Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Accusations of rape against U.S. presidents

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This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was no consensus. Note that this doesn't preclude anyone from being bold and performing a merge and redirect themselves. · Katefan0(scribble) 18:38, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Accusations of rape against U.S. presidents

This article is simply an attempt to find a venue for POV material that would be instantly removed from the main Clinton article. It is highly POV and cannot hope to be otherwise. If the allegation is notable it should be in the main Clinton article, if it is not then the article should be deleted.

  • Delete --Gorgonzilla 15:51, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete — libelous. — RJH 16:40, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
  • keep I can't see how this is libellous - all the allegations are carefully sourced. The article itself reports, but does not make allegations. Nor is it inherently POV (there are some speculative comments and perhaps weasle-type words that should be removed)- it should not, and does not really, comment on whether the allegations are true or spurious. Being able to compare allegations and the media responses between presidencies seems interesting and perhaps useful. Certainly salvagable --Doc (?) 17:20, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. These are really just opportunistic accusations against recent Presidents. David | Talk 17:22, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep souced accusations... what's the problem? --Quasipalm 17:29, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, well sourced. Presumably the Clinton fanatics will be drawn here to vandalize, so hopefully someone will watchlist it. Sdedeo 17:41, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. If these are notable they should be in the President in question's article. Jefferson's one is extremely point of view, and even admits that in the phrase this would be considered rape by modern standards. It is impossible to know the true facts of the case, and there is no evidence presented that Jefferson was accused of rape in his lifetime. My opinion is that if we allow this article we open the door to articles on everything United States President's have ever been accused of. The best place for this information is the article on the President in question. Steve block talk 18:27, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. This article is about accusations, not proven facts. Thus, when these accusations are documented by either well known news source and/or court fillings, then they are not libelous. It may be important to stress the accusation aspect in the article though. Also, someone might need to watch / require all additions be supported by references. --Hurricane111 18:57, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. I have reverted the article to include Jefferson, as it should be. I don't think there is anything POV about considering Jefferson's possibly non-consensual sex rape, although it would be much better if a source could be provided. Oh wait. [1], [2]. There is nothing that limits this article to "accusations made during the lifetime of the president in question". Slippery slope arguments on AfD are inherently dangerous, because once you allow one slippery slope argument you open the door to deleting most of wikipedia's content</irony>. Sdedeo 19:05, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
Comment I do not believe I am on a slippery slope here. I am merely making the point that we can not judge Jefferson by today's standards, as the article text does so. Do you also consider we should judge historic people's sexuality by today's standards? Should we judge all slavers as criminals if they broke no laws of their own time? Yes we can state their actions, butr we can not state they have been accused of rape if they have not so been. I am not limiting it as such to accusations in their life time, but rather that such accusations have been explicitly made. The two sources Sdedeo quotes do not make the accusation he so dearly clains they support, and he even admits himself it is a possibility. If Jefferson has been accused of rape, cite a better source and I'll be happy to agree. Failing that, do not make the accusation. Steve block talk 19:16, 6 September 2005 (UTC) Fair play, Jefferson section sourced now. Apologies for rant. However my vote is still currently delete. Steve block talk 19:20, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, well-sourced. Krakatoa 19:08, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep well-sourced and reported on often in media and historical accounts HoratioVitero 20:14, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
  • weak keep Accusations of rape != rape commited. Thats not the issue. The issue would be notability, which I think is proven (i.e. notable) for some of the examples listed. Roodog2k (talk) 20:20, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. What is the point? The article is inaccurate and could probably never hope to be NPOV. Accusations? Hey, President Millard Filmore raped me! Guess I should go put it in the article. Sources can be very deceptive on this one. Does the source show that a claim was made, or that the claim has credibility. Like everywhere else, one person's claims should probably not be included in Wikipedia. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 20:26, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete Unnecessary, unencyclopedic POV article Soltak | Talk 21:32, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete Non-encyclopedic and unless charges have been proved, little more than hearsay.Vizjim 23:07, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Jefferson's case was not raised during his lifetime and my personal view is that calling it rape is drawing a long bow. The case against Reagan was not raised until forty years later and originally appeared in a dubious source namely a Kitty Kelley book. The alleged case against George W. Bush was made by a woman with mental illness and appears not to have been taken seriously. I don't think we should be in the business of repeating hearsay claims unless they are widely-publicised and therefore notable. Capitalistroadster 00:54, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete unless this information is not present in the articles about the given presidents, in which case merge to those articles and redirect. In either case this should not exist as a separate article, unless there is some correlation between rape and U.S. presidents. Putting all these cases together does not appear to be useful as it stands. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:23, 2005 September 7 (UTC)
  • Merge each section into the article on the president in question and delete this. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 05:33, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
    • I don't see how we could do what Angr suggests under GFDL, but if we can, I support what Angr said. Zoe 06:48, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge and delete as per Angr - GFDL can be fulfilled by cut and pasting the edit history of the deletia onto the talk page of each president in question. This is a very POV article that has been created to make a point, possibly due to umbrage over the recent accusations made by Clinton about Bush's incompetence in dealing with Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. Holy hell, it's like a soap opera. Proto t c 09:22, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: Are the sources reliable. Who are the people doing the accusing? Are they just one nn person? We should judge the article by the validity of its sources. Not whether it gives any sources, or whether the accusations were proven. - Mgm|(talk) 09:20, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
I agree, the only article that has a remotely credible source is the Jefferson one which is from a very different time and arguably keeping people in slavery is as heinous as rape anyway. I don't think that a neutral biography of Clinton would make more than a passing mention of the claim and then only as an example of the much thrown around. I certainly don't think any of the other claims would be mentioned. --Gorgonzilla 02:11, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. The disproportionate length of the passages convinces me that the nominator is correct: the treatment of the other Presidents is cover for an article whose purpose is to attack Clinton. The Clinton section is really the thrust of the article; it's ten inches long, and probes deeply, but it's far from rock-solid. It's a mere bubble, and any prick would pop it.Dpbsmith (talk) 00:37, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge as per Angr. Owen× ☎ 01:33, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep perfectly encyclopedic, although could be improved. Violence against women is an important issue. By the way Christopher Hitchens accused Clinton of rape in print and was never sued. Dubya may be a buffoon, but that does not mean Clinton was a saint (is that a pro-Nader POV?).PatGallacher 16:09, 2005 September 9 (UTC)
  • Keep an entirely reasonable and interesting topic for an article. the juanita broaddrick stuff is, however, presented in ridiculous detail for an encyclopedia article. part of that is my fault as i got in a tit-for-tat evidence war with someone trying to selectively attack clinton. that should be judiciously pruned back to an encyclopedic summary and the article kept. Update: I went ahead & reduced the broaddrick part to the early july version, while keeping a few balanced points from the more recent stuff. Derex 00:21, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.
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