A few random thoughts:

1) Apparently I’m not the only person who was troubled by the Nick Kristof column and its wholehearted, fact-free endorsement of Dylan Farrow. The Times’ Public Editor also questions the column, writing,

I urge those who who have not yet done so to read Mr. Weide’s illuminating article. It provides essential context.

That, of course, is the article I linked to a couple days ago.

2) I am fascinated by how many people simply assume that, because Dylan Farrow is “speaking out,” she is telling the truth. The culture of victimhood in this country is powerful. Like this piece in The Nation, which I’ve seen reposted on Facebook several times. Its author doesn’t for a second consider the possibility that what Dylan Farrow is saying isn’t true:

We know one in five girl children are sexually assaulted. Yet when victims speak out, we ask them why they waited so long to talk. We question why don’t they remember the details better. We suspect that they misunderstood what happened.

We know that abusers are manipulative, often charismatic, and that they hide their crimes well…..

Oh, for God’s sake. Why don’t we just burn Allen at the stake?

3) I have no idea if the fact that, at 56, Woody Allen fell in love with a 19-year-old makes him more likely to molest a seven-year-old. I don’t know if that’s the way things work, clinically speaking. My guess would be that there’s a meaningful difference, but I’m not expert.

But apparently lots of other people do know: Any older man who falls in love with a college girl is likely to rape a 7-year-old.

4) If this were a court case, Woody Allen would make a terrible defendant. He engaged in some behavior, with Soon-Yi, that many, maybe most, people find abhorrent. But perhaps more important: He is Jewish, intellectual, physically weak, unconventional, non-conformist, a lover of jazz, neurotic… He fits so many stereotypes of the Other, to use a phrase I don’t really like but does fit here, and conforms to so many prejudices. Why not just add child molester to the list?

Which is exactly why it’s so important to try to look at this matter dispassionately: To try to keep the lynch mob from storming the gates.

5) Woody Allen is to child molestation what Yale quarterback Patrick Witt was to date rape: The preconceived image of the type of person who would do such a thing. Again: all the more reason why we need not to rush to judgment.

I have my opinion on whether Woody Allen ever raped Dylan Farrow. I’m skeptical of the language she now uses to describe the alleged incident: He took me into a crawl space…he turned me on her stomach…he told me to look at the train…and then he raped me…he told me to tell no one, that he would take me to Paris and put me in his movie. (Does anyone know if Allen ever made a movie in Paris other than, much later, Midnight in Paris?)

It all feels very McMartin pre-school to me; all that’s missing is a tunnel underneath the house.

That said, I’m not one hundred percent certain. You can’t be, unless you were there—and if it never happened, there’s not even a “there” to have been present for.

But it troubles me how many people are.