Second gentleman Doug Emhoff has recently been accused of improper -- and indeed violent -- past conduct toward women, and the situation has prompted a discussion of just how much attention the claims should receive from mainstream media outlets.
Comedian and talk show host Bill Maher judged that while more digging needs to be done as to the accuracy of the allegations against Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, the claims do seem to meet the standard used in the past to go public with accusations against conservative figures, as Breitbart reports.
Maher's discussion of media reporting on misconduct allegations stemmed from recent claims leveled against Emhoff, spouse of the current Democratic Party presidential nominee.
It was earlier this month that the Daily Mail reported on claims that back in 2012, Emhoff engaged in improper conduct toward his then-girlfriend at the Cannes Film Festival
Witnesses who were present during the alleged incident stated that Emhoff slapped the woman in question when he mistakenly interpreted her conversation with a valet as romantic flirting.
In addition, Emhoff has been accused in recent days of exhibiting a pattern of misogynistic conduct during his time at the head of the Los Angeles office of the Venable law firm.
Emhoff was said to have used demeaning and abusive language in reference to female employees of the firm, and he was also said to have hired an “unqualified” model to work as a legal secretary simply because of her looks and because she was “friendly with the powerful men in the office.”
Delving into the claims against Emhoff and the media's relative silence thus far, Maher opined that, according to “the standard, very often in these cases,” the allegations appear to be grounded in some truth.
Maher went on, however, saying, “I wouldn't go after anybody for not reporting it yet, because these things have to be checked out.”
“There's a lot of scuttlebutt this week about Doug. … Of course, we don't know if that's true,” Maher cautioned.
The Real Time host continued, saying, “But, if it because more credible, certainly on the level of Brett Kavanaugh, which was -- that kind of thing was reported by everybody pretty quickly, does the liberal media keep ignoring it, and wouldn't that make it look worse?”
Seemingly aiding and abetting the liberal media's silence on the claims was MSNBC's Joe Scarborough who, as the New York Post notes, asked whether the second gentleman was upset by what he referred to as “tabloid stories about your personal life.”
Emhoff, who was recently hailed by former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki as an admirable new paradigm of masculinity, replied, “We don't have time to be pissed off. We don't have time to focus on it. It's all a distraction. It's designed to try to get us off our game.”
Critics quickly noted that the statement was not exactly a denial from the man who was already exposed as having an affair with the family nanny during his first marriage that reportedly resulted in a pregnancy, but whether the story will gain further traction in the mainstream press, only time will tell.
