Lately, prominent liberals are being called out, publicly disgraced and summarily banished. Their accusers, mainly attractive women, are rising in numbers from the ranks of the working world. These women are at last speaking up, filing complaints, insisting on their equal humanity. In short, they are calling sexual harassment what it is: ill-timed, awkward at the least, extremely embarrassing and at times even threatening.

Among other things, the women are tired of dodging the errant hands of the boss; ignoring the crude joke of the important customer; smiling through locked teeth and jaw at lascivious, drunken behavior. These verbal/physical assaults have always done what they were meant to do: demean the object, reduce her to the lowly handmaiden she was born to be, a producer of future male citizens and facilitator of male comforts.

But after all, what do you do with an overactive suitor who insistently paws and drools on you? Discipline the bothersome nuisance. This bound-to-come airing of the unwelcome athletics around the boss' desk, and the insidious hotel room interview, not to forget the off-track ride home from the male co-worker, is long overdue.

However, there are some conclusions that worry me: the rate at which once-public icons, long recognized as standing against corruption, are falling. Each time another long-trusted voice for the abused and forgotten and a champion of the rule of law and the battle for decency must retire amid a media storm of graphic sexual details — but without legal due process — my thoughts stray to kangaroo courts, show trials, even the excesses of the French Revolution. It is also most unfair, as our liberal icons are tried in the press and forced to retire, that our leader has been recorded on tape, boasting of his "star" power to publicly maul women. Followed by his subsequent election.

It seems that more often than not it's the outspoken opposition in disgrace — Charlie Rose, Al Franken, Eric Schneiderman, Morgan Freeman. The oldest method for removing an opponent too knowing, too hotly critical, is to discredit him. The sexual smear works wonders in this time of naming and telling — without due process. Unfortunately, #MeToo has become entangled and confused within a virulent conservative drive to discredit as many left-leaning leaders as possible.

It's unfortunate that the revelations brought to light by a women's movement breaking long silence on male abuse of power have also been used to disparage opponents. But what better opportunity? In this particular time, to say the #MeToo movement is a blind for removing inconvenient opponents is close to heresy. Nevertheless, the current zeitgeist offers this golden opportunity.

I have no proof of conservatives seeking and fostering accusations against liberals. However, these political machinations are as old as time — more implicitly understood than blatantly manifest. I see #MeToo becoming a tool to disarm the assailants of the current Trump-ian regime and its disturbing aberrations.

We are a country built from respect for the law as well as individual freedom. We root our faith and security within the constitutional necessity to prove one's accusations in a proper court before an impartial jury. Surely these men lately accused and forced to retire without due process deserve a formal hearing. Beneath the media's continuous clash and clamor, its haste to convict in the public forum, for me there remains a small, insistent voice urging proof. Corroboration. Rule of law. Due process. Democracy depends on it.