Did you know attorney Max Stier is well-respected? Did you know he heads a well-respected, non-partisan outfit in the nation’s capital? Did you know Stier, who is well-respected, is above political activism?
Did you know Max Stier can also walk on water?
I did not know any of these things until members of the press decided this week that it was especially important to vouch for Stier’s apparently impeccable character. This comes after New York Times reporters revealed he accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh privately last year of drunkenly abusing a female classmate when they were all students at Yale.
For many major newsrooms, it more important to stress Stier’s good character than the fact that he is a Democratic consultant. His good character is more important than addressing the fact that he served as Bill Clinton’s attorney in the 1990s, opposite Kavanaugh, who worked for the special prosecutor going after Clinton. Stier’s good character is also a more important detail than the supposed victim in his accusation against Kavanaugh saying she has no recollection of the thing he alleges.
He is well-respected and non-partisan. So say our fearless and objective news media. I hope that settles things for everyone.
Steir is the “president of the thoroughly bipartisan and widely respected Partnership for Public Service,” Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. wrote in an article published Sept. 15. Dionne’s Post colleague Karen Tumulty wrote two days later that Stier “heads a well-respected, nonpartisan organization in Washington.”
“He’s well-respected,” CNN’s Alyssa Camerota said Sept. 17 during a discussion of the allegation Stier brought privately to Deleware Sen. Chris Coons during the 2018 Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.
Elsewhere that same day, Kate Kelly, who is one of the two New York Times reporters who revealed the attorney’s behind-the-scenes involvement in the Kavanaugh hearings, said also on CNN that the Democratic consultant is “very respected, good governance advocate in Washington,” adding further that, “Because of Stier’s respected stature in Washington, and because he runs this bipartisan group, we deem it to be credible information.”
USA Today‘s Washington Bureau chief Susan Page said later during a Fox News panel discussion that Stier is “a respected person” and a “respected bipartisan person,” who she “didn’t realize [worked] for a Democratic president.” Oops!
“Eyewitnesses often get attacked by supporters of the one whose conduct was witnessed,” tweeted former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics and frequent MSNBC contributor Walter Shaub. “[A]nd Before that happens, I’d like to add that Max Stier is well respected by both sides of the aisle, nonpartisan, smart and absolutely devoted to good government without regard to who’s in power.”
The New Yorker’s notoriously unreliable Jane Mayer also noted on social media that Stier “is no slouch of a witness — he is a Rhodes Scholar, Stanford Law grad, fmr. Supreme Court Clerk, runs a bipartisan center for public service and is the star of Michael Lewis’ last book.” True to form, Mayer had to add in a follow-up note, “Evidently Max Stier was in Kavanaugh’s class at Yale, clerked for Justice David Souter but isn’t a Rhodes Scholar, so correcting and updating.”
Philadelphia Daily News columnist Will Bunch complained also that federal agents did not question “the respected head of a D.C.-area non-profit, Max Stier.”
“I know Max Stier. He is scrupulously honest and nonpartisan,” tweeted Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin.
What these commentaries all have in common, aside from hero worship, is that they are curiously silent regarding Stier’s professional background.
Meanwhile, Kelly and her Times colleague, Robin Pogrebin, describe Stier in their new book, The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation, as “a respected thought leader on federal government management issues in Washington as the founding president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service.” An excerpt from their book published last weekend in the Times’ Sunday Review section describes Stier merely as an individual who “runs a nonprofit organization in Washington.” A follow-up Times report characterizes him only as a man “who now runs a nonprofit organization in Washington.”
This effort to hide the ball from the reader is itself an indication that something is wrong with the reporting.
The fact that the man has a long track record of serving Democrats, even working opposite the very man he now accuses of misconduct, is somehow just a minor detail we are supposed to ignore or overlook. After all, would a well-respected man ever lie to you?
