by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n Almost everyone who has written about Strauss-Kahn has, quite correctly, used the adjective \u201callegedly\u201d in relation to the charges against him, which are as yet unproven in a court of law.<\/p>\n But most of that earlier critique \u2014 prior to these new, equally unproven allegations about his accuser \u2014 was not predicated just on the factual question of whether sexual congress (and I do not think there has been any new evidence on the alleged finding of physical evidence to that fact) had been achieved through force. It had at least as much to do with the sordid spectacle of an IMF grandee and self-avowed socialist engaging in sexual acts with an immigrant maid in a $3,000-a-night New York luxury hotel room, the defendant already tagged with an apparent reputation for past sexual indiscretions.<\/p>\n Whether she proves to be a prostitute with a sordid past and a slick\u00a0modus operandi<\/em>, whether the mess hinges on arguments over money, whether Strauss-Kahn is released from all criminal liability due to proof of consent, or an absence of money exchanging hands, whether he is let go, Spitzer-style, with the finding that the end of a career trumps the trouble of filing misdemeanor charges of solicitation \u2014 what bothered most observers still remains:<\/p>\n First, we were given a rare glimpse of the otherwise discreet lifestyle of an aristocratic socialist, and we learned that the life he practices in no way approximates the ideology of equality of result that he embraces.<\/p>\n Second, European lectures about power imbalances, the corrupting influence of money and privilege, etc., do not exactly square with quickie sexual acts \u2014 even if mutually consensual, or paid for \u2014 in a luxury hotel room with a randomly met West African immigrant maid.<\/p>\n Third, we assume that the most powerful men on the planet, whether governors of New York and California, the president of the United States, or the head of the International Monetary Fund, have an obligation not to let their private lives intrude into their public ones, by reckless sexual behavior of the sort that lessens respect for the office and questions their judgment to such a degree that it affects the lives of those they are pledged to serve.<\/p>\n If the preponderance of evidence in the accuser\u2019s past soon undermines her credibility to such an extent that her word cannot be used against Strauss-Kahn, then we will still be left with a controversy. It will simply be a matter, not of legality, but of Strauss-Kahn\u2019s judgment, morality, and hypocrisy \u2014 as is usually the case in high-profile sexual scandals.<\/p>\n So, to recap: To prove his innocence, if the forensic evidence of a sex act turns up, Strauss-Kahn will either have to prove that a young maid he just met was quite willing, in\u00a0ad hoc<\/em>\u00a0fashion in a few minutes between work, to have sex with an older, plump foreign stranger; or that he, in fact, paid money as he may have promised. Either way, I don\u2019t see how that justifies the cries of vindication that we hear coming across from the Atlantic. And no need to mention, as feminists quite rightly remind us, that a past of prostitution, or sexual indiscretion, or some such skullduggery, does not\u00a0ipsis factis<\/em>, prove that in a moment of passion, sexual force was not used.<\/p>\n So as these rumors continue to surface and are spun, we still await to learn whether DSK is guilty of a criminal act, or merely remains a fool and a hypocrite.<\/p>\n \u00a92011 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner Almost everyone who has written about Strauss-Kahn has, quite correctly, used the adjective \u201callegedly\u201d in relation to the charges against him, which are as yet unproven in a court of law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[508],"tags":[1044,594,1018],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Fa","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3068,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/dsks-technocratic-socialism\/","url_meta":{"origin":2552,"position":0},"title":"DSK’s Technocratic Socialism","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 22, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0 The Corner The bizarre story of socialist IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn was almost storybook: The socialist guardian, now facing sordid sexual-battery charges, we are told, was slumming in a $3,000 per night hotel, with an understanding that he can show up at any time at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Public Figures"","block_context":{"text":"Public Figures","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/public-figures\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3083,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-teachable-moment-on-american-european-faultlines\/","url_meta":{"origin":2552,"position":1},"title":"A Teachable Moment on American-European Faultlines","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner The full story is not out on Dominique Strauss-Kahn and he is innocent of forcible sexual battery until proven guilty, but already the case has exposed an ancient abyss between European elite and American popular cultures \u2014 accentuated by the differences between New York\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Public Figures"","block_context":{"text":"Public Figures","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/public-figures\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2752,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/collapse-of-a-rotten-edifice\/","url_meta":{"origin":2552,"position":2},"title":"Collapse of a Rotten Edifice","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Nemesis is always hot on the trail of hubris, across time and space, and the goddess has been particularly busy in destroying the carefully crafted images of Bono, John Edwards, Timothy Geithner, Al Gore, Eliot Spitzer, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Anthony Weiner, and a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Political Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/political-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11433,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/fallout-from-the-kavanaugh-hearings-a-permanent-cloud\/","url_meta":{"origin":2552,"position":3},"title":"Fallout from the Kavanaugh Hearings: A Permanent Cloud?","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Conventional wisdom suggests that, if confirmed, Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh forever will be \u201csmeared\u201d and stained by past frenzied unfounded allegations of sexual assault. Yet the opposite just as well may be true. As a Supreme Court justice, Kavanaugh would have withstood every imaginable\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Kavanaugh"","block_context":{"text":"Kavanaugh","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/kavanaugh\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1637,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-true-significance-of-herman-cains-sexual-harassment-troubles\/","url_meta":{"origin":2552,"position":4},"title":"The True Significance of Herman Cain’s Sexual Harassment Troubles","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine We can\u2019t say much about the veracity of the sexual harassment complaints leveled against Herman Cain 15 years ago, given the lack of specific detail or even the names of the accusers. But this mini-scandal provides an opportunity to revisit one of the most\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8066,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-end-of-feminism\/","url_meta":{"origin":2552,"position":5},"title":"The End of Feminism","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 5, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ Defining Ideas California recently passed a law requiring that sexual encounters between students in universities and colleges can proceed only on the basis of \u201caffirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement.\u201d Failure to resist or to ask the partner to stop the encounter can no longer be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Defining Ideas"","block_context":{"text":"Defining Ideas","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/defining-ideas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2552"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2552"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2554,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2552\/revisions\/2554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}