Vice Magazine published an article about the life and death of serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a sex worker who was found guilty of killing seven clients between 1989 and 1990. She claimed she had shot these men in self-defense.

After spending ten years on death row, Wuornos died by lethal injection in 2002. She has become a cult hero to some, including rap star Cardi B, who featured her photograph on a single she released in May. According to the author, Sofia Barret-Ibarria, “to her fans, Wuornos’s story offers a powerful example of a survivor who defies the respectability politics of victimhood.”

Writer Mark Hemingway read this article as it was originally published (paragraph below). Barret-Ibarria equates Justice Brett Kavanaugh to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and “countless others.” She hopes they “will ultimately get what they deserve.” That is to say, they deserve to be shot to death by a serial killer.

As reports of powerful men who abuse vulnerable women continue to surface, it’s hard to deny that survivors are craving stories of revenge—stories where victims not only live to survive the abuse, but fight back. “I think part of her appeal to me personally, in this cultural moment, is that Aileen Wuornos was a woman that men feared,” said Bailey. Wournos story offers hope that terrible men like Jeffrey Epstein, Brett Kavanaugh and countless others will ultimately get what they deserve. “A prostitute hunting men instead of being hunted is a deeply comforting story.”

Hemingway rightly points out in the tweet below that “the author is saying Brett Kavanaugh DESERVES TO BE MURDERED BY A SERIAL KILLER?!…Were all the responsible editors left in journalism killed in a purge night or something.”

So this @vice article… the author is saying Brett Kavanaugh DESERVES TO BE MURDERED BY A SERIAL KILLER?! Were all the responsible editors left in journalism killed in a purge night or something? https://t.co/NxIzqiy2HR pic.twitter.com/RdULPepoy2 — Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) September 20, 2019

The emphasized sentence was changed after it was widely criticized.

As reports of powerful men who abuse vulnerable women continue to surface, it’s hard to deny that survivors are craving stories of revenge—stories where victims not only live to survive the abuse, but fight back. “I think part of her appeal to me personally, in this cultural moment, is that Aileen Wuornos was a woman that men feared,” said Bailey. At a time when we are constantly inundated with stories like that of Jeffrey Epstein and Brett Kavanaugh, her story is an example of men facing repercussions for their actions. “A prostitute hunting men instead of being hunted is a deeply comforting story.”

Although the revised sentence no longer implies that Kavanaugh deserves to be murdered by a serial killer, she still includes him in the same category as Epstein.

I am not a lawyer, but it would seem to me that some of the language used by liberal writers and commentators in their coverage of Justice Kavanaugh meets the legal criteria for libel. I realize that Kavanaugh is a public figure and the bar is set higher than if he were a private citizen. He is also a conservative, so the bar goes higher still.

Justice Kavanaugh has not been convicted of a crime. He is the victim of the most vicious character assassination campaign in U.S. political history.

At some point, those who peddle fake news must pay a price for it.