YIKES! Here's why this TNR journo should NOT be throwing stones at Kevin Williamson

Sarah D | 3:09 PM on March 29, 2018

The New Republic’s Sarah Jones is among the many lefty journalists flipping the hell out over the Atlantic hiring Kevin Williamson:

Conservative intellectualism is in a shambles, and the fact that Kevin D. Williamson is being elevated shows that the extent of the damage hasn’t been fully appreciated by mainstream media. https://t.co/n4wq9bIxEM pic.twitter.com/uABicYlJyu

— The New Republic (@newrepublic) March 27, 2018

But maybe she should worry about the state of her own house first.

This is tedious. The New Republic I grew up reading would never have run this. They would have run (some) pieces by Kevin. https://t.co/l9yIj0DPsO

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) March 29, 2018

https://twitter.com/JayCostTWS/status/979424292155863045

That’s an understatement! As the Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway points out:

Before anyone at the New Republic gets up in arms about Kevin Williamson, maybe they should address the fact that their boss covered up the fact Oregon's governor raped a 14 year-old. https://t.co/sDdqjQ5D3d https://t.co/4k4XQLVSfN

— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) March 27, 2018

Former Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt started sleeping with his kids’ teenage babysitter in the 1970s, when he was the mayor of Portland.

This isn't hyperbole, by the way. This is a thing that actually happened. https://t.co/8KhFnWhy5r

— Esoteric Jeff (@EsotericCD) March 28, 2018

Yes. Yes it is:

In 2008, a few years after admitting he didn’t go public with his knowledge that Oregon’s Democratic governor was a rapist, [New Republic owner Win] McCormack wrote a book a called You Don’t Know Me: A Citizen’s Guide to Republican Family Values. According to the cover blurb from Arianna Huffington, “Win McCormack reveals the true hypocrisy and depravity of those who love to quote the bible but act like Caligula.”

In 2011, Elizabeth Lynn Dunham, Goldschmidt’s teenage victim, died in hospice at age 49. She spent most of her life battling addiction and mental illness. Neil Goldschmidt is still with us. When he’s not in Oregon, he lives on an estate in the South of France.

Obviously, Win McCormack wasn’t solely to blame for covering up Goldschmidt’s misdeeds. But had he said what he knew about Goldschmidt in 1990, maybe it could have helped. Maybe it would have stopped Goldschmidt from wreaking so much havoc in the state as a corrupt lobbyist. Maybe it would have resulted in Elizabeth Lynn Dunham finding the support she needed, but didn’t have.