Can Mona Charen and Kirsten Gillibrand Bring Women Together?

February 26, 2018

A stunned silence fell over this weekend's CPAC conference as conservative thinker and columnist Mona Charen called out the hypocrisy of the Republican party in defending men (including the President) who have bragged about or been credibly accused of sexual harassment, or as in the case of Roy Moore, child molestation.  Heckling by women in the audience followed.

Rewind to December, 2017, when Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said she now believes President Bill Clinton should have resigned in the face of sexual misconduct allegations against him.  That moment stunned the Democratic establishment.  It was followed up by her leading the charge to oust Senator Al Franken (D-MN), given the accusations against him.  Last week, the Huffington Post checked in with Senator Gillibrand, just to make sure she really thought this was all a good idea and found that, "She said she couldn't take the position that 'I'll be a leader on this issue, as long as it's not about my friends...That's not moral clarity...That's not leadership."

Charen and Gillibrand's willingness to stand for their principles in the face of party backlash makes them the kind of "mavericks" Americans claim to love (think Senator John McCain).  While Gillibrand appears more and more to be the kind of leader who doesn't let politics sway her, and who hews closely to basic principles of decency, Charen is busy writing about the same thing.

Remember, it's not the controversy that "mavericks" spark that makes us like them; it's the integrity that drives their actions in the first place.  These two women--with very different political views--have both declared that men who abuse or harass women should be held accountable.  And they're saying to women, there's nothing political about standing up for your humanity.  Surely we can all agree on that