Guilty or not, Tom Brokaw's ripping of his main sexual harassment accuser was out of the Bill Clinton/Bill Cosby playbook

The New Republic

"The legendary journalist’s wounded response to accusations of sexual harassment reveals a lot about who is entitled to power," says Eve Fairbanks of Brokaw's 4 a.m. "ambushed and perp walked" email  addressing the allegations from former NBC News anchor Linda Vester. "This," says Fairbanks, "is the Bill Clinton, Clarence Thomas, and Bill Cosby playbook: Discredit the woman. Complain that she overreacted to a little fun. Accuse her simultaneously of career failure and of being too ambitious—her ambition a symbol of her voracious, smothering sexuality. Wildly overstate her own claims to make them appear ridiculous. And insist that any allegation against him, is, in essence, an attack on the notion that anything at all can be holy—an attack against America. Brokaw becomes, in his defense, a synecdoche for the proper success story, the ideal American man, the country itself and what is most precious in it." ALSO: University of Iowa is moving forward with its Tom Brokaw exhibit despite sexual misconduct allegations.