these remarks, while slightly distorted by the media, are still part of a pattern of dismissing sexual assault (including the way RMS insists on not using the word assault despite it being well understood that assault does not have to be physical violence)
rms is the sort of person who overshoots principled to a point everyone is tired of talking to them and where in-person criticism dies before it is even expressed because why bother with someone who will never seek to be better anyway and that afforded him a lot of leeway, even if i think the means of removing him now have been not entirely clean, it still was overdue