Under the new feminist model, if a man even looks at a woman and has a sexual thought, he’s committing rape. If a man touches a woman without consent, it’s sexual assault. And if she’s intoxicated, you can’t obtain consent. Using these definitions, Sen. Cory Booker admitted to sexually assaulting an intoxicated friend when he was 15.

While an undergrad at Stanford majoring in sociology, Booker wrote a column for The Stanford Daily. In a column dated February 19, 1992, he recounts his attempt to get to second base with a friend:

New Year’s Eve 1984 I will never forget. I was 15. As the ball dropped, I leaned over to hug a friend and she met me instead with an overwhelming kiss. As we fumbled upon the bed, I remember debating my next “move” as if it were a chess game. With the “Top Gun” slogan ringing in my head, I slowly reached for her breast. After having my hand pushed away once, I reached my “mark.”

To which “Top Gun” slogan is he referring? “Take me to bed, or lose me forever”? Or, “Show me the way home, honey”? Possibly, “Remember, boys, no points for second place”? Maybe even, “She’s lost that loving feeling.” He definitely had a goal, though.

It doesn’t seem he was too concerned about consent as he reached for her breast a second time – which is sort of an aggressive move, no? As it turns out, under Title IX she couldn’t have given consent anyway.

Our groping ended soon and while no “relationship” ensued, a friendship did. You see, the next week in school she told me that she was drunk that night and didn’t really know what she was doing. While she liked me a lot, she said she just wanted to be friends. I have gotten used to those five words, but that’s another column.

Booker then decries what has now become known as “rape culture” through the rest of the column, but a few months later decided to revisit the issue.

[A]fter five years at Stanford I felt as if I learned so much, that I could now endeavor to teach, inspire and enrich a community with my profound pontifications. But by my second column, as I raised my noble pen to address the issue of date rape, I realized that the person holding it wasn’t so noble after all. With this issue as with so many others, a dash of sincere introspection has revealed to me a dangerous gap — a gap between my beliefs and my actions.

His noble pen?

It’s funny, but with so many of these issues I already felt I had established the “Cory Booker Party Line” — “Respect women,” “Gays are OK, too,” “Black people need justice,” etc. However, I have come to realize that these lines of mine are shallow manifestations of acceptance without internalization. I may truly believe these catchy phrases of mine — equality, peace, understanding — but until these words and beliefs are actualized, I am a danger to myself. So, from my window — What do I see? I see racists. I see sexist people. Still I look closer . . . What do I see? I see people steeped in hypocrisy. I see injustice abounding. Closer, closer I look . . . What do I see? I see myself.

At least at that time he understood that “party line” phrases could be “shallow manifestations of acceptance” and that how he sees the world could simply be a reflection of what’s in his heart. The eternal optimist in me wants to believe that Sen. Booker still has a touch of that (seeming) humility and ability to understand that true equality, peace, and understanding aren’t achieved using the methods he and his fellow Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are so fond of.

My optimistic hopes were dashed when Booker’s office attacked the publication of his juvenile musings as a Vast Right-Wing Attack.

“This disingenuous right-wing attack, which has circulated online and in partisan outlets for the past five years, rings hollow to anyone who reads the entirety of Senator Booker’s Stanford Daily column,” a spokesperson for the senator said in a statement to Fox News.

“The column is in fact a direct criticism of a culture that encourages young men to take advantage of women — written at a time when so candidly discussing these issues was rare — and speaks to the impact Senator Booker’s experience working to help rape and sexual assault survivors as a college peer counselor had on him.”

No, it doesn’t ring hollow. Sen. Booker is attempting to derail Brett Kavanaugh’s entire career over an unsubstantiated allegation from 35 years ago involving a teenage party where everyone was imbibing and no one really knows who, exactly, was at the party, or when, where, or if it happened. This same man admits to groping a drunken female friend and rolling around on the bed with her – and who later regretted her drunken actions.

In his eyes, that’s okay and he can go on with his life because after working with rape and sexual assault survivors he was a “changed man.” I believe that he was (in some ways) a changed man, and his descriptions of the survivors’ experiences are haunting. I don’t believe that Booker should truly be taken to task over the New Year’s Eve groping incident, or that any teenager who drunkenly makes out with someone at a kegger should feel professional consequences for the rest of their lives.

What hasn’t changed is his use of “party lines” as “shallow manifestations of acceptance,” and the person holding them isn’t “so noble after all.”

All we’re asking for, Sen. Booker, is a little consistency and a little integrity. Sadly, I don’t think we’ll ever find it.

Note: Edited after publication for clarity.

Don’t miss the update to the story:

https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2018/09/21/major-error-cory-bookers-groping-story/

Follow Jennifer on Twitter: @jenvanlaar and Facebook.