When the war against Iran barged onto center stage, all things Epstein quietly slipped behind the curtain. But that sleazy drama still has much to teach.
As I showed here, the Jeffrey Epstein matter isn’t about the welfare of the young women involved. The press has never cared a tinker’s “damn” about underage sex workers and it doesn’t now. Compassion for the young women on Epstein’s island is nothing but a journalistic hook.
So what is it about? How did it continue to dominate the news day after day, month after month for years?
First, it checks a lot of woke boxes: Male villains; white male villains; rich and powerful white male villains; female victims; young female victims, and of course, sex. As the direct intellectual descendants of radical feminists, the woke have a horror of straight male sexuality.
By its very nature, the Epstein saga involves all those players and, importantly, no others. No inconvenient POC (and only one woman) play the role of villain. Epstein was rich, straight and white as were his friends, so, from the start, this was a woke dream. As such, 24/7 press gawking was all but guaranteed from the start.
Now, it’s not enough to simply have female victims, to fit the woke narrative they must be innocent too.
And it’s that demand for female innocence that explains two screaming problems with how the press has covered the Epstein claims. First, at least some of the women claiming victimhood (like Virginia Giuffre) are known, admitted serial liars, a fact an honest press corps would care about and mention. But not this one. We could read for days and never see even the suggestion of dishonesty on the part of any of the young women involved.
Second, because there are several huge pots of money that are either paying off or about to do so, there is an obvious financial inducement to questionable claims. Under normal circumstances, press coverage would show an interest in the potential for fraud, but not here.
Now, I am not saying that the Epstein claimants have lied, although some, like Giuffre have. I don’t know exactly what did and didn’t happen on Epstein’s island.
My main interest is in the press that’s abandoned every semblance of journalistic integrity in order to stoke the fires of moral panic. That includes the two problems mentioned above plus the fact that frank disinformation is routinely purveyed unquestioned by what were once reputable publications. The New York Times has called Epstein a “convicted sex trafficker.” The Manhattan Institute’s City Journal asserted that he was a “convicted pedophile.” Neither is true, but neither has been corrected or retracted.
So yes, the Epstein drama has injected new life into woke narratives we had hoped were headed to the dustbin of history.
But that’s not all.
Another thing that guarantees non-stop “coverage” of l’affaire Epstein is that it is, to a great degree, just #MeToo Redux, i.e., a handy way to destroy reputations, careers and marriages without the inconvenient requirement of evidence produced in a court of law. As with #MeToo, naked accusations are all it takes to destroy a target – and just let him try to defend himself! In the court of #MeToo (and Epstein), the prosecution never rests. Thirty-five years ago, Clarence Thomas called it by its proper name – a “high-tech lynching.”
It seems we have an insatiable desire for mob “justice.”
But the press coverage, social media etc. regarding Epstein is different from #MeToo in one important way: it dispenses entirely with the requirement that any wrong has been committed. Now, the slightest association between Epstein and a media target is considered enough for a verdict of guilty, even if no one can name the “crime.”
Here, for example is the Wall Street Journal’s list of some of those tarred by the Epstein brush. The list contains 40 names, 18 of whom have resigned or been removed from positions of power despite having never been charged either criminally or civilly. (An additional three – two Brits and one Norwegian – are at least alleged to have committed a legal wrong, but none have so far been found guilty or civilly liable.)
Indeed, the Department of Justice investigated numerous allegations but found no, or insufficient, evidence to bring indictments against anyone but Epstein and Maxwell.
Lacking evidence of legal wrongs, the Epstein saga skipped to Plan B – guilt entirely by association, however tenuous.
So, for example, heavyweight lawyer Catherine Ruemmler was forced to resign as chief counsel for Goldman Sachs due to a relationship with Epstein consisting solely of email correspondence. Børge Brende was forced out as CEO of the World Economic Forum because he had dinner at Epstein’s townhouse in New York three times over two years. And the WSJ (for unknown reasons) didn’t even include Casey Wasserman who was forced to sell his heavy-hitting talent agency simply because he knew and associated with Epstein. Again, he seems to have committed no legal infraction, but so what? The Epstein matter isn’t about provable wrongdoing.
So, beyond wokism and #MeToo, what is it about? For one thing, the cult of celebrity, but not just that. It’s also about our need to be – and see ourselves as being – an egalitarian society in which, someway, We the People have a say in the world we live in. As such, amid the slime (by Epstein and the press), there’s something weirdly salutary about the whole sorry affair. More on that next time.
This article originally appeared at The Word of Damocles.
