By New York Post (Opinion) | Created at 2026-06-05 23:21:38 | Updated at 2026-06-08 08:35:28
2 days ago
This should be the political bombshell of the season, but it was delivered in bubble wrap.
Yesterday the New York Times published an investigative piece on Graham Platner, a political newcomer in Maine poised to nab the Democratic nomination for the upcoming Senate race.
Despite containing serious accusations of physical abuse and more evidence that he lied about his Nazi tattoo for 17 years, it was presented in an incredibly passive manner.
Most of his alleged damning acts were buried so deep in the story, you needed an excavator to get there.
The rather charitable headline read, “Several Women Who Dated Graham Platner Recall ‘Unsettling’ Behavior,” when it should have said “Ex-Girlfriend says Platner was physically abusive, locked her in a room.”
But hey, it’s not a Republican candidate. It is a Republican accuser — the source of a recurring objection by many former members of the “believe all women” cult.
Lyndsey Fifield, a now married 40-year-old who worked in Conservative activism, dated the veteran on and off for roughly two years starting in 2013.
She described the volatile relationship, in which he would drink and get rough in ways that would frighten her. Among other disturbing claims, he referred to women’s genitalia as “hatchet wounds.”
But another woman, who dated him for “several months” told The Times, he was “super kind, very nice, fun.”
Deep.
Compare this story to the tireless effort to bury Brett Kavanaugh after President Trump nominated him to the Supreme Court in 2018.
The hit job was a coordinated effort from the Democratic party and the media, which collectively ran with the most ridiculous accusations and presented them in such a high-octane manner they came across like a monster truck radio ad.
Christine Blasey Ford claimed he sexually assaulted her in high school. And a random lady named Julie Swetnick alleged Kavanaugh and his friends were basically running rape gangs out of a beach house.
Nearly every outlet lapped up the sensational claims and the Democrats ran with them.
And yet, Blasey Ford could never prove she was ever met Kavanaugh.
Fifield, meanwhile, provided detailed diary entries, texts and corroborating sources to back up many of her claims.
She felt burned by the finished product and why shouldn’t she?
In a long post on X, she explained that the Times approached her and convinced her to speak. The reporters introduced her to two other victims, so she wouldn’t feel alone.
But those accounts didn’t appear in the final piece. She was left hanging solo.
“Where are their accusations of sexual assault? Why am I the focus? Why are there 11 paragraphs dedicated to detailing my work history (more than has been published about Graham’s by far),” she wrote.
She came to the conclusion that “this really was a set up all along” and the journalists she trusted “never wanted to tell methodically delayed and twisted this into a gift to the Platner campaign.”
Even before Fifield came forward, Platner was a man engulfed by scandals: a phony working class origin story, sexting other women while married and the infamous Nazi tattoo on his chest.
He has vehemently denied he even knew It was a Nazi symbol, despite being a World War II buff, claiming it was just a permanent souvenir from a Croatian tattoo shop back when he was in the military.
Not true, said Fifield, who said he even taught her its very specific name. He “would joke about it being a Nazi tattoo.” He’d even call it, “my Totenkopf,” the way one would refer to something they found cute and endearing — like a small puppy.
I’ve long been skeptical of the #metoo excesses and the notion that we needed to just believe all women. It was abused by the left and in the end, it was an injustice to real victims of abuse.
Now that it’s politically inconvenient, the left abandoned it. Even in the face of compelling claims like Fifield’s.
In fact, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a backer of Blasey Ford, told an outlet that he was “not impressed” by Fifield’s story.
“I mean, the only one who had anything to say that seemed unsettling was a woman who works for right-wing political operations,” he said.
I guess it’s disbelieve all Republican women now.
The truth is, Platner is an unvetted and unknown entity drafted by a pair of Ivy League educated DSA members traveling the country to discover new candidates the way modeling scouts would work a suburban mall in the 1990s to find their next great face.
Platner turned out to be bad casting for the job. But very few in the party establishment are willing to acknowledge that. And they’re throwing away their credibility on this random guy.
He’s a troubled man who clearly isn’t worth the trouble.
