The beast must be fed! There are apologies to parse, fuckers!

“He “never groped” and “never coerced” his colleagues at any of his various media jobs, he claimed, adding, “I’m human. I’m not perfect but this doesn’t rise to the level” of sexual misconduct.”

Exactly.. Katie can to editorialize as she often does, but this interpretation has nothing to do with what Smiley said, “basically” or otherwise.

With an important assist from the mysterious, invisible Ghostwriter.

“Yeah, but I can handle this and act professionally when that comes up”*

People need to start acknowledging and respecting the idea that people with disparate positions of status in an organization ethically shouldn’t enter into a sexual relationship. Boss/employee, teacher/student, supervisor/employee...there’s just an inherent imbalance that is being exploited.

“Basically, it sounds like he considered himself untouchable, and is very annoyed to be facing consequences for his actions.”

No, it doesn’t sound like this at all, as can be seen by the quotes attributed to him directly above this disingenuous dismissal.