'More ammo for Trump. Pushes Kavanaugh further to the right (if that's possible)'

This is what some members of the NYT alumni group I'm in are saying about the controversial story by Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly, who wrote the forthcoming book "The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation":

The Times splashes all over the front page a baseless, slanderous allegation that nobody confirms with the alleged victim, who says she "does not recall the incident?" Forget journalistic integrity. Is there anyone left with a shred of human decency? 'The Times' revision says: "Editors' Note: An earlier version of this article, which was adapted from a forthcoming book, did not include one element of the book's account regarding an assertion by a Yale classmate that friends of Brett Kavanaugh pushed his penis into the hand of a female student at a drunken dorm party. The book reports that the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident. That information has been added to the article." Thanks for adding that after the fact. Disgraceful. 

From someone that bleeds NYT ink, what the heck is going on..... Please, anyone have a reason....

Maybe emotional maturity should have ranked higher when they were culling the herd in 2017.

More ammo for Trump. Pushes Kavanaugh further to the right (if that's possible).

sad but true.

The people writing the Op-Ed piece are also the people that wrote the book being quoted; that should have called for extra scrutiny from editors.

UPDATE: Some other people have weighed in and I've gone from thinking the Gray Lady blew it on this to thinking she was just needlessly sloppy.

One said:

Okay, I'll venture into these murky waters. The story quotes Max Stier, who says he witnessed the secondary event. It (belatedly) does not say the woman says it didn't happen, but that she declined to be interviewed, and that unnamed friends say she didn't remember it. The initial tweet on the subject, calling the Ramirez allegation a "prank'' was as or more disturbing than the omitted material, which was cited in the book. The quotes from Ramirez in the op-ed don't sound at all like she is saying she "doesn't recall the incident.'' Rather, they quote her as follows: “I had gone through high school, I’m the good girl, and now, in one evening, it was all ripped away,” she said in an interview earlier this year at her Boulder, Colo., home. By preying upon her in this way, she added, Mr. Kavanaugh and his friends “make it clear I’m not smart.” Not hoping to persuade anyone whose mind is already made up in the endless Facebook echo chamber, but I disagree with the assertions made in this post. I'm pretty confident most, probably all, of the Times staffers have integrity and decency. The mistakes in tweets and editing are concerning, but let's keep some perspective here.

And another said:

Both Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly were on Lawrence O’Donnell tonight and gave a cogent explanation of what happened -- The Times generally doesn’t print the names of victims and in editing out the woman’s name they killed the rest of the sentence. In anything other than the Trump era we would say it’s just a typical screw-up on deadline although given that this ran on Sunday and is a book excerpt perhaps it says more about a need for more editors -- I can’t believe I’m saying that. As for the other criticism, the excerpt and I’m sure the entire book make it very clear that the fix was in. The FBI did not talk to many people who had knowledge that Kavanaugh was lying through his teeth. One person hired a lawyer and wrote a letter and was turned away by the FBI. Of course lying at your confirmation hearing is not new. Rehnquist lied at his hearing and so did John Glover Roberts, not that you know that from reading our favorite newspaper.