Stuck on stupid

During deliberation about laws which would extend the statute of limitations for sex abuse, John Truscott, a spokesman for MSU President John Engler, claimed that Rachael Denhollander was talking about things she knew nothing about.


Idiotic, first of all, to pick a fight with an actual victim of sexual assault that way, and particularly moronic given that the lady in question has been involved in the political process since she was a child, and of course is a lawyer.  Truscott may not be aware of this, but sometimes lawyers know a little bit about the law and how it's enacted.  Truscott might also consider the demonstrated fact that this is one young lady whose bite is worse than her bark, and that those who make personal attacks demonstrate only that they are unable or unwilling to make a real argument. 


Finally, Truscott seems blissfully unaware of the fact that everything he says--smart, dumb, idiotic, or from the office of John Engler--is going to be reviewed by the hundreds of women getting around to suing his employer.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  This is a guy who works in public relations?  Seriously?


Mr. Engler, time to make some staff changes, as it's apparent some of your subordinates have an IQ that's not above room temperature.  It's fine to remind legislators that there may be a huge butcher's bill as previously suppressed allegations of sexual assault come to light.  MSU's problems will probably go into the hundreds of millions of dollars, for example, and if my understanding of Title IX is at all correct, we can expect huge issues at other places, too.  What's not fine is to pick a fight with known victims using basic fallacies of informal logic.


Update: Lt. Governor Brian Calley has come up with what seems to my mind to be an excellent way of resolving the issue, albeit one that would have to pass legal and insurance muster.  Just give up defending the suits and propose a settlement.  It's not like there is any reasonable defense for failure to report, or for describing fondling a girl's breast as some legitimate way of helping her pelvic fascia, after all. 


Update 2: strangely, Patrick Fitzgerald is STILL working with MSU despite his "conclusion" that MSU was not at fault in the Nassar disaster--a "conclusion" arrived at with no report written.  Wake up, MSU!!!!