Herschel Walker & The Anonymous Accuser
Herschel Walker’s accuser is indeed anonymous. But Walker undeniably knows who she is, and he’s known her identity since the drip torture over the abortion affair that is plaguing him began. And, because he tells us that he doesn’t know her, he is evidently a deliberate liar (unless he took too many hits to the head without a helmet during his football days). And it would appear likely that pretty much everyone, including his ardently pro-life supporters, knows that he’s lying — whether they choose to acknowledge it or not.
How could it really be otherwise? At first, the woman who accuses him (let’s call her X) claimed that long before he became a Senate candidate he encouraged her to have an abortion to terminate a pregnancy that had resulted from sex with him. In fact, she presented The Daily Beast with a check purportedly signed by him (how stupid on Walker’s part was that?) and a “get well” card initialed by Walker. Days later apparently, she told Politico that she had subsequently also mothered a child by Walker.
Still later, she told The New York Times that Walker had asked her to have a second abortion that would have prevented that birth but she refused (for whatever reason) — resulting in the now 10 year old child mentioned by Politico. And, supporting her words to the media, X had previously sued Walker, making him responsible for court-ordered child support payments to her. And so, make no mistake about it, Walker knows exactly who the woman is — after all, a court directed that he pay her, according to the Times’ reporting! We don’t even have to rely on Walker’s gossamer-like denials to realize he’s lying.
For her part — and this isn’t intended as a criticism of X — she says she went public to the media (while insisting on anonymity) because she was offended by Walker’s hypocrisy in his pro-life stand opposing a woman’s private right to choose across the board, while at the same time encouraging at least two abortions when it has suited Walker’s own financial and potentially political needs.
X certainly has a right to insist on the confidentiality of her identity in making (what seem to be) credible assertions to the media. She presumably managed to accomplish that with journalists because X presented corroboration that, incidentally, the media has apparently seen but hasn’t published other than in narrative. And X’s stated reason for anonymity was to protect her family — presumably the ten-year-old child. And maybe, who knows, X has other children too who might be exposed.
Still, is it fair that X has been allowed to remain anonymous, given the strength of the story? Not that Walker, in particular, necessarily deserves “fairness” given his obvious lies and evasions — however odious the allegations. Walker seeks high public office and his actions warrant close scrutiny. In addition, his denials seem patently false. One can hardly see him as a sympathetic figure given how he has responded to this scandal. Yet to scrutinize the story from one side only is difficult.
Is it “fair” to the public? Think about the precedent being set here. Walker, a staunch conservative and darling of the right who is trying to help regain the Senate for the Republicans, is being attacked largely in the liberal media. The attack originates, and continues, from an anonymous source whose veracity simply can’t adequately be challenged by Walker’s supporters in the conservative world. Simply put, for obvious reasons, they likely don’t know who X is.
And, if they do, they have chosen deliberately not to talk to her or at least report what she says, as doing so might actually establish for their readership what The Daily Beast, Politico and the Times have said — that Walker is an out-and-out scoundrel. Yes, maybe they don’t “know” if X had other suitors and sex partners that might impact her credibility. They don’t “know,” for sure, whether X actually had an abortion encouraged or financed by Walker. The press, in protecting the woman’s anonymity, preclude an inquiry into her history. We can’t know from their reportage whether she has testified falsely in paternity cases against other men. They don’t “know,” for sure, if X’s conduct is a consummate effort to simply harm Walker and his reputation — no matter what the Daily Beast, Politico and the Times have reported.
However, most important, the “right” half of the country isn’t hearing anything but the Walker party line from outlets (like Fox) that it finds credible. Indeed, it’s certainly not The Beast, Politico or the Times that that half of the country relies on for accurate reportage.
Yes, X is “probably” not talking or even available to the media’s right wing, assuming the right wing actually wants to talk to her. Shouldn’t, though, the media’s ability to talk to sources or informers who have chosen, for whatever reason, to come forward be on a level playing field? Isn’t that the optimal way for the truth to come out? Lest it go unsaid, the next time around the conservative media may be willing, in good faith, to employ an anonymous source to put the wood to a progressive Democrat who finds himself confronted with a sex or financial scandal (whether the accusations are meritorious or not).
Unquestionably, the media should be free to employ anonymous sources when necessary. Sunlight is, indeed, the best of disinfectants, as Justice Brandeis told us so long ago, and anonymous sources may help eliminate the stench. Here, though, X seems available to a number of outlets that are influencers for only half of American society. Coming forward as she has to so many outlets, she really shouldn’t be accorded the ability to have her cake and eat it too.
And if responsible journalists in the right-wing media know precisely who she is and refuse to somehow report what she has to say, shame on them!
