Texas Woman Blames Devil After Husband Burns Baby Daughter in Microwave

[Logan13]

Another example of someone who "did not have a choice" or "it wasn't their fault........."
Texas Woman Blames Devil After Husband Burns Baby Daughter in Microwave
AP
05/20/07
GALVESTON, Texas — A woman blames the devil and not her husband for severely burning their infant daughter after the 2-month-old was put in a microwave, a Houston television station reported.

Eva Marie Mauldin said Satan compelled her 19-year-old husband, Joshua Royce Mauldin, to microwave their daughter May 10 because the devil disapproved of Joshua's efforts to become a preacher.

"Satan saw my husband as a threat. Satan attacked him because he saw (Joshua) as a threat," Eva Mauldin told Houston television station KHOU-TV.

A Galveston County grand jury indicted Joshua Mauldin last week on child injury charges after hearing evidence that he placed his daughter in a motel microwave for 10 to 20 seconds.

The infant, Ana Marie, remains hospitalized. She suffered burns on the left side of her face and to her left hand, police said.

Eva Marie Mauldin, the girl's 20-year-old mother, told the television station that her husband is "not the monster people are making him out to be."

"That was not my husband; my husband is a wonderful father," she said. "Satan was working through his weaknesses."

Eva Maudlin described those weaknesses as an undisclosed mental disability, and that her efforts to get help for him have failed.

Police said Joshua Mauldin told them he put Ana Marie in the microwave because he was under stress. The family had arrived in Galveston the day before.

Eva Maudlin, who met her husband in an Arkansas church, denied those claims by police.

"He would never do anything to hurt her. He loves her," she said. "When she cries he is the one who comforts her. When she is sick, he is the one that takes her to the doctor."

Joshua Mauldin, of Warren, Ark., came to Galveston with his wife and mother because he was called to be a preacher, his wife said. While Joshua Mauldin's mother has returned to Arkansas, Eva Mauldin remains in Galveston.

She is hoping to be reunited with her daughter, but Child Protective Services is working to have her and Joshua Mauldin's parental rights severed. A custody hearing for the infant is scheduled for later this week in a Galveston district court.

Joshua Mauldin faces a charge of injury to a child causing serious bodily harm, which carries a possible prison term of five to 99 years, as well as a fine of up to $10,000.

Eva Mauldin has set up a MySpace page, "Joshua Mauldin is not a Monster," in hopes of defending her husband and making pleas for people to help her.

[Saunacrank]

OH MY GOD! That is quite possibly one of the most horrible things Ive heard.

[Flagg]

Redneck scum.

Whenever religion "****s up" its always the Devil.

[RamyGras]

Darn Satan!!! He's at it again!

[biglouie250]

bet she is "pro-life" too.

[RA]

bet she is "pro-life" too.

Yeah, then she would be really bad

[Act of God]

White trash at its finest. Sterilization based on IQ anyone?

[Logan13]

White trash at its finest. Sterilization based on IQ anyone?

How about sterilization based on IQ and political ideology? Or perhaps one is ***endant on the other............

[Act of God]

I believe it was Winston Churchill (I could be wrong) who said:

Anyone under 30 who isn't a liberal has no heart. Anyone over 30 who isn't conservative is a moron.

[RamyGras]

I believe it was Winston Churchill (I could be wrong) who said:

Anyone under 30 who isn't a liberal has no heart. Anyone over 30 who isn't conservative is a moron.

It was Churchill....but he said if you aren't liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you aren't conservative at 40, you have no brain.

[RamyGras]

He also had a homosexual affair and was quoted as saying "I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favor of using gases against uncivilised tribes." Not that there is anything wrong with that.....

[***xxx***]

yeah, he was one of a kind

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

[Logan13]

He also had a homosexual affair and was quoted as saying "I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favor of using gases against uncivilised tribes." Not that there is anything wrong with that.....

who had a homosexual affair?

[BgMc31]

who had a homosexual affair?

Winston Churchill

[RamyGras]

who had a homosexual affair?

I should say "alleged homosexual affair".

[Flagg]

****ing absurd.

Ive never heard about that at all, not even as a joke and yet there were numerous reports Hitler was gay.

Where did you come by this "info", sir? Or are you just trynna discredit Winston Churchill?

[mavsluva]

This is extremely unfortunate. Just another example of someone not wanting to take responsibility of their own actions.

(It's a good thing that I didn't post this thread as it would be locked up by now.)

[Logan13]

Winston Churchill

SHOW ME.

[RamyGras]

First off, I'm sorry I offended anyone. I didn't realize Winston Churchill had such a fanbase around here. I will find a source and post it soon, after I finish doing a bit more reading of the other threads.

Mind you, the man didn't come out of the closet, even if it is true. It may not be true at all. Give me a few minutes before you go on attack mode, though.

[Tock]

Tsk tsk . . . . he would have made quite an effective preacher, too . . .



http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...n/4825758.html

May 22, 2007, 8:44PM
Details of baby's abuse emerge at hearing


By HARVEY RICE
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

GALVESTON -- A Galveston County judge today ordered a competency hearing for an Arkansas man after hearing testimony that he placed his 2-month-old daughter in a microwave oven, a refrigerator, a hotel room safe and punched her in the groin.

District Judge Susan Criss also denied a request by the attorney for Joshua Joyce Mauldin, 19, of Warren, Ark., for a reduction in bail from $250,000 to $100,000.

Mauldin's attorney, Charles Kaufmann, requested the competency hearing. "I agree he should remain for a short time in jail because he does need to be examined," Kaufmann told the judge.

Mauldin began sobbing as bailiffs led him from the courtroom after the hearing.

In an interview after the hearing, Kaufmann said he sought the competency hearing because of his discussions with Mauldin and his discovery that Mauldin was taking medication for ***ression.

Criss scheduled the competency hearing for July 13.

Testimony during the bail reduction hearing by Galveston police Detective Holly Johnson offered the first detailed public recounting of the events on the night the baby was injured.

Johnson, who interviewed Mauldin, said he arrived at the Quality Inn in Galveston with his daughter; wife Eva Marie Mauldin; and mother, Joni Mauldin, about midnight May 10.

In an interview with the Chronicle on Monday, Eva Marie Mauldin said that God had called her husband to the ministry and that the Holy Spirit had chosen Galveston as the place to begin.

Under questioning by Assistant District Attorney Xochitl Vandiver, Johnson testified that Mauldin was alone in the room with his daughter shortly after midnight May 10 while his wife was unloading luggage from the car. "He became agitated," Johnson said, and tossed the baby on one of the two beds, then on the other before striking her in the groin.

She said Mauldin then put the baby in the hotel room safe, then placed her in the refrigerator for about 5 seconds. He then put her in the microwave oven, telling investigators he put it on the lowest setting, which he believed was 10 seconds.

But police crime scene investigator Scott Pena said in an interview that he examined the microwave and found that the lowest setting was 10 minutes.

"I don't know if we will ever know how long she was in there," Johnson said after the hearing.

Johnson said the baby was burned on the left side of her face, her left ear and left shoulder.

Mauldin initially told police that he was making coffee and spilled scalding water on his daughter, but investigators did not believe the injuries were consistent with his version of events.

Challenged by an investigator from Children's Protective Services, Mauldin admitted that he put his daughter in the microwave, Johnson said. "He couldn't live with the lie any more," Johnson said.

The child was placed in a foster home in Galveston County on Monday after being released from the Shriners Burns Center here, where she underwent at least two skin grafts by doctors from the University of Texas Medical Branch.

Eva Marie Mauldin says that she will fight for custody of her child at a mediation scheduled for Wednesday with CPS. If mediation fails, a hearing will be held before a family court judge.

During the bail reduction hearing, Vandiver asked Johnson about Eva Marie Mauldin's ability to care for her child. "Does she appear to be protective of the child?" Vandiver asked.

"No," Johnson replied.

Johnson also testified that Joshua Mauldin did a four-month hitch in the Army, where he was convicted on a larceny charge, but had not further details.

His wife said Monday that he spent six months in the stockade.

Eva Marie Mauldin remains under investigation and District Attorney Kurt Sistrunk has said other charges could be filed.

[RamyGras]

Since a couple of you wanted some info on Churchill, I'll provide what I can. I apologize for the delay, however I was busy watching the season finale of Lost, great show. W. Somerset Maugham (a confidant of Winston Churchill) claimed that Churchill had told him that he had slept with Ivor Novello, a famous musician that was openly homosexual. I really don't care, either way.

It's funny to me because I quoted him as saying something pretty sadistic, and everybody is up in arms about that homosexual part. Logan's "SHOW ME" was too funny. "Oh, he's okay with gassing entire tribes?, no biggie, but he enjoys sex with other men!?!?! How inhumane!!!!"

[Logan13]

Since a couple of you wanted some info on Churchill, I'll provide what I can. I apologize for the delay, however I was busy watching the season finale of Lost, great show. W. Somerset Maugham (a confidant of Winston Churchill) claimed that Churchill had told him that he had slept with Ivor Novello, a famous musician that was openly homosexual. I really don't care, either way.

It's funny to me because I quoted him as saying something pretty sadistic, and everybody is up in arms about that homosexual part. Logan's "SHOW ME" was too funny. "Oh, he's okay with gassing entire tribes?, no biggie, but he enjoys sex with other men!?!?! How inhumane!!!!"

slandering a well known leader is not a small issue. We do not post innuendo
here, please provide links to support such speech.

[RA]

Tsk tsk . . . . he would have made quite an effective preacher, too . . .
.

More propaganda tock...ug

[RamyGras]

slandering a well known leader is not a small issue. We do not post innuendo
here, please provide links to support such speech.

I'll pass that on to Maugham.

[Tock]

slandering a well known leader is not a small issue. We do not post innuendo
here

It is no slander to call another person "gay."
Homosexuality is no longer illegal in the USA (or for that matter, in England), so calling another person "gay" is not alleging that they engage in illegal behaviour.

Just a thought.
By the way, you're gay, aren't you?

[BgMc31]

slandering a well known leader is not a small issue. We do not post innuendo
here, please provide links to support such speech.

C'mon Logan... you slander Clinton all the time and I slander Bush all the time, it doesn't hurt anyone!LOL!!!

[Logan13]

C'mon Logan... you slander Clinton all the time and I slander Bush all the time, it doesn't hurt anyone!LOL!!!

Please point to when and where I slandered clinton or anyone else w/out sighting a source. He still hasn't given a source, and I will be anxiously awaiting yours in regards to my question above.

[Logan13]

It is no slander to call another person "gay."
Homosexuality is no longer illegal in the USA (or for that matter, in England), so calling another person "gay" is not alleging that they engage in illegal behaviour.

Just a thought.
By the way, you're gay, aren't you?

Freedom of speech is one thing, and the legality of homosexuality has absolutely nothing to do with this. Either sight sources, or shut your mouth about it.

[Logan13]

I'll pass that on to Maugham.

Regardless of the fact that I have never heard of that person, it doesn't change the fact that you have no source from which to base your allegations.

[Flagg]

Since a couple of you wanted some info on Churchill, I'll provide what I can. I apologize for the delay, however I was busy watching the season finale of Lost, great show. W. Somerset Maugham (a confidant of Winston Churchill) claimed that Churchill had told him that he had slept with Ivor Novello, a famous musician that was openly homosexual. I really don't care, either way.

It's funny to me because I quoted him as saying something pretty sadistic, and everybody is up in arms about that homosexual part. Logan's "SHOW ME" was too funny. "Oh, he's okay with gassing entire tribes?, no biggie, but he enjoys sex with other men!?!?! How inhumane!!!!"

Okay so where's the proof he condoned gassing tribes as you put it? You sound like an old gossiping woman.

[scriptfactory]

Freedom of speech is one thing, and the legality of homosexuality has absolutely nothing to do with this. Either sight sources, or shut your mouth about it.

I love how the thread turned from something extremely wrong happening to a child to a Winston Churchill nuthugging/defense. RamyGas was just making a passing statement, gentlemen! It isn't the point of this thread! Who cares if he didn't sight(sic) a source... he already stated that the charges were alleged. WHO CARES IF WINSTON CHURCHILL WAS GAY?!

Google provided this: http://www.musicals101.com/gay3.htm

Many great stage and screen composers appeared in the years between the wars, and dozens of new musicals debuted each season. There were jobs aplenty in the theater, and many gay men found profitable careers there. The British stage of the 20s and 30s was dominated by two gay composer/actors – Noel Coward (discussed in detail later on in this essay) and Ivor Novello. The handsome Novello was even more popular with London audiences than Coward. He also made some fascinating romantic conquests. According to The Alyson Almanac (New York: Alyson Publications, 1990, p. 107), Somerset Maugham got Winston Churchill to admit he had once slept with a man – Novello. Asked what it had been like, Sir Winston answered, "Musical!"

[Lexed]

must have had a rough day

[RamyGras]

I love how the thread turned from something extremely wrong happening to a child to a Winston Churchill nuthugging/defense. RamyGas was just making a passing statement, gentlemen! It isn't the point of this thread! Who cares if he didn't sight(sic) a source... he already stated that the charges were alleged. WHO CARES IF WINSTON CHURCHILL WAS GAY?!

Google provided this: http://www.musicals101.com/gay3.htm

Thanks for the Google quote. It was something small to that extent. And I DID say it was alleged. Either way, I really didn't care. However, to Logan, who has been up in arms about this. Is this considered siting a source? At least, now, you realize I wasn't making crap up. I read something on it and I made a comment.

I do recall a few allegations that Clinton had raped a woman, and not once did you stand up for him like you have Churchill. Now, THAT'S slander.

[RamyGras]

Okay so where's the proof he condoned gassing tribes as you put it? You sound like an old gossiping woman.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0...849122,00.html

Relax man. I found 295 sources on yahoo's search engine. Here's one of them.

[RamyGras]

If you want, put the quote in, well, quotations, and search it yourself. You'll find 294 other sources.

[RamyGras]

Before the outbreak of the rebellion, the RAF asked Churchill in 1919 for permission to use chemical weapons “against recalcitrant Arabs as an experiment.” Churchill (then secretary of state for war) in turn asked experts if it would be possible to use “some kind of asphyxiating bombs calculated to cause disablement of some kind but not death…for use in preliminary operations against turbulent tribes.” He added: “I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes” which “spread a lively terror.” General Sir Aylmer Haldane wrote that poison gas was more useful against the hilly Kurdish redoubts, while “in the hot plains…the gas is more volatile” (quoted in Geoff Simmons, Iraq: From Sumer to Saddam [MacMillan Press, 1994]). In fact, the weapons used by the RAF in its “civilizing mission” against the “turbulent tribes” were quite lethal. The British cabinet was squeamish, but Churchill argued that use of gas should not be prevented “by the prejudices of those who do not think clearly.” Eventually, poison gas was used on Iraqi rebels, with what the illustrious “statesman” described as “excellent moral effect” (quoted in David Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control. The Royal Air Force, 1919-1939 [Manchester University Press, 1990]).

[Logan13]

Thanks for the Google quote. It was something small to that extent. And I DID say it was alleged. Either way, I really didn't care. However, to Logan, who has been up in arms about this. Is this considered siting a source? At least, now, you realize I wasn't making crap up. I read something on it and I made a comment.

I do recall a few allegations that Clinton had raped a woman, and not once did you stand up for him like you have Churchill. Now, THAT'S slander.

I have never seen where someone spoke about Clinton raping anyone, and for that matter I voted for him twice.
Nobody has the right to spread unsubstantiated rumors about anyone, regardless of who the target is. This is not about Churchill or Clinton, it is about providing facts to support claims. I suppose Rosie has made me tire of such bullshit.

[RamyGras]

Again, I said it was alleged, and you have now received sources of where I read these allegations.

[BgMc31]

I have never seen where someone spoke about Clinton raping anyone, and for that matter I voted for him twice.
Nobody has the right to spread unsubstantiated rumors about anyone, regardless of who the target is. This is not about Churchill or Clinton, it is about providing facts to support claims. I suppose Rosie has made me tire of such bullshit.

Then you are not as informed as I thought you were Logan. There was a huge outcry about this several years ago. It came around the same time all those women were accusing Bill of sexual harassment. Here's evidence...

Presidential Rape: The Making of a Non-Scandal
http://www.saidit.org/archives/april99/rape.html

The President of the United States very likely committed rape. Repeat: He very likely committed rape.

According to businesswoman Juanita Broaddrick, Bill Clinton raped her 21 years ago when he was the attorney general of Arkansas. Her story: she and Clinton first met when he made a campaign stop at her nursing home facility in Van Buren. He invited her to visit him at his campaign headquarters in Little Rock. She gave him a call the following week when she went to Little Rock for a conference. They made plans to meet in the coffee shop of the hotel. Later, Clinton called her from the hotel lobby, and asked if they could instead meet in her room so he could avoid the reporters in the coffee shop.

Once alone with her, he wasted little time. He began kissing her, and she told him 'no.' He kissed her again, and this time began biting on her lip. He pushed her down on the bed, continued to bite on her lip, and raped her, as she pleaded with him to stop. After the rape was over, he walked to the door, calmly put his sunglasses on, and told her, "You better put some ice on that," pointing to her lip which swelled to twice its normal size.

Broaddrick said she blamed herself immediately after the rape because she had allowed a man into her room. She also said she knew that no authority would believe that this man, the attorney general, a rising political star, had raped her. Like most rape victims, she didn't go to the police.

Years later, Ken Starr interviewed Broaddrick about the rumor of the rape during his investigation of Clinton. Broaddrick confirmed that the story was true. Starr made note of her account, but did not find it useful as "evidence," since Starr's investigation was focused on catching Clinton in a legal lie. But having finally broken the silence, Broaddrick decided to no longer keep the dirty little secret. She went public with her story, a story that had great credibility, largely because of the fact that as a well-to-do businesswoman, Broaddrick had nothing to gain and everything to lose by coming forward.

According to the polls, the vast majority of people who heard Broaddrick's account, which was eventually aired on Dateline, believe that she told the truth: they believe that Bill Clinton raped her. Strangely, or not so strangely, this highly credible account has become an irrelevant and buried news story. Bill Clinton remains a popular president, secure in his post-impeachment position as leader of this country. The people of this country, by and large pleased with a leader who offered more police on the streets, three-strikes-you're-out legislation, harsher and longer sentences for convicted (poor, Black) criminals, does not seem to care that their president allegedly raped at least one woman—possibly many, many women. Most rapists do not rape just once. The other publicly made rape accusations against Clinton remain ignored.

Those who supposedly advocate for the forgotten, the scapegoated, the abused have shown almost no concern for the women who have spoken out—or for those women who have stayed silent. The Democrats have ardently protected Bill Clinton whose politics, in many ways, resemble what radical Republican politics were a decade ago. Though Clinton has betrayed almost all of the former tenets of the Democratic party over the past six years, Democrats have stood steadfastly by him through every accusation of harassment, assault, and even rape.

"Pro-human rights" leftists, who protested "sexual McCarthyism" so loudly during the impeachment hearings, are now calm and quiet, apparently at peace with the rape allegations. Establishment feminists offered lip service concern for the alleged rape victim, but have spent most of their time rallying around the accused, and rationalizing as to why they are not hypocrites. "Anti-oppression" civil rights activists—many of whom can muster up such compassion for abusive sports heroes—haven't made a sound of protest against the President's alleged violence against women.

Most importantly, the common person on the street knows Juanita Broaddrick's story only vaguely, and prefers not to know. The "sex scandals" are half joke, half migraine headache that finally lifted, and the rape charges are nothing if not more "sex scandal." Although people by and large claimed to find the President's sexual use of his intern unimportant because the sex had been "consentual," the Broaddrick accusation makes clear that the question of "consent" is, at least at this point, neither here nor there. Whatever the President does or has done to women, it is all "just sex."

The Republicans, whom most of the country blames for amplifying the "sex scandals," were key players in nullifying the real scandal—sexual exploitation, and alleged serial sexual assault, including rape. The Republicans used the President's misuse of power for their own reactionary political purposes, reducing women's issues to mere political transactions. For months on end, the Republicans exhibited unsurpassed theatrical outrage over Clinton's behavior toward Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and Monica Lewinsky—behavior they, like the rest of the country, ultimately identified as "extra-marital sex."

But by the time Broaddrick's rape accusation was aired on television, the Republican outrage was gone, since the opportunity to use the accusation for political purposes had passed. The war is over. Who cares if Helen was a**ucted or fell in love? Who cares if she's even alive? Women have been used by men as instruments of trade and war for a long, long time. Through the ridiculous impeachment attempt, which was technically based on nothing more than a lie about "consentual sex", Republicans did their part to erase the gains that the women's movement of previous decades had made in trying to get this country to take sexual harassment and violence against women seriously.

Of all the guilty parties, the mainstream media were the most influential in the creation of the non-scandal around the President's alleged violence against women. The media, with so much control over public information and discourse, have demonstrated that they have the power to turn a pimple on Monica's nose into the talk of the nation and, likewise, to downplay a highly credible accusation of rape against the President so that is seems no more serious than an unpaid traffic ticket. The media's diminishment of the Broaddrick accusation was just as deliberate and purposeful as their magnification of the details surrounding Monica Lewinsky's "consentual" sexual servicing of the President.

The mainstream media had known about Juanita Broaddrick's story for a long time. Broaddrick offered her account directly to the media, but the media refused to expose it, obsessing instead on the "scandal" of Clinton's "consentual" sex with his intern. After many months of exposure through alternative venues, such as the internet, the mainstream media could no longer get away with their silence. NBC Dateline recorded an interview with Broaddrick on January 20, during the height of the impeachment trial. However, NBC refused to air the interview until after Clinton was acquitted on February 12. They claimed that they held back the interview only to check, and then double check—for an entire month—Broaddrick's statements. Anti-Clinton conservatives have pointed out that the media did hardly any fact checking when they gave coverage to pornographer Larry Flynt's rumors of Republican politicians' previous extra-marital affairs. But double standards aside, since when does NBC need an entire month to research—after an interview—a very contained story like Broaddrick's?

The Wall Street Journal ended the mainstream media white-out on Feb. 19, safely after Clinton's acquittal, printing Broaddrick's story in an opinion piece—hardly the place for a "real" news story. Thereafter, the dam broke, but there was not much of a flood. The mainstream media successfully managed the story, giving it strategically downplayed coverage.

The media consistently used the words "sexual assault" instead of "rape"—thereby placing Broaddrick's allegation in the same category as a brief grope, far easier to trivialize and dismiss. One exception to this use of euphemism appeared when the media covered feminists' lack of response to the allegations: "Feminists hit for silence on rape claim," the Seattle Times headline announced (2/28/99). The article itself, from Gannett News Service, freely used the word "rape." Clearly the media had no legal or editorial problem with using the word rape. The words they chose ***ended solely on whom they wanted to turn the public against (feminists), and whom they wanted to protect (a man in a position of power).

The articles that recounted Broaddrick's accusation relayed Broaddrick's story with evasive, misleading phrases, the word "rape" nowhere to be seen. For example, the Seattle Times article "'Jane Doe No. 5' takes the story public" (2/23/99) read, "She resisted his advances, she said, but soon he pulled her back onto the bed and forced her to have sex." Why such an indirect, almost ornate, description of the attack? Why not report, "...he raped her"? Because a direct description, including the use of the word rape, would be alarming, and the media does not want to alarm the public about Clinton, just feminists. The phrase "forced her to have sex" works as a confusing verbal sedative. Is a woman "having sex" when someone is raping her? The media's euphemistic and brief coverage, in the midst of endless stories about the "scandals" of Clinton's "consentual sex" with Monica Lewinsky and, before that, his flashing of Paula Jones, helped to bury Broaddrick's account of rape.

Why, after such stubbornly obsessive coverage of the so-called "sex scandals," did the media want to bury this story? Because unlike the accusations of more minor incidents of sexual exploitation and assault, Broaddrick's accusation could not be transformed into meaninglessness through over-exposure.

Broaddrick's story, if it had been presented accurately and without the previous anesthesia of the misnamed "sex scandals," had the potential to reveal the real harm of patriarchal political power and, in particular, the connections between male supremacist authority and the abuse of women. The potential impact of Broaddrick's story could be avoided only if the media carefully muted it until after the impeachment trial, and then quickly abandoned it. And this is what they did. Broaddrick's story was completely replaced after just a few days of coverage with a series of very presidential photo ops, and then front page breaking news announcing just how many people watched Lewinsky's interview with Barbara Walters, and why Lewinsky's hair looked funny, and whether people's negative opinion of her had changed.

The media, knowing full well from the beginning that they would not pursue Broaddrick's story in order to determine its truth, or to investigate the several other rape accusations made against Clinton in previous years, or to examine what forms of recourse are or should be available to victims of violent politicians, informed readers that the country was simply too burned out on "Monica" (and, they forgot to mention, "Paula" before that) to care about Broaddrick's account of being raped.

In fact, the media's entire goal behind the non-stop, vacuous coverage of the "sex scandals" was to create this public exhaustion, setting the stage for public trivialization and dismissal of the entire spectrum of sexual aggression and violence against women, including rape. The purpose behind the obsessive "sex scandal" coverage had nothing to do with "the public's right to know" whether Bill actually ejaculated. And their point was not to sell advertising—the media knew full well that the public was revolted and turning away from the news. Nor was the media's purpose to distract the public from "more important" stories with "entertaining" coverage of exploitation and abuse, as leftists unceasingly asserted (see sidebar "The Left and the Amazing Disappearing Woman").

The purpose was to distract the public from the significance of the abuse itself, rendering it as meaningless as possible in public consciousness and discourse. The media's goal was to turn these important issues—from sexual exploitation and sexual aggression to sexual assault and rape—into non-issues.

It worked, by and large. Even women who don't go along with the belief that that some women count while other women don't, refuse at this point to view any accusation against Bill Clinton as consequential. "It's like being under a waterfall of sewage," one woman explained. "You don't want to stand there and figure out if there is anything meaningful in it. You just want to get away."

Which is more harmful, enforced silence or incessant white noise? Thirty years ago, the media pretended that men's violence against women hardly existed. There was only the violence committed by crazy men, or minority, disenfranchised men from whom white women needed to seek protection. Feminists exposed the reality of misogynist violence, including the fact that it is usually committed by men whom women trust. The violence now exposed, the mainstream media want to expose and expose and expose, like pornographers, until the public hardly cares. They intend to anesthetize our psyches by obsessively focusing on the non-essential details, details surrounding the more minor incidents in particular, so that the significance of the entire spectrum of exploitation and violence against women can once again be erased.

The work of feminists which brought to the public's consciousness the reality of misogynist violence is thus being co-opted and turned against us. This co-optation is succeeding, virtually unchallenged and unquestioned. We are seeing a collapse of integrity on the part of those who are suppose to resist—the feminists, leftists, civil rights advocates with media access—and a lethargy among those in the general population who might otherwise care. Women are being erased and, worst of all, many of us are agreeing to go along with the erasure.

In an eerie coincidence that perhaps was no coincidence at all, a central part of the Violence Against Women Act was ruled unconstitutional by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals just days after the Broaddrick story was aired and declared unimportant. The part of the act that gives women the right to sue their attackers in federal court has now been nullified in five eastern states for being a "sweeping intrusion into individual states' authority." The ruling will be appealed, but the appeal may not be successful. Will the public care if it isn't? After the country has dismissed as unimportant the accusations against the President, including the accusation of rape, isn't it a bit far fetched to expect the public to express outrage about the overturning of the act? Or other judicial wrong turns? Or individual acts of injustice against women?

The so-called "sex scandals" are over and done with. Now the questions we must face are: What is the fallout of the Presidential exploitation, assault, and rape non-scandal? Can the damage that has been done to women's issues though this orchestrated obliteration be undone at this point? If so, how?