Eric Swalwell Was Useful Right Up Until He Wasn't

How the media protected him — until he became a liability.

So, we have now learned that it was pretty much common knowledge in Washington that Eric Swalwell, the seven-term California Democrat who recently resigned from Congress, was doing a lot more than flirting with young women, including some on his staff.

“The broad contours of Swalwell’s alleged behavior, if not the specifics, did not come as a surprise to many working in and around politics, especially in Washington,” is what Politico now tells us.

Maybe Washington insiders weren’t surprised. But it sure came as a surprise to anyone who doesn’t spend time trading gossip in the corridors of power — and to a lot of voters in California who kept re-electing him and were likely on the verge of sending him to the governor’s mansion.

The New York Post reported last week that Swalwell “sent nude photos and videos of himself masturbating through Snapchat” and “shared unsolicited nudes with several woman as a married East Bay congressman and held meetings at a chain restaurant known for scantily clad waitresses — leading ex-colleagues to brand him a ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ figure who harassed women privately while crusading for equal rights in public.”

“Capitol Hill gossips, including journalists from whom one might have hoped to hear something before now, evidently knew about Mr. Swalwell’s behavior for years,” writes Barton Swain in The Wall Street Journal. “A passel of female former staffers accusing him of undue advances, assault and rape — whether speaking at the behest of a rival campaign or otherwise — made the case of Mr. Swalwell no longer ignorable even by a press that would prefer not to hear about it.”

For the record: Swalwell, who dropped out of the race for governor, has denied the accusations of rape. In a social media post he wrote, “I am deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment,” adding, “I will fight the serious, false allegations.”

Fair enough. Allegations are not convictions. But here’s the question that refuses to go away: If this was a not-so-secret secret, why didn’t the rest of us hear about it sooner— from the same journalists who pride themselves on “speaking truth to power”?

Forgive me for stating the obvious. A lot of journalists weren’t interested in pursuing rumors about Swalwell precisely because he was a progressive Democrat who could be counted on to show up on cable TV and bash Donald Trump on cue.

And let’s not kid ourselves: In today’s media environment, despising President Trump buys you a lot of goodwill. It buys you patience. It buys you the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes, it even buys you silence.

So much for fair and honest journalism.

“It took two liberal social-media ‘influencers’ to track down stories from women about their negative experiences and spoon-feed them to CNN before the mainstream media reported them,” Alysia Finley notes in The Wall Street Journal. “And if talk of Mr. Swalwell’s alleged exploits hadn’t been swirling on social media, would reporters have investigated or reported them?”

We all know the answer to that. They could have shown curiosity. They could have done what journalists are supposed to do: dig, verify, report. Instead, they looked the other way — until they couldn’t.

“The accusations against Mr. Swalwell,” Finley writes, “came out only when airing them was necessary to protect the Democratic Party. Had the media sat on the story, it might have blown up on Democrats if Mr. Swalwell advanced through the June 2 jungle primary to face Republican Steve Hilton in the general election. He [Swalwell] was useful to them, until he wasn’t. And then he had to go.”

Swalwell always struck me as annoying — not because his politics differed from mine, but because of the smug, self-satisfied way he carried himself. And while we’re at it, let’s add “hypocritical” to the list.

During the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, Swalwell, like many other Democrats, presented himself as a champion of women, declaring, “We have to believe all women” who accuse men of sexual misconduct. But that was then, before his own story involving women went public.

Yes, loathing Donald Trump helped propel Eric Swalwell into the spotlight. It made him a darling of liberal cable news channels and a rising star in his party. But loathing the president only takes you so far. When you become a liability — when your baggage threatens the brand — you’re no longer an asset. You’re expendable.

And that’s the part worth remembering. Not just about Eric Swalwell, but about the system that protected him until it didn’t.

Because this story isn’t only about one politician’s alleged misconduct. It’s about a media culture that decides which stories matter — and when they matter. It’s about whose sins are front-page news and whose are politely ignored.

In the end, Swalwell didn’t fall because journalists suddenly discovered their watchdog instincts. He fell because the political math changed. He fell when he became a liability.

He was useful right up until he wasn’t.