As the national media consumes itself over the 18-year-old allegation that Justin Trudeau may have "groped" a reporter at a music festival, and the trolls on social media have a field day, much of the way the whole thing has been reported has been problematic.  It's been filled with specious comparisons and conflated notions of what is and is not hypocrisy on the part of the self-declared feminist prime minister, and the hot takes?  There have been some absolute doozies out there that fail to properly grasp what is going on.  Part of this is because so many people have been trying to wedge this uncovered allegation into a familiar frame that it just won't fit into.  So are we capable of injecting nuance into this conversation?

First of all, nothing said here excuses what may or may not have happened, and it certainly doesn't excuse the abysmal communications job coming from Trudeau up until Thursday or from the PMO.  It's a constant pattern from this government they start off with the lawyerly language that doesn't really say anything, and only after some time has passed do they come out with messaging that is reasonably coherent.  They shoot themselves in the foot like this time and again, but apparently haven't learned that lesson, almost three years later.  Yes, Thursday's acknowledgement that he may recall things differently is at least a better response than "doesn't recall any negative interactions," but that should have been the line from the start.  I do have some sympathy for the fact that there is probably no "correct" way to respond to this issue in a satisfactory way, but the lawyerly language was not it.

With that out of the way, let's take a look at the facts on the table.  The allegation was printed in the local newspaper where the music festival took place and were contained in an unsigned editorial.  The woman in question has since said that she didn't want to be identified or to discuss the matter further, or to be contacted further (not that numerous outlets have respected that wish).  A National Post investigation corroborated the accounts with the woman's editor, and the conclusion was that this was more than likely "inappropriate handling" that was more rude and off-putting and not sexual assault not that this has stopped the narrative that this was unwanted sexual contact.  (Seriously, though the mythology that trolls on Twitter have dreamed up is that this proves that Trudeau is a "sexual pervert," and that this happened while his wife was pregnant never mind that he didn't get married for another five years or that his first son wasn't born for another seven years).  And it especially makes the comments that MPs like Michelle Rempel made that equated Trudeau to disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein to be not only inflammatory but insulting to Weinstein's victims.

Numerous reporters and pundits have tried to equate this uncovered allegation with the incidents that took place on Parliament Hill, where Trudeau booted MPs Massimo Pacetti and Scott Andrews from caucus pre-investigation, or with the approach of calling for investigations with Darshan Kang (who removed himself from caucus) or Kent Hehr (who remained in caucus but removed himself from Cabinet).  Any of these comparisons is specious because each of those instances were "live" issues that had actual complainants.  Pacetti and Andrews were booted because there was no process, and then-NDP leader Thomas Mulcair had already called a press conference that morning to denounce Trudeau for allowing these alleged offenders to remain in his caucus after he'd been warned about them Trudeau managed to pre-empt Mulcair and ensure that they were removed from caucus until an investigation could be arranged.  Both Kang and Hehr were situations that had patterns of behaviour with multiple complainants, and in those cases, were with people where there was a power dynamic at play something that was absent with the Trudeau allegation as he was just a school teacher with a famous father at that point.

None of these facts has stopped reporters or pundits from calling for an investigation into the 18-year-old allegation, but none of them seems to have taken into account the problem that unless you have a live allegation or a complainant, it's really difficult to have an investigation.  In fact, I would say it's nigh impossible.  And recall just a few months ago where the NDP launched a harassment complaint into MP Erin Weir where there were no actual complainants.  The result of that was a bit of a gong show, and party leader Jagmeet Singh ended up booting Weir from caucus, not for the revelations of the investigation, but because Weir had the temerity to defend himself in the media when leaks were being used against him.  It's become clear since that the whole incident was essentially Mean-Girling Weir from the caucus, which I'm sure there are people who would love to attempt to do the same with Trudeau, but that's not going to happen.

And then there's the unsolicited advice being piling up around how Trudeau should handle this, beyond the nonsensical call for an investigation.  Most of the suggestions bear little sense that he should publicly seek counselling, or pledge to quit drinking, all of which are the kinds of PR moves we see from celebrities that don't actually apply here.  There is no pattern of behaviour.  In fact, trying to do so would smack of the kind of hollow actions that British comedian Tracey Ullman pilloried with her "Some Kind of Therapy Centre" sketch.

Because this is a situation with nuance, I think we need to slow down on the hot takes and realize that this doesn't have to be a blow to Trudeau's feminist credentials there is no actual allegation of sexual assault here that we know of, Trudeau's abysmally lawyerly response and all.  Nor does this diminish any of the government's actions related to #MeToo, because this wasn't actually a #MeToo issue the woman isn't making a fresh complaint.  Trying to frame it as one is an attempt to weaponize #MeToo for partisan gain diminishes the movement as a whole.  It's a tricky issue, but instead of trying to prove this is some kind of gotcha moment to prove Trudeau's hypocrisy, well, this may not be the incident you're looking for it to be.