“Its not what you did son, that angers me so. It's who you did it to.“We called him Baba Yaga. Well John wasn't exactly the boogeyman, he was the one you sent to kill the boogeyman.”
That was from the movie John Wick and it well describes what caused a nationally exposed scandal last Monday.
Corrupt legislators in Oklahoma have their own Baba Yaga, one they fear when they know they have done wrong, and it was just that which was the catalyst last Monday that sparked the hot mic episode before the Governor's press conference. And it was that story that went national, exposing the sexual assault scandal at the House of Representatives to the world. The Google results go back five pages and Twitter had lots of fun with it, even Yahoo news picked up the story.
There are tons of stories online but one of the best was a segment of 3D Politics, starting around the 1:05:20 mark in the pod cast. The Governor was doing a press conference with the House caucus and prior to the Governor arriving a bunch of legislators were hovering around the podium waiting for the Speaker and Governor to arrive. One of the legislators was Rep. Jadine Nolan, a veteran of four or five terms. Standing nearby was Rep. Scott Fetgatter, one of the four men present during the first reported sexual battery case against Rep. Chris Kannady. David Van of Sooner Politics describes the dialog, starting with Nolan asking if Al Gerhart was there. Fetgatter said he didn't know, that he hadn't seen him, obviously something on his mind from his reply. Whether they were fearing more accusations or a confrontation with someone that rarely visits the Capitol is unknown but it triggered the conversation between Fetgatter and Rep. Mark McBride that showed just how much of a frat house attitude is present at the Capitol.
Much of the conversation is difficult to hear but the most salacious part goes:
“You molested this girl after Kannady did?" McBride asked.
“No, I was at the table and I allowed it," Fetgatter said in an apparent response.
“Are you sure it wasn’t a donkey or a goat?” McBride then said.
Later on in the audio you can here Fetgatter complaining about being anonymous in the first newsletter story and being named in the second as being responsible for not stopping or not reporting the sexual assault.
You can hear the exchange around the four minute mark in the video on thehill.com, a national political news site. The Hill.com story links to the Channel 9 story last week as well as the original Channel 4 story that covers the sexual assault scandal a bit better. Reading the comments is worth your time, there were no supporters or anyone trying to second guess or explain why this happened. The comments were eviscerating to the Republican Party and these men in particular.
Baba Yaga you see is a very complicated character in Russian folklore. Some accounts refer to a witch, yet one that has no power over the pure at heart. She lives in a log cabin that stands on large chicken feet no less, surrounded by a bone fence, that goes twirling through the forest until someone speaks an incantation that causes the cabin to stop and drop to the ground to allow entry. Once inside, the witch asks a question: “Were you sent here?” or “Did you come of your own free will?” One answer will get you devoured by a witch with sharp iron teeth.
Another telling of the fable says that Baba Yaga is a shaman, a male witch, that rides into battle on a pig to battle the crocodile. In effect, Baba Yaga is a monster you send to kill the witch. This is the definition of Baba Yaga in the John Wick movie, taken together you have a monster you send to kill worse monsters yet one that has no power over the pure at heart. And that is an apt description.
In the 3D Politics video David Van did defend the two legislators somewhat but David is known for being more than fair and maintaining a relationship with all sorts of legislators. But the conversation during the segment shows exactly what people are thinking about the entire sexual assault scandal concerning Chris Kannady and Kevin McDugle. The gutter language, violence against women attitude at the Capitol, and the weeks long chase of McDugle for a comment on the issue and now the chase to find McBride and get a statement out of him over his remarks. All of these are on people's minds.
David Van also updates on the scandal, mentioning a possible criminal referral, that several of the principles have been interviewed by the special counsel, and other bits of info.
Legislators know this and as the preoccupation with Gerhart shows they rightly fear exposure and the accompanying humiliation and shame for their own actions. They know that the question is the same “Were you told how to vote?” or “Are you voting your free will?” They know the repercussions of their acts and misdeeds hang over their heads like an axe and are constantly fearing the unknown and the shadows as well as their own past and present.
