Sec. Geithner: I'm Not Saying I Didn't Know About IMF Culture of Rape, I Just Couldn't Understand . . . Because I'm A Man, Or Something

This is your "what the hell?" video of the morning.

Treasury Secretary Geithner is asked if he knew about the "predatory atmosphere" at the IMF. He says "this is a hard question to ask a man." Except, it's not a hard question, for a man or for anyone. "Were you aware of the culture of rape at IMF" has two possible answers: "yes, I noticed" or "no, I just didn't see it."

But, of course, he can't say either because if he saw abuse then the follow-up question is going to be why he didn't do anything about it. And if he didn't notice what was apparently quite obvious, which he specifically says he's not saying, then the question is: is he unobservant, stupid, or lying?

God bless YouTube, because he picks a nuanced third way and he's really just a stupendous troglodyte:

So his answer seems to be: "yeah, I saw it, but I just couldn't fathom it, so I didn't really know what it was. Because I'm a man and women are, like, deep and stuff. So you should ask a woman."

This is post-PC neanderthal bullshit. Of course men can understand what it's like for a woman to be hounded by her coworkers and superiors. Men get pursued and abused too. It's certainly less common than mistreatment of women, but we're not talking about something completely out of the realm of human behavior here. It's not utterly unfathomable. You'd think one of "Barack's Beauties" has been pursued once in his life.

Incoherence as a defense mechanism. Who could have expected it from a professional like Geithner?

posted by Gabriel Malor at 09:56 AM

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