Guilty before tried.
Its 2019 and when the past comes out; we all quickly judge and sentence without even have a trial.
For instance, has the yearbook in question actually been check to see if authentic? Most people give their photos back then to the yearbook staff and never get the yearbook. Considering his profession as a doctor, doubt he had time to actually review it once it came out mouths after graduation.
35 years ago, one has to stop and remember what grade, job, your residence was; let alone what party they may of been.
Without hard evidence, for all we can really know, that could be a bad prank from a yearbook staffer or it could be him. For now; innocent until proven guilty. That is our legal system. No criminal law was broken; but moral law may of been if indeed was him.
= new reply since forum marked as read
has turned this forum's attitudes somewhat. Perhaps that's only a natural progression after the initial very emotional reactions, but it's a good one that might, who knows, "take" and affect reactions next time? There will be next times, of course.
If the same were to be happening "out there" in the homes of enough Democrats, it might just seriously damage the efficacy of these Republican attacks, including the devastating she says/he says ones.
I suspect the Nasty Inquirer attack on Bezos may have done Democrats a lot of good by heightening awareness of viciously partisan attacks on individuals. People who pride themselves on their cleverness in despising both parties have extremely slow learning curves, to put it mildly, but the Bezos's pecker story will have grabbed attention even from those types.
As for whether anyone's examined the yearbooks, I think we should assume it's not a fake. Lots of people have one, the school will have them, the ones journalists examine will be different from the one the Big League Politics group used. Plus, journalists have been mining years of them for things to point out, and that's in their reporting.
The rest? The photo could be miscaptioned, but corroboration should have come out by now. Northam's denied it's him etcetera, created delay by refusing to resign, been meeting with black legislators and groups -- apparently still calling for him to resign, and is trying to move the discussion to making racial equality a focus for the rest of his term. He says he now understands that white privilege has always included getting the kind of second chances denied to POC...
as fighting off attacks, not caving. We need better ways of defusing these attacks, of course, but the angry people were our own, not Republicans, and their demands must be responded to promptly and simply cannot be ignored -- that could be disastrous, falling right into the death traps the GOP keeps setting for our party.
They've always relied heavily on dirty tricks; but over the past 30 years as they've increasingly had to fight for their survival, they've abandoned all limits on what they will do to win.
So far there's been little cost to them -- their voters are proud of their dirty operations. All costs are being levied on us by us and to their benefit no matter what action we take, or don't.
We can't attack in kind against any of hundreds of very deserving racist and rapist Republicans, of course. We'd not only repel our own people, but they'd end up bragging about what superior beasts their men are and promising to elect more. "Never try to play chess with a pigeon..." 
It's encouraging, though, to see many here moving fairly quickly from righteous outrage to reaction against injustice. Perhaps that's happening among many other observers too; and perhaps like what #metoo signifies, society will become better for it, and, specifically, decent voters harder to manipulate and exploit.
With you on #metoo also. Probably we're seeing some evolution away from extremism there also? While the offenses of oppressing groups are huge and tragic, and ongoing, the only just consequences for individuals are proportional to their own offenses.
to be such a powerful weapon. Overdoing its use hopefully will eventually weaken it by educating even those sectors of the public who resist understanding.
May be happening now. I'm overall not just entertained ( 
) but hopeful about the contribution Bezos's pecker has inadvertently made to the national dialogue.
some principled and thoughtful,
some carried away by partisan passions and focused on prevailing regardless of principle, and
some merely personal indulgences that should not have been indulged without consideration of principle.
In the end, one has its way. Or not.
When things go right, the first is joined by others. I think we may be seeing that develop. And this is where good people meet and agree.