Ro Khanna regrets his past support of Graham Platner after latest sexual assault allegation

Ro Khanna went on national television to say, essentially, "my bad." That's a rare thing in politics, and we'll give him partial credit for not trying to spin his way out of it. But regret is cheap once the campaign is already dead. Khanna endorsed Platner when the guy was riding a wave of progressive enthusiasm, tattoos and populist rhetoric and all, and nobody in that camp seemed to ask too many hard questions before jumping on board.

That's the actual story here, not just one candidate's alleged conduct. Democratic officials keep discovering, after the fact, that the exciting new outsider they rushed to embrace has a history that should have surfaced in week one of vetting. Platner's campaign already had one credibility scare before this latest allegation. At some point "I regret my endorsement" starts to sound less like accountability and more like an excuse for skipping the homework.

We're not interested in relitigating the specifics of the allegation itself, that's for investigators and, if it goes anywhere, the courts. What interests us is the pattern of endorsing first and vetting never. Voters in Maine deserved a candidate who'd been through actual scrutiny before national Democrats hitched their names to him. Instead they got a viral moment and a walk-back.

Khanna's regret would mean more if it came with a real answer for why the vetting failed in the first place, not just a tidy soundbite for Sunday morning television.