Kirsten Gillibrand says the late Daniel Inouye was the Senator who told her she'd "lost too much weight" and "I like my girls chubby."

Under pressure to name names, Senator Gillibrand names a dead man.

It turns out the senator was the late Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, the decorated veteran and civil rights hero, according to people with knowledge of the incident.

With his deep baritone and courtly manner, Mr. Inouye was revered by his colleagues and was a powerhouse in both Hawaii and the Senate, where he was a reliable supporter of women’s rights.

Oh, those supporters of women's rights are the worst sort of sexists underneath it all, I bet.

Here's my post from last week speculating about why Gillibrand wouldn't name names. I thought of 5 reasons why not and polled readers, and by far the most popular guess was: "Maybe it didn't happen." That answer seems more apt now that the response to the pressure was to name a dead man.

Now, what do you think is more likely?

It never happened, and she's lying by naming Inouye.

It happened, and it was Inouye. She'd been protecting him.

It happened, it was Inouye, but she didn't name him because we wouldn't care if a dead man did it.

It happened, but someone else did it, and a dead man's name is convenient.

It happened, it was Inouye, but she'd look bad naming a dead man.

It happened, it was Inouye, and she wanted no names to focus us on the generality of sexism.

pollcode.com free polls

IN THE COMMENTS: EMD said: "You think she'd have enough smarts to name a dead Republican," and, really, that's the strongest evidence that she's not lying. If you're going to use death to insulate your lies, why not pick an opponent? One answer is: The Republican Party would fight back, call me a liar, etc. My party has its interest in me.

And Todd makes 2 important points. First, the linked article doesn't specify that Gillibrand divulged the name, only that "people with knowledge" did. I am assuming that the "people" are either Gillibrand herself or her agents, speaking for her. It's possible, though, that they acquired their knowledge through Gillibrand, but not as a consequence of the pressure she's felt to name names and that their decision to speak to the press was an independent choice, unconnected to any decision by Gillibrand to name names. I think that's unlikely, but the text of the NYT piece preserves that possibility. The NYT could clarify that. But I believe the NYT would tend to protect and help Gillibrand, so I don't think they'd publish this fact unless it was what Gillibrand wants.

Speaking of how the NYT phrases things to help Democrats, Todd's other observation is a discrepancy between the text I cut and pasted — "It turns out the senator was the late Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, the decorated veteran and civil rights hero, according to people with knowledge of the incident" — and the text that appears at the link now — "It turns out the senator was the late Daniel K. Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii, the decorated veteran and civil rights hero, according to people with knowledge of the incident."

The original text did something that's frequently seen, the omission of "Democrat" in a mainstream media report of something negative about a Democrat. I'm guessing that somebody criticized the omission — somebody usually does — and the NYT stuck the "Democrat" in there. I looked for a reference to a correction but found none.

I did, however, find that the page I was reading is a new NYT feature, beginning today, called "First Draft," which is "a ​continuously updated ​news feed." Does "continuously updated" mean that corrections don't need to be noted? If so, "First Draft" is a misnomer. I don't know what draft I'm reading.

Did President Obama violate the precepts of etiquette and display raging narcissism at the funeral of Daniel Inouye?

It's pretty much what everyone is saying, notably Emily Yoffe at Slate (where one ordinarily expects support for the Prez). When I encounter a controversy at this late stage of one-sidedness, my instinct is to develop the other side. Law school class is like that, you know. If there's a case that everyone just somehow knows is rightly decided, the way to have a discussion about it isn't to remark upon its obviousness, but to figure out how someone — someone intelligent, educated, and sane — could think it wasn't right. That's what I do.

Read Yoffe's description of Obama's eulogy, which dwells on Obama's own life, growing up in Hawaii, the state Inouye represented in the Senate. Obama talks about his family vacations, where they stayed in motels, and the motel rooms had TVs, and — "as the people must have been twitching in the pews wondering where this was all going" — the Watergate hearings were on TV, and so he saw Inouye, and because Inouye did not have that typical white person look, the young mixed-race Obama was inspired to imagine "what might be possible in my own life."

A funeral for a very old person — Inouye was 88 — is not an occasion for deep mourning or soothing profound shock. It can be an occasion to look back on the era, to indulge one's own personal connections to the time and the man who has passed on. And if the President of the United States speaks at the funeral, that in itself is a phenomenal honor for the deceased. The President should not read a typical eulogy, a conventional account of the dead man's achievements and wonderful personal traits. This is something different. And when the President is specifically noted for his oratory, something special is anticipated.

No one — I submit — was "twitching in the pews wondering where this was all going." They were rapt, experiencing the gift of a unique presentation, The Story of a Boy — that boy! — and how his individual history merged with The Story of America — A Story of Race. They knew, as they surrendered themselves into the hands of our storyteller-in-chief, that they would be cared for and rewarded. The threads would come together, the yarns would be knitted into a beautiful eulogy blanket, under which Daniel Inouye could be laid to rest and all would be comforted.

How dare you snatch that comfort away by counting the "I"s and "me"s in that speech?!