Patterico's Pontifications

10/26/2021

No, Jonathan Chait: I Don’t Want McAuliffe to Win, and Here’s Why

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:29 am



Jonathan Chait:

If Terry McAuliffe holds on to defeat Glenn Youngkin in the Virginia governor’s race, a large number of Republicans will blame Donald Trump. McAuliffe has assiduously tied Youngkin to Trump. Youngkin has followed a careful strategy of appealing to both Trump cultists and moderates. Should he lose, it would be a proof point that blue-state Republicans can’t keep a foot in both camps. They would have to denounce the former president more forcefully to gain the credibility they need to win statewide office, a step that would erode Trump’s influence over the party.

So a McAuliffe win would be a devastating blow for Trump’s power base within the Republican Party. Yet here is a funny thing. Nobody within the Republican Party, not even the Republicans who complain about his influence, wants this outcome.

What’s the reason for this curious choice? It’s not that mainstream Republicans are morons. They’re perfectly aware of the stakes Trump has in the race. But they have other, normal Republican reasons to prefer a Youngkin victory: They would end Democratic control of Virginia, throw a scare into national Democrats, help their own fundraising, and so on. And faced with a choice between advancing normal Republican politics and prying their party loose from Trump’s grip, they are picking door No. 1 en masse.

I have not followed this race closely, but from what I know, I am one of the people Chait describes, who complains about Trump’s influence but wants Youngkin to win. Why? First and foremost, because McAuliffe is vile. He is a scumbag relic of the Clinton years and he needs to be gone. Second, because I think it’s healthy for Democrats to try to put forth decent candidates and become reasonable on the issues, rather than think they can win elections simply by pointing to Donald Trump. McAuliffe walked out of an interview in the middle, chiding the reporter by saying he should have asked better questions. But the questions he had already been asked were perfectly reasonable:

The questions Minock did have the opportunity to ask McAuliffe were about his declaration that he doesn’t “think parents should be telling schools what to teach,” the Biden administration’s decision to involve the FBI in disputes between parents and school boards, how he would allocate resources to lower the violent crime rate in Virginia, and vaccine mandates.

McAuliffe didn’t like being challenged. He wanted to say “Youngkin=Trump” 100 times and dust off his hands.

Joe Biden will be watching this race closely. And he needs to get his [scatalogical reference deleted] together and realize that he can’t govern like a radical leftist idiot for four years and just expect to sail to re-election because the other guy is Donald Trump.

Maybe the Democrats have their own lessons to learn from this race too, is my point.

64 Responses to “No, Jonathan Chait: I Don’t Want McAuliffe to Win, and Here’s Why”

  1. As a voter living in Virginia, I’m appalled by the McAuliffe campaign. He was governor here for six years and should be able to run on his record. His choice to run against Trump indicates what many of us already figured out – his interests lie in Washington, DC, not in Virginia.

    With all that, his opponent has already admitted that his campaign does not reflect who he is or how he expects to govern. We are faced with a choice of the lesser of two lessers.

    John B Boddie (9f8361)

  2. First and foremost, because McAuliffe is vile. He is a scumbag relic of the Clinton years and he needs to be gone.

    I, personally, cannot think of a better reason for voting for the other guy no matter his politics. 😉

    nk (1d9030)

  3. obama to the rescue:

    “We don’t have time to be wasting on these phony trumped-up culture wars, this fake outrage that right-wing media peddles to juice their ratings,” Obama said while campaigning for Democrat Terry McAuliffe on Saturday. He accused Youngkin of avoiding “serious problems that affect serious people” and suggested that outrage over the actions of school boards is unjustified.

    “Instead of stoking anger aimed at school boards and administrators, who are just trying to keep our kids safe… we should be making it easier for teachers and schools to give our kids the world-class education they deserve, and to do so safely while they are in the classroom,” Obama said.

    here’s a fake outrage update:

    Judge Rules Loudoun County Teen Sexually Assaulted Female Student in Girls’ Bathroom

    JF (e1156d)

  4. The old rule used to be that all politics is local. I think Chait is ignoring that here. It also looks like both Youngkin and McAuliffe are as well.

    It’s entirely possible that no R, no matter how free from Trump overspray, would be able to beat any D in VA, no matter how bad that D is. For the US House a quick check says VA is 7 D’s and 4 R’s and if I remember VA has been trending blue due to swamp seepage.

    frosty (f27e97)

  5. McAulifee defended Bill Clinton’s sleaze, wall-to-wall. There’s no excuse for the guy.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  6. Door #3, by electing Youngkin, you advance a plausible NotTrump R presidential candidate for 2024. Let’s hope he doesn’t get waylaid by a corruption probe like Bob McDonnell prior to 2012.

    urbanleftbehind (369d20)

  7. First and foremost, because McAuliffe is vile. He is a scumbag relic of the Clinton years and he needs to be gone.

    Change the name and gender there, and you’ll get the reason so many of us voted for Trump in the first place….

    Edoc118 (f6616a)

  8. The Democrats seem to believe that winning an election on being never-trump entitles them to govern like they are LBJ who just demolished Goldwater. It’s likely a narrow victory (my prediction) will not slow the Progressives down and they will be smashed in 2022.

    But if the GOP wins. What lesson will they have learned? Since the GOP is Trump, it will just prove to them 2020 was fraud, big fraud, and the only way to prevent fraud is to commit fraud. Because 2020 is all Trump cares about.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  9. #7 The problem wasn’t the first place. It was the second place…

    Appalled (1a17de)

  10. I am a very amateur political analyst, and a Virginian resident, so here is my take:

    Don’t underestimate Northern Virginian voters who are watching what is happening in Loudon County. If Youngkin wins, that means he gets a chunk of NoVa voters that Trump did not. And a lot of that chunk, IMO, will come from McAuliffe’s comment about parents having a say in their children’s education, and Loudon County.

    Especially now that information has come out that Loudon County has covered up sexual assault cases in Loudon County schools, especially ones involving a boy dressing as a girl and raping girls in the restroom.

    Hoi Polloi (ade50d)

  11. Didn’t McAuliffe refuse to accept the results of a couple of elections as well? Hillary in 2016 and Kemp over Abrams?

    Why yes. Yes he did.

    Maybe he should campaign with Trump on election fraud…

    Hoi Polloi (ade50d)

  12. He (McAuliffe) was governor here for six years……

    McAuliffe was governor from 2014-2018, or four years.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  13. #12 Yes, Rip, that’s correct. I apologize for the error.

    John B Boddie (9f8361)

  14. Everyone is looking at the CA recall as some kind of example, but the GOP would have lost that recall if there never was a Donald Trump. The party would still going on about other lost causes (immigration, abortion, gay rights, etc) that have passed them by in the state. Sure, without a Trumpatross around their necks, they might have run a moderate Republican. But they wouldn’t have.

    But let the Democrats think that their model is real and that they can Trump the Republicans in purple states and win despite their policies. All it really takes is a sane Republican as governor to make policy matter again.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  15. his interests lie in Washington, DC, not in Virginia.

    Currently, the following states (L to R) have joined the Popular Vote Compact, a project of the national Democrat Party:

    HI *
    WA *
    OR *
    CA *
    CO *
    NM *
    IL *
    MD *
    DC x
    DE *
    NJ *
    NY *
    VT *
    MA *
    CT *
    RI *

    NV (passed both houses, vetoed in 2019 with R governor)

    (* = Democrat party control of legislature and governor when enacted)

    A few Democrat-controlled states (VA, ME, NV) have not yet passed this thing, but not for lack of trying. The National Democrat Party sees this as a way to endure winning the WH every time and does not care one little bit about weakening their own state’s clout.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  16. The left is already asking why the democrat party establishment is running another corrupt clintonite stooge.

    asset (7a95b7)

  17. Here’s what the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank says about the Virginia race:

    GLEN ALLEN, Va. — They sanitized the event space. They scrubbed the speeches. The campaign of Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin eliminated virtually any indication that Donald Trump had ever existed. Instead, Youngkin invoked George W. Bush’s line about the “soft bigotry of low expectations” and stole a joke of John McCain’s.

    But while Youngkin banished Trump, he could not wash away the stench of Trumpism.

    Milbank ends with: “But underneath it’s Trumpism through and through.”

    Obviously, I didn’t see the whole event, and I haven’t followed the race closely, but, judging just by that column, it looks to me as if Youngkin is mixing traditional Republican themes with some Trump talk.

    And I have no idea what this says about how he would govern.

    (Alas, Milbank does not share that McCain joke with us.)

    Jim Miller (edcec1)

  18. It’s Chait. The article is wishcasting and moralizing poorly disguised as ‘analysis’ from start to finish. If McAuliffe wins, it’ll be the way he’s always won: suspiciously high vote numbers from the suburban counties bordering DC at the 11th hour.

    “Should he lose, it would be a proof point that blue-state Republicans can’t keep a foot in both camps. They would have to denounce the former president more forcefully to gain the credibility they need to win statewide office…”

    All of it in the breathless tones of someone who is definitely advocating for YOUR position and not his!

    “faced with a choice between advancing normal Republican politics and prying their party loose from Trump’s grip, they are picking door No. 1 en masse.”

    FACED WITH A CHOICE BETWEEN RECKLESSLY ATTACKING THE MAN WHOSE PRESENCE INSPIRED UNEXPECTED AND UNPRECEDENTED HOUSE SEAT CLAWBACKS IN BLUE ZONES ACROSS THE COUNTY IN ALL RACES TOO LOCAL TO BE EFFECTIVELY DEFRAUDED AT THE STATE LEVEL AND ADVOCATING FOR BASIC NON-INSANE REPUBLICAN POLITICS, REPUBLICANS ELECT NOT TO THROW THEMSELVES ON THEIR SWORDS AT THE URGING OF THEIR ENEMIES.

    I have not seen a single study that pointed to denouncing Trump as a proven vote-getter in any state, it’s entirely a before and after-the-fact justification. Terry serves the Democrat DC cabal that provides his campaign all the money and votes it needs, full stop. Chait is a shameless shill for the party who’s analysis doesn’t begin to rise to the level of impartial. No other understanding is necessary, justifiable, or sufficient.

    Haidt N0T Chait (47be2d)

  19. “Joe Biden will be watching this race closely.”

    Assuming facts not in evidence, counselor.

    Can anyone be sure what Joe Biden does after 5 p.m.?

    B.A. DuBois (80f588)

  20. Can anyone be sure what Joe Biden does after 5 p.m.?

    I’m pretty sure that unless someone is working the remote controls he’s standing in jet pack mode.

    frosty (f27e97)

  21. Yup, maybe even an older Miles Teller (can’t believe he’s the new Maverick in the TG reboot also).

    urbanleftbehind (fcc81f)

  22. Daily Beast – Terry McAuliffe Said More Than 1,100 Kids Were Hospitalized With COVID. There Were 35.

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/terry-mcauliffe-said-more-than-1100-kids-were-hospitalized-with-covid-there-were-35

    Terry McAuliffe on school choice: “I will never allow that as governor.”

    “McAuliffe exclusively attended private schools and sent all 5 of his children to private schools…But as VA’s former governor, he vetoed 9 school choice bills…3 in 2016 and 6 in 2017, blocking access to educational options for less advantaged families.”

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/democrats-teachable-moment

    If you can support Biden, you can surely support McAuliffe.

    Obudman (97e6be)

  23. @17 Milbank highlights the versatility of “Trumpism” as a label. It’s the flexibility of “wink-wink nudge-nudge say no more”. It’s the vague term that you never have to define and that can be slapped on anything.

    frosty (f27e97)

  24. When they tried to pass vouchers in Colorado, the opposition ran ads that pretty much said “DO you want these black and brown kids in your child’s private school?” It lost.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  25. NEW Virginia Governor’s Race Poll:
    (Parents of K-12 Children)

    Terry McAuliffe: 39%
    Glenn Youngkin: 56%

    https://twitter.com/deangeliscorey/status/1453181258582921222?s=21

    Obudman (97e6be)

  26. @25 There’s nothing more bipartisan than good old fashioned racism.

    frosty (f27e97)

  27. @20, Frosty that was hilarious!

    Time123 (f95a66)

  28. @25, the conservatives who want to use public funds for private schools all seem to stall out at the idea That private schools would have to accept all applicants.

    Time123 (f95a66)

  29. @29 I guess this comes down to how much you trust the market. If you trust the market there’s no reason to worry one way or the other. I think not trusting the market is also a fairly bipartisan issue.

    frosty (f27e97)

  30. It’s sort of like the yes/no to accepting refugee question we saw with Afghans this summer and may see on order of magnitude larger with Taiwan. While the latter is much less a threat with violent terrorism and is better able to hold it’s own economic ly, there are significant corners of conservatism that would not want to entertain a mass asylum of Taiwanese in the event of a PRC takeover

    urbanleftbehind (bb70b8)

  31. @31 Again, a bipartisan issue. The difference is just in the details. There doesn’t “appear” to be non-conservative opposition because 1) the people loudly proclaiming this as a “conservative” issue do not expect refugees to be located near them and 2) a willing media that is happy to help with framing.

    frosty (f27e97)

  32. “Biden in Arlington, Va.: “Extremism can come in many forms. It can come in the rage driven to assault the Capitol. It can come in a smile and a fleece vest.””

    “Glenn Youngkin is basically a suburban Republican dad running on Mitt Romney themes with a side of please don’t cover up assaults in our schools or teach kids to sort each other by skin color. And Biden says he’s a Capitol rioter.”

    Onudman (97e6be)

  33. @26 no kidding

    Loudoun County students walk out to protest school district’s handling of alleged sexual assaults

    students now

    this is getting out of hand

    where is merrick garland?

    JF (e1156d)

  34. “”It can come in a smile and a fleece vest.””

    I think Rick Santorin was last seen on some dumb cable news channel with a lot of gay dudes.

    urbanleftbehind (bb70b8)

  35. Q. If ordinary people are not competent to decide what their children are taught in school (and we’re talking not about one person, but the consensus or majority) then why should they vote for public officials? Maybe only college graduates should vote, then.

    But if course, it’s average pinion, and people who can’t vote, if different than those who do, don’t have their interests taken into account.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  36. The rape took place on May 28, the fatyher was disruotive at ameeting on June 22 (the boy was arested 8 days afgter that I guess)

    The prosecutor personally took charge of the case and demanded jail time for the father but he received only a 10-day suspended sentence. (the boy was let out without bail and transfered to another school. The second rape took place in October.)

    The letter from the National School Board Association, which was not authorized, was prepared in consultation e=with White ouse staff. It was astroturfing. They evidently felt they needed some referral to open up investigations of anti-transgender pro separate bathrooms domestic terrorism or whatever – otherwise it would look political. The White House is not supposed to open up criminal nvestigations..

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  37. , because McAuliffe is vile. He is a scumbag relic of the Clinton years and he needs to be gone.

    I think so, but am a bit surprised so many other people do. It does not seem to be mentioned in major media.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  38. But someone bad can create new things.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  39. @39 But someone bad can create new things.

    True, but what sort of things?

    John B Boddie (9f8361)

  40. I mean he or she can create new grounds for distrust.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  41. About the boy who raped the girl in the bathroom.

    he girl had agreed to meet him there, but not to have sex. The boy went into the bathroom dressed in a skirt.

    Evidently, he was not classified as a girl, but was regarded by the school board, at least later, as gender fluid. That’s also a new sex. The board was defending the right of children to switch sexes as often as they wanted to, and if one day, he felt more like a girl, he could go into the girl’s bathroom.

    His defense to the rape charge was that it was consensual. (It wouldn’t be considered statutory rape anywhere because he was too close in age to the girl even if the law did not formally make that exception. Although that exception may have a shaky legal foundation.)

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  42. @42 This brings up an interesting question, one that should be asked to every Supreme Court nominee.

    “What constitutes a right?”

    Right to keep and bear arms – Right to life – Right of privacy – Right of free speech – Right to vote – Right to work

    What is the common thread here?

    John B Boddie (9f8361)

  43. the conservatives who want to use public funds for private schools all seem to stall out at the idea That private schools would have to accept all applicants.

    I don’t see that, to be honest. At one time “conservative” meant “segregationist” but that hasn’t been true for a long time. Maybe Trump has resurrected it by bringing all such into his fold, but that doesn’t mean that past efforts were so tainted.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  44. McAuliffe is *awful* and Dems deserve a drubbing. They still haven’t learned anything from 2016. Esp Michigan in 2016.

    JRH (52aed3)

  45. @42 My understanding was slightly different. I understood that they had meet in the bathroom for sex before but the boy in the dress wanted a certain kind of sex the girl wasn’t agreeing to. She disagreed this time as well but the girl has some physical issues that make it easy for the boy in the dress to do whatever he wants.

    I think the real issue is the school district tried to cover up the rape. They’re using the trans issue to muddy the waters. Saying this is a right wing thing because the right hates the trans.

    The boy has some serious issues and I’m not talking about the dress. That’s just a symptom.

    frosty (f27e97)

  46. @46, reporting from Jesse Singal showed that the school reported the assault to the police as soon as they were aware of It and the police promptly opened an investigation. I’m honestly not clear what the cover up is….were they keeping the facts from the public? Reporting on this has been bad so it’s hard to know.

    To be clear though, just because the girl and the boy were intimate in some way in the past doesn’t make this not a rape or what happened to her any less tragic.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  47. #45

    I think our political factions have lost the ability to learn lessons from their deserved drubbings. The GOP seems to think the best response to 2020 is yet more Trump. The Woke wing will likely believe the answer to any drubbing they get is up the woke to 11 and ban Fox News.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  48. @47 A report to the police and keeping facts from the public can both be true. And there may be good reason for that. Again, my understanding was they were doing everything possible to keep the local community from being aware of any problems within the district and this was just one of the instances. For example, I think at one point they were claiming there were no rapes or sexual assaults within the district at all. I wouldn’t say the reporting has been bad as much as it’s been intentionally misleading on both sides.

    The coverup is the school district claiming that what they are doing is in the best interest of the local community and then lying about that to protect themselves because it isn’t.

    @48 I thought we were already at 11 and the knob had been ripped off. Lord help us if there is more room on the dial.

    frosty (f27e97)

  49. I wouldn’t say the reporting has been bad as much as it’s been intentionally misleading on both sides.

    I think ‘bad’ is a decent description of. “intentionally misleading reporting”

    But I get it, we’re mostly agreeing here and it’s more fun to argue. 😉

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  50. @50 the school board and superintendent lied about the rape

    the parent speaking the truth was dragged out and arrested, while the suspect student (later found guilty) was transferred to another school where he committed another assault

    the victim of the first assault is now on public trial by #BelieveWomen sorts because the facts aren’t convenient

    the victim of the second assault is on deck

    people who don’t like the story are blaming misleading media

    those are the facts so far

    JF (e1156d)

  51. #49

    When we speak of the Woke, Shakespeare (hasn’t he been cancelled yet?) comes to mind…

    “The worst is not, So long as we can say, ‘This is the worst.'”

    Appalled (1a17de)

  52. JF, as usual, you’ve misunderstood the conversation and left out facts.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  53. @53 you don’t counter the facts i presented

    you only claim i left out facts, which you don’t provide yourself

    as usual, you have nothing

    JF (e1156d)

  54. 49. frosty (f27e97) — 10/29/2021 @ 7:31 am

    47 A report to the police and keeping facts from the public can both be true.

    They could be done by different people.

    I wouldn’t say the reporting has been bad as much as it’s been intentionally misleading on both sides.

    It s hard to find any neutral and accurate reporting.

    This is a nit quite contemporary account of the scuffle: (dating to the time of the trial of the father. It doesn;t tell you much about what this was all about)

    https://loudounnow.com/2021/08/17/smith-found-guilty-in-school-board-scuffle (first archived in the Internet archive on August 17) Scott Smith was dragged to the ground by county deputies as tempers flared at the June 22 School Board meeting, egged on by protests against new state-mandated protections for transgender students.

    According to testimony in the Aug. 17 District Court trial, Smith was arrested during an argument with a woman for whose daughter Smith’s wife had been a Girl Scout leader. Deputies dragged him to the ground, then outside, where he continued struggling and arguing with them, threatening to kick their teeth out. He was taken to the Adult Detention Center and charged with the two misdemeanors.

    Smith’s attorney, Elizabeth Lancaster of Leesburg firm Whitbeck Bennett, argued his actions up that point—arguing loudly, clenching his fist, leaning toward and swearing at the woman—did not constitute disorderly conduct. Therefore, she argued, he was unlawfully detained, which is not illegal to resist, and all charges should be dropped.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  55. Frosty and Sammy, A good timeline of events would be an interesting read. It can somewhat be pieced together, but I haven’t a seen one compiled. It would also be interesting to understand what the internal reporting on the assaults were and if the districts policy was followed. But again, I haven’t seen that put together in a single place.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  56. @53 you don’t counter the facts i presented

    you only claim i left out facts, which you don’t provide yourself

    as usual, you have nothing

    JF (e1156d) — 10/29/2021 @ 9:01 am

    I wasn’t trying to refute something you said, i was dismissing it as too incomplete and off base to bother with. I keep forgetting how much you need things spelled out.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  57. Here is a New York Times piece by a columnist:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/opinion/loudoun-county-trans.html

    …however, Smith revealed why he’d been so distraught. In an interview with The Daily Wire, a website co-founded by the conservative wunderkind Ben Shapiro, Smith said that his ninth-grade daughter had been sexually assaulted in a school bathroom by a boy wearing a skirt. Smith was opposed to a proposed policy allowing trans kids to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identities, believing it made girls like his daughter vulnerable.

    “The point is kids are using it as an advantage to get into the bathrooms,” he told the reporter, Luke Rosiak.

    By the time Smith spoke to Rosiak, the story had become even uglier. In July, the boy was arrested in the attack on Smith’s daughter and charged with two counts of forcible sodomy. But pending a hearing, he was allowed to enroll at another high school while wearing an ankle monitor. In early October he was arrested again, this time for allegedly forcing a girl into an empty classroom and touching her inappropriately.

    ….But this week, during a juvenile court hearing, a fuller picture of Smith’s daughter’s ordeal emerged. She suffered something atrocious. It had nothing at all to do, however, with trans bathroom policies. Instead, like many women and girls, she was a victim of relationship violence.

    Smith’s daughter testified that she’d previously had two consensual sexual encounters with her attacker in the school bathroom. On the day of her assault, they’d agreed to meet up again. “The evidence was that the girl chose that bathroom, but her intent was to talk to him, not to engage in sexual relations,” Biberaj, whose office prosecuted the case, told me. The boy, however, expected sex and refused to accept the girl’s refusal. As the The Washington Post reported, she testified, “He flipped me over. I was on the ground and couldn’t move and he sexually assaulted me.”

    The boy was indeed wearing a skirt, but that skirt didn’t authorize him to use the girls’ bathroom. As Amanda Terkel reported in HuffPost, the school district’s trans-inclusive bathroom policies were approved only in August, more than two months after the assault. This was not, said Biberaj, someone “identifying as transgender and going into the girls’ bathroom under the guise of that.”

    The skirt apparently was to avoid school rules, not comply with them.

    Buta Biberaj, the Commonwealth attorney who prosecuted Smith, says the boy couldn’t be detained for more than 21 days withot a hearing and she didn’t want to have a hearing without a DNA test (?) and she couldn’t get back the results in less than 21 days (even if she tried??) and she didn’t want to hold him and then release him, and so she just obtained an order of protection which necessitated him going to a different school, He also had to wear an ankle monitor.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  58. Sammy, I hadn’t seen that story. Thank you for providing it.

    In retrospect he shouldn’t have been allowed in another school, but I’m thinking about how to square that with a presume of innocence and right to sue process.

    I don’t think expelling everyone accused of a sexual assault prior to trial would be a good policy.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  59. https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/virginia-school-superintendent-knew-of-bathroom-rape-before-he-publicly-denied-knowledge

    No “record of assaults occurring in our restrooms,” Scott Ziegler said weeks after he informed school board of allegations I suppose his justification for saying that would be that it was not confirmed yet by a judge’s determination, so it wasn’t recorded as such yet. Or maybe he considered it not to be lie because he denied there had been “assaults” – plural – and there was only one. Or maybe because they were talking of assaults by boys pretending to be girls, but the girl knew he was a boy.

    …” Ziegler cited a 2016 Time magazine article claiming that transgender students who used bathrooms based on their “gender identity” did not pose a threat to their peers.

    “The data was simply not playing out that transgender students were more likely to assault cisgender students in restrooms than were other students,” Ziegler said at the June 22 meeting. “In fact, regardless of the gender or gender identity of a student, if a crime or a violation of the rules is committed that would be investigated and dealt with to the full extent of the rules or the law.”

    If…..?

    During that meeting, school officials debated a series of rules to protect transgender students—one of which would allow Loudoun County students to use restrooms based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex. The school board approved the guidelines in August..

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  60. A record “of assaults” would not be a record of assaults unless there had been at least two, so I think the superintendent is on safe ground here.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  61. @61, Sammy, saying assaults means more then 1is the *worst* possible explanation. It would mean he was being intentionally deceptive. I think either of the other explanations reflect better on him, but if he meant assaults by transgendered people he should have made that distinction. Although I’d like to read his remarks in context if that’s what he was intending he should have made it clear.

    I think waiting on the court decision is probably the least bad explanation, but still not a good one.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  62. I’m repeating comment 59 with better spelling

    Sammy, I hadn’t seen that story. Thank you for providing it.

    In retrospect he shouldn’t have been allowed in another school, but I’m thinking about how to square that with a presumption of innocence and right to due process.

    I don’t think expelling everyone accused of a sexual assault prior to trial would be a good policy.

    Time123 (9f42ee) — 10/29/2021 @ 9:37 am

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  63. Time123 (9f42ee) — 10/29/2021 @ 9:56 am @61,

    Sammy, saying assaults means more then 1is the *worst* possible explanation. It would mean he was being intentionally deceptive.

    It would depend on what they were actually discussing. The parents may have said that there was a problem already. An isolated (freak?) incident is not a problem. It would be easy to slip into following the scenario of the question. Especially since the scenario wasn’t exactly what they feared could result from the new proposed bathroom policy. But then, who knows if there really was just one?

    But I would say that he’s quoted as saying something that is more deceptive:

    From the Free Beacon story @60:

    “The data was simply not playing out that transgender students were more likely to assault cisgender students in restrooms than were other students,” Ziegler said at the June 22 meeting. “In fact, regardless of the gender or gender identity of a student, if a crime or a violation of the rules is committed that would be investigated and dealt with to the full extent of the rules or the law.”

    If…..?

    There was a crime that was being investigated. Except that he wasn’t talking about schools in their school district, but schools in general. But then how can he vouch for other school districts all across the country?

    Now there is a question if allowing students who identify as the opposite gender to use the other bathroom could contribute to rape. He argued that transgender students weren;t more likely to rape girls. Well, probably true if many were genuine.

    The question is faking it. This case may not be an instance of that, since what the boy was doing was disguising himself, not openly going in there – this was the way they used to meet in secret. Two times they had sex – this time the girl wanted to meet with him in secret, in the same place they always met, but probably to break up with him. Maybe because he was pushig her too much for sex,

    I think either of the other explanations reflect better on him, but if he meant assaults by transgendered people he should have made that distinction. Although I’d like to read his remarks in context if that’s what he was intending he should have made it clear.

    Somewhere there should be more context, or a tape.

    I think waiting on the court decision is probably the least bad explanation, but still not a good one.

    I don’t know. He may have been talking of national statistics, in which case assaults means a statistically significant increase.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)


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