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Far be it from me to throw a little sunshine on the parade of such revelations but, headline writers to the contrary, let’s be clear about one thing: B.C. Premier Christy Clark, much praised for a recent piece about growing up female, wasn’t sexually assaulted.

“The courage to speak out,” read the National Post headline Friday. The story was subtitled, “In her own words, B.C. Premier Christy Clark tells how she was sexually assaulted as a youth.” The Globe and Mail put one of a similar flavour over a column by Gary Mason: “Bearing witness to unspeakable truths.”

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But Clark quite clearly described what was, undoubtedly, a terrifyingly close call. “Most of all,” she wrote, “I remember the time a stranger pulled me off the sidewalk into the bushes.

“There was no doubt in my mind that he wanted to hurt me.”

“I’ll never know what might have happened,” she said, because she got lucky: The man slipped and lost his grip, and she was able to wriggle away and then run to safety. Thank heavens she was, too, and how shattered she must have been, a girl of 13 on her way to her job at a restaurant.