Epstein files circus hides sex abuse horror in plain sight

Sure I'm in the Epstein files. Big city columnist, jiggling the ice in my glass aboard the Hollinger corporate jet as it winged its way toward...

Maybe I shouldn't even mention it. But Jon Stewart confessed his cameo in the scandalous files — a tossed-off suggestion that he narrate a documentary being contemplated — and as my lone appearance is similarly benign, perhaps I should.

The risk is that doing so further perfumes this true horror with another spritz of triviality.

What the heck, we're on the topic already. I'm not a fan of trigger warnings. But this subject is so grim without the warm glow of celebrity and euphemism the media habitually slathers over it. I like to be direct. If that might upset you, many interesting articles await elsewhere in the paper.

Ready?

Jeffrey Epstein was a rich pedophile who raped children, secured for him by his pander, Ghislaine Maxwell, who went around seducing vulnerable girls with tales of money and power. They were debauched by Epstein and a revolving cast of famous pals who no doubt imagined that the girls were consenting. But children can't consent to their own molestation. It's still rape.

Epstein initially got a slap on the wrist, until the Miami Herald ran a three-part series in 2018 that sent Epstein back to prison, where he killed himself, most likely.

The Epstein files would not die, however, and became a hobbyhorse of the lunatic right, when they thought the case would besmirch Bill Clinton. When it turned out that their beloved hero was also involved, their interest waned.

My instinct was to pass on the tawdry mess. Who cares if Bill Gates supposedly cheated on his wife? Nothing in the Epstein files could lower my rock bottom opinion of Donald Trump. If you haven't figured him out long ago, you never will.

Only two things are worth observing here, and since I haven't heard either said among the 24/7 media chicken ranch squawking on the subject, I will point them out.

First, evil needs a framework. The ICE agents who shot Renee Good in the face and put 10 bullets into Alex Pretti would not, I believe, have done so independently, had they strolled out into the street last summer and encountered these two on their own. The federal government first had to hire them, train them, supposedly, outfit them with weapons and, crucially, give them permission to suspend any sense of basic human decency.

Permission is key to hurting others. Bullies are cowards, and must be reassured it's okay. Think. Why would any super rich guy need to visit Jeffrey Epstein? They have their own planes, their own willing assistants who could scour local roller rinks for underage victims. But they didn't do that. They needed Epstein to assure them that is allowed, on his plane or island. He created a setting where they could be as awful as they wanted to be.

Second, the Epstein saga is an example of what I call the Shark Attack vs. Heart Attack Conundrum. Every summer, the media goes crazy over shark attacks, while heart attacks are what might actually kill you. The really bad thing about the Epstein story isn't that his crimes were covered up by his wealth and connections. The really bad thing is these crimes happen all the time everywhere, and are routinely covered up without either. By the working mom who doesn't want to lose her boyfriend. By the busy church administrator trying to run a parish. By the private school principal worried more about the school's reputation than its students. Where's the media frenzy over that?

Forty-one years ago I was opinion page editor of the Wheaton Daily Journal and got a letter from a woman who said her 4-year-old son had been raped by his pre-school's janitor. She called the police, expecting them to show up with sirens flashing and arrest the man. Didn't happen. It began a frustrating slog through the legal system that ended nowhere. Justice was never done. It typically isn't. I wrote a series that began:

"With the subject of sex abuse, it's easy to get wrapped up in the numbers game. How many adults were molested as children in this country? Does 10 million sound like too many? One authoritative source says the figure is 25 million."

The CDC now estimates that 42 million American adults were sexually abused as children.

Not by Jeffrey Epstein, who apparently subscribed to an email service called TheaterMania offering bargain Broadway tickets. In 2011 it pitched discount tickets to David Henry Hwang's "Chinglish."

"One of the funniest plays in memory," the email quotes me writing in my review. "I haven't heard an audience laugh this much in years."