So Stallman's argument was that the most plausible scenario here is this: Minksy -- who at the time of these events had to at least have been in his sixties, not to mention, you know, married -- went over to Jeffrey Epstein's mansion, where Epstein presented a teenage girl to him for the purposes of having sex (the claim she makes is that she was ordered by Epstein to sleep with "powerful men"), and because the girl didn't explicitly say she had been ordered to do so, Minsky was fine with it all.

So, are we saying this is a particularly good defense? Because it doesn't sound like a great defense to me. It doesn't sound like any reasonably smart person -- which Minsky undoubtedly was -- would find themselves in this situation and not have a question or two about the ethics.

Let's agree that the reporting did, in fact, get Stallman's meaning wrong here. Let's even agree that isn't a subtle difference. Here's the thing: even the most generous reading of what Stallman wrote is still, at the end of the day, excusing Minsky's actions.

And at the end of the day, I think that's still a problem.