In the “timing is everything” department, the State Department comments on proposed Iraqi legislation allowing child marriage:
“Often we don’t comment on draft legislation; often we don’t comment on other country’s legislation. But we are completely against and oppose the idea of children marrying adults. And let’s remember, it was not that long ago that we called out the depravity of ISIS for taking child prisoners, child brides, and the sort. Some of this will be an internal Iraqi matter, but we remain firmly opposed to the idea that any adult would attempt to marry a child in that fashion. A child is a child.”
So the State Department is against child marriage—in this case for children as young as nine years old, which is … horrific—at the very same time as some Republicans are defending and others are “if true”-ing accounts of a Republican Senate candidate molesting a 14-year-old when he was in his 30s. Is this statement how the State Department shows off its nonpartisan independence these days?