation now depends on whether California Dems are prepared to show up to vote for the nonsensical recall election date. If Dems show up, Newsom will be fine. If they assume he’ll be fine, it’s entirely possible that he’ll be tossed out and angry Right Wingers will get one of their scalps. I note that he’s up for re-election next year anyway, so this nonsense about the recall is just a gigantic waste of time and money in California – fueled simply by the hatred that angry Right Wingers hold for Dem officeholders.)
Regarding the people who died during COVID, Andrew Cuomo did not kill them. He made the best and most responsible calls he could, with the information we had in hand at each moment. This information changed as we learned more about the issues. Angry Right Wingers want to pin the issues on Cuomo rather than admit that he was responding to those issues. I note that angry Right Wingers are suspiciously quiet about the skyrocketing numbers in Florida these days – which are numbers that really can be attributed to the willful negligence of DeSantis. I fervently hope that the residents of Florida will show up to vote in much stronger numbers for the next gubernatorial election, as Florida is in increasingly bad shape under DeSantis.
“Does enjoyment matter when you are assaulting women?” Why else would someone do it? It’s a perverse sort of pleasure, to be sure.
Before you criticize Kayleigh McEnany, who deserves to be criticized, check your own words. Your point?
HOWEVER, the evidence is that he enjoyed making women feel uncomfortable. It was just a little bit of fun for him. So far as I understand, he’s accused mainly for inappropriate touching. When I was a sweet young thing, women were told to put up with it … and to make sure they were never caught alone with such “jokers”. It’s been a long struggle, and I thank all the feminists, from the Suffragettes to the MeToo movement, for the fact that women feel emboldened to demand respect.
I remember how, when I was a teen, I didn’t feel “dirty” if one uncle gave me a hug but would disappear into the slough if his brother drove into the yard. Being a touchy-feely man is clearly not for the likes of Andrew Cuomo.
That said, I feel that we must be aware (beware) of the risk of becoming overly touchy because life without our men would not be livable, would it?