From this article on the Vox News site:
"A woman who worked in Joe Biden’s Senate office filed a criminal complaint with the Washington, DC, police on April 9, accusing the former vice president of sexually assaulting her in 1993."
"Tara Reade, the former Biden staffer, described the allegation in an interview with podcast host Katie Halper on March 25. Reade said Biden pushed her against a wall and penetrated her with his fingers."
I neither believe or disbelieve the charges. I just figure by this point it's irrelevant. The statute of limitations ran out years ago. Why wasn't it brought up sooner? Oh, I'm pretty sure I know why it surfaced now.
The DNC has a decision to make. They can decide if it matters at this point. In which case a brokered Zoom convention to choose another standard bearer. It could be one of the other candidates: I suppose they could draft Bernie. Who also has a past. As does everyone else. I guess I could bring charges against the drunk guy at the college dance who put some inappropriate moves on me. If I could remember his name.
Basically we could just hand the election to Trump, who has at least 20 sexual allegations against him.
Right wing media outlets have been touting this story for weeks. Besides stating the pro-forma disapproval of sexual assault, those outlets are going after mainstream media for the contrast between (on the one hand) how this fairly-well-substantiated allegation has mostly been dismissed and ignored by the media, and (on the other hand) the allegedly-considerably-less-corroborated charges against Justice Kavanaugh which the media trumpeted to the world.
ReplyDeleteI always felt that the charges against Kavanaugh were pay back time for what was done to Merrick Garland. They could have made a better case that Kavanaugh wasn't the most qualified candidate and had a partisan history. But that isn't how these mud fights work.
DeleteYes, statutes of limitation exist for a reason.
I don't see how the people who believed Christine Blasey Ford's charges against Justice for Life Brett Kavanaugh can not believe Tara Reade. Conversely, I don't see how people who thought Ford was just befuddled can think Reade is anything but just befuddled. The evidence in both cases adds up to a horse apiece.
ReplyDeleteThis ought be (but probably won't) be the end of a) the #Metoo movement's ownership of the issue and b) the parties' divide over the hussies who attack their candidate and their own monkish candidates who are pure as the driven snow.
I can't imagine that followers of The Grabbing Don can believe they have a dog in this fight.
The way we deal with these cases disserves everybody: alleged perp, alleged victim and hyperventilating public jurors. At least, we ought to have (as Katherine implies) a statute of limitations on bringing undecidable cases. Well, we'll see.
As for the Democrats doing anything about it, they would have to at least hold the kind of hearing they demanded for Kavanaugh. Then we could see which D would take the Lindsey Graham role as Hypocrite-in-Chief. But we probably would not KNOW any more than we do now, although we will all have our (shaky) opinions.
Jim, will read the WaPo and the NYTimes. I have seen several stories about this over the last couple of weeks, and had been waiting for the hypocritical outcries from the GOP and the Trump media. Surprised it took this long. After all, trump is worse than either Biden or Kavanaugh if you look at sheer numbers of accusations .
ReplyDeleteI read, not will read
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't she surface her accusation before the corporate democrats sacrificed themselves to save the world from Bernie? I have a feeling that if Biden were still not the sole candidate, we still would not have heard anything from this woman. The primary voters already knew he was a creepy uncle but voted for him anyway. I didn't pick him. I didn't want him. But now we have him.
ReplyDeleteUsing this Tara Reade story as a cane with which to thrash the mainstream media was largely occasioned by a rather embarrassing set of circumstances at the New York Times. Dan McLaughlin's account in National Review of that episode is headlined, "The New York Times Knows Nobody Believes It About Biden, Kavanaugh and Sexual Assault".
ReplyDelete"Ben Smith, who only recently left his position as editor in chief of BuzzFeed for a perch as media reporter for the Times, deserves credit for putting [NY Times Executive Editor Dean] Baquet to some tough questioning. ...
"Smith started off by asking Baquet why it took until April 12 for the Times to even mention the allegations, which were made in a podcast interview on March 25 and reported at National Review and elsewhere within days:
"[Bacquet's quoted response:] Lots of people covered it as breaking news at the time. And I just thought that nobody other than The Intercept was actually doing the reporting to help people figure out what to make of it. . . . Mainly I thought that what The New York Times could offer and should try to offer was the reporting to help people understand what to make of a fairly serious allegation against a guy who had been a vice president of the United States and was knocking on the door of being his party’s nominee. Look, I get the argument. Just do a short, straightforward news story. But I’m not sure that doing this sort of straightforward news story would have helped the reader understand. Have all the information he or she needs to think about what to make of this thing ...
"Baquet bobs and weaves over factors that normally would go into evaluating the credibility of an allegation, such as the importance of telling someone else at the time. Reade provided witnesses to the Times who said they were told by her about sexual harassment (not assault) by Biden in 1993, but they were unwilling to go on record; Ford brought no such source forward: “I don’t mean to imply that the notion that the person told someone contemporaneously is the ultimate test. It’s not. There are a lot of tests.”
"The Times report noted blandly that “the seven other women who had complained about Mr. Biden told the Times this month that they did not have any new information about their experiences to add, but several said they believed Ms. Reade’s account.” ...
"Then there was this doozy of an exchange:
"SMITH: I want to ask about some edits that were made after publication, the deletion of the second half of the sentence: “The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable.” Why did you do that?
"BAQUET: Even though a lot of us, including me, had looked at it before the story went into the paper, I think that the campaign thought that the phrasing was awkward and made it look like there were other instances in which he had been accused of sexual misconduct. And that’s not what the sentence was intended to say.
"That “beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable” is a pretty big “other than.” But even more damning is Baquet’s open admission that he changed the line under pressure from “the campaign” — Joe Biden’s campaign. "
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/new-york-times-unequal-coverage-sexual-assault-allegations-against-joe-biden-brett-kavanaugh/
There is a good deal more in McLaughlin's piece which draws out the seeming 'zeal gap' in the way the Times went after the Kavanaugh allegations in contrast to their allegedly lackadaisical pursuit of the Reade story.
Jim, I am not going to read the whole NR expose. It has a smell of special pleading just in what you quoted. Contrary to what you said earlier, there was more on Kavanaugh than anyone has been able to uncover SO FAR on Biden.
DeleteWhich PROVES nothing, even if the NR thinks it is on to something. All media have been getting progressively hinkier about pursuing these things because, unless it starts in a timely manner and includes people willing to talk under virtual oath, it is a lot of falling down rabbit holes until some editor somewhere gets worn out and decides it's time to "publish what we have." I mean, NPR went yesterday with only a gen-u-wine ear witness to the fact that Reade told her something about it years and years ago. NBC felt it had to do something today with even less than that.
Oh, yes And if we are going to talk about stories "the media" don't pay enough attention to, how come you haven't heard much yet about the intelligence agencies feeling compelled to say that so far (in an ongoing investigation) they have no evidence that Convid-19 is a runaway or deliberately released virus from a Chinese weapons lab?
DeleteThere is a lot of evidence that it isn't. The Don and Mike Pomyes,sirpeo and, I presume Jared the Underrated, want to our spies to find it. They want it so badly that we got this cry of help from the spies to let us know they aren't finding what they are under great pressure to find. Cry noted. Now, when will Biden 'fess up?
Talk about missed stories...
Tom, assuming the charge against kavanaugh was true, there was a third person in the room - a witness. He quickly left town, disappeared - hid out in Delaware at a popular with DC folk beach resort. It seems the GOP senators did not want to call him to testify under oath. Can’t imagine why not.
DeleteThe buddy said he couldn't remember, and he stuck tenaciously to his story. What would be the point?
DeleteKavanaugh, like a lot of rich brats once wrapped up in impressing their friends with beer drinking and chasing poontang, was given a fine education, settled down, and persuaded himself that his youthful activities were normal and harmless because he had turned into a fine specimen of Christian values.
I expect Washington is full of such individuals.
OH, Jean, I expect you are soooo right.
DeleteTom, you have covered elected officials. Don't you find that there is something mentally "off" about most of them, men and women?
DeleteWe all have our quirks and ideologies that we have sense enough to beat down in public. But politicians are like a bunch of golden retrievers-- more enthusiasm than judgment, want to be everybody's friend, go around humping legs indiscriminately and doing tricks for lobbyists with Snausages, often barking senselessly.
The difference is that golden retrievers have owners who try to contain them, while politicians hire their own sycophantic clean-up crew.
My cousin was an aide and friend of a now-deceased Michigan congressmen. Republican. Good legislator. really nice man, no scandals. Met him several times.
But even he had a story he liked to tell about some character-building drudge job he had as a youth that was totally fictional. My cousin and the other handler said the guy got so he actually believed the story, and they would try to create distractions at public forums when they ended he was about to launch into The Story.
*when they sensed
DeleteI guess my point--before I got entrances with my anecdote--is that politicians are all pretty strange and expecting them live up to some ideal or higher standard is naive.
DeleteI feel the same way about the clergy. You don't go into a career where you set out to be God's intermediary to everyone else without having a touch of egomania.
Jean, thank you for the metaphor. I have often felt a politician licking my face. Now I realize it was the golden retriever in them. Yes, in many cases they started with the phony front, and there was a real person behind them. But as time went along the phony front became the real person and the guy barbecuing bratwurst in his apron, who once was the real person, becomes the phony back. One of yours, though, Phil Hart was the real McCoy by both my personal impression and informed opinion; that is why there is a building named for him in Washington. I could name a few others. But nearly all of them have a little golden retriever in them.
DeletePhil Hart died before I got into the interviewing biz. In the interests of not speaking ill of the dead, I will refrain from listing Michigan local, state, and federal pols who were weirdos, and just jump right to Governor Milliken as a great guy, very unassuming, and who would go pretty much unrecognized in public. One of Raber's friends ran into him doing his recycling in Traverse City after he retired. Just another old dude in baggy pants and a windbreaker wrestling his newspapers into the bin like everyone else.
DeleteI did get a kick out of Martha Griffiths, who was in Congress and served as Michigan's Lt. Governor. I interviewed her in a bar in the U.P. after a luncheon one time. On the way in, she noticed three or four guys in flannel shirts about three sheets to the wind at the bar. She went right up to them and introduced herself. They gazed at her uncomprehendingly and shook her hand in mild confusion. What I asked her what they said, she replied, "They said they're going to vote for me!"
Ask a stupid question ...
I so do NOT care about any of this, and my sympathy for women sobbing over their decades old sexual traumas during an election campaign or confirmation proceeding is about nil.
ReplyDeleteI am reminded of what that creepy James Carville said during the Gennifer Flowers "scandal": "If you drag a dollar bill through a trailer park, you're bound to come up with something" (or words to that effect).
Trump is different in that he was caught on tape admitting to grabbing women inappropriately. But it STILL MADE NO DIFFERENCE to the election outcome. So why do political strategists waste time dredging up these stories that half the electorate won't believe anyway?
Jean, exactly my feelings!
DeleteJean and Katherine - mine also.
DeleteI'm with you...
DeleteIf such charges will stand up in court and a district attorney will bring the case, then we'll have something to think about...til...then
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ReplyDeleteThe allegation against Biden reminds me more of Anita Hill's allegations against Clarence Thomas than Ford's against Kavanaugh. Biden, like Thomas, was a powerful adult who allegedly exploited an unequal power relationship.
ReplyDeleteIf the allegation is true, then it changes my image of Biden. It's a blot.
Jim, You have a problem then. You will never know for sure if the allegation is true or not.
DeleteNBC, in its efforts, tried five alleged early hearers of the story. Three denied hearing it (if I got this right), one said she heard something, and one who told someone else she heard something wouldn't return NBC's calls. If I were an editor there (does any outlet have editors anymore?) their story would not have run. If you want to see what covering one of these tar babies is like, read Ronan Farrow's "Catch and Kill," although I wouldn't normally recommend it as a good read.
"Jim, You have a problem then. You will never know for sure if the allegation is true or not."
DeleteIt's not my problem. I'm not especially invested in the allegation's being true. Nor am I invested in its being false. Now that it has been aired publicly, I do think that the media whom we trust to vet these types of allegations has a social responsibility to vet these claims with the same rigor and zeal it has done in the past with allegations against Kavanaugh, Thomas, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Cardinal Pell, ex-Cardinal McCarrick, etc. etc.
Btw, I just saw a news item that Biden has now spoken publicly about the charges for the first time (a couple of points which McLaughlin made in his article about the NY Times coverage are that the reporters who wrote the paper's story about Reade apparently never bothered to reach out to Biden to get his side; nor, when the editorial board interviewed candidate Biden in January, did any of the members ask him any questions about the women's allegations against him from last year). Biden has released a lengthy statement, and also was interviewed on the Morning Joe television program. I guess we can all judge the statement for ourselves - I'll paste the URL to it in this comment.
Maybe his taking these actions, and the content of his statement and interview, was the smart political play to make this go away. At least in the short term, the opposite will happen: his taking these actions ensures that this will be a prominent story, for at least a few days, quite possibly longer. If anything, he's elevated it in the national consciousness. We'll have to see how it plays out.
Here is Biden's statement: https://twitter.com/PhilipWegmann/status/1256186295774253059
The news item reporting Biden's appearance on Morning Joe includes this passage:
Delete"When asked how he would square his current position with previous statements regarding Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford, Biden said “believing women means taking their claims seriously.”
"“Women are to be given the benefit of the doubt…Start off with the presumption of truth,” but look at the facts of the case, Biden said."
Presumably, Biden's enemies in the media will have a field day with that statement, as giving Reade the presumption of truth doesn't reflect well on him. Even so, the rule of thumb that Biden espoused in the interview is a little more sophisticated that the #MeToo bumper-sticker advice, variations of which were repeated by virtually every Democrat in the Kavanaugh hearings, "Believe All Women". Personally, I continue to cling to the hoary presumption of innocence.
"I do think that the media whom we trust to vet these types of allegations has a social responsibility to vet these claims with the same rigor and zeal it has done in the past with allegations against Kavanaugh, Thomas, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Cardinal Pell, ex-Cardinal McCarrick, etc. etc."
DeleteI, for one, ex media, do not trust the media to vet these kinds of allegations.
State attorneys can do it, with subpoena power. But the media do not have that. That said, Kavanaugh and Thomas were vetted with some rigor and a lot of zeal and ended up as she-said-he-said. Weinstein and Cosby were both headed in the same direction until the numbers of shes saying it overcame the singe he, and their cases went to court, where, finally, the truth (probably) came out. There wasn't a whole lot of zeal directed toward the two prelates because The Media think of Mother Church as an independent equal and try to avoid pestering her.
Going back to the weight of numbers among the shes, having something like 20 of them saying doesn't overcome what one president says because nobody in the justice system is going to put those shes under oath and give the he a case he has to answer. The media can apply all the zeal and rigor in the world to getting down, way down, to the bottom of the charges against The Don, but one Barr trumps The Media.
Which means all of these charges are simply malicious gossip in the court of public opinion until and unless a prosecutor with subpoena power vets them with rigor and zeal.
"Why wasn't it brought up sooner? Oh, I'm pretty sure I know why it surfaced now."
ReplyDeleteAs the Vox article tells it, Reade was among several women who had made charges last year that Biden "had kissed or touched them." The allegations that she started making publicly a bit more than a month ago upped the ante by claiming he actually penetrated her.
When she started making those more sensational claims in March, she had been an Elizabeth Warren supporter who switched to Bernie Sanders when Warren dropped out of the race. So if her going public was politically motivated, the most straightforward explanation is that it was meant to support Sanders.
Jim, I agree with your comment above that it's a blot. To be honest, Biden wasn't my favorite candidate to begin with, I would have preferred Klobuchar or Buttigieg. But as Stanley said back a ways, he's who we've got. That is unless they decide to do a brokered convention, which I don't see happening. You may be right that Reade was attempting to help Sanders. If she was, she was a day late and a dollar short.
DeleteWhat I can't see is handing the election to Trump.
Jim, sorry, I didn't see your two most recent comments before I posted mine at 9:51 AM. Thank you for providing the link to Biden's statement. He denied the allegations. Like you, I believe in the presumption of innocence in the absence of proof to the contrary.
ReplyDeleteThis morning, Democracy Now had the former neighbor of Reade corroborate her story. She said that, at that time, Reade related to her the story she is telling now. That still makes it "she said". But this women then said she was and remains a supporter of Biden as an anti-Trump. And she supposedly knew about this stuff all along. So this is the candidate voters like her handed to voters like me, even passing on Klobuchar and the rest of the business-as-usual Democrats. So be it.
ReplyDeleteI actually think he did it and that it IS, as Katherine says, a blot. But for me, Biden had blots all over so what the heck. He's not a social democrat who'll give us universal health care and other hellish things.
Biden is not an ideal candidate, worst choice among the top tier. His vow to pick a woman running mate is patronizing and smacks of quotas.
DeleteAt best, he'll get the train back on track. Trump will continue driving us down the Highway to Hell (not to mix metaphors), so I see a clear choice.
Well, as it stands we have a choice between the incumbent libertine and 20 accusers and Tom Perez's choice of a successor, a libertine with one accuser.
DeletePaul VI said that's the way we were going.
Tom, what was the Paul VI quote? I'm not remembering it.
DeleteI think Tom is alluding to the allegedly prophetic character of Humanae Vitae?
DeleteKatherine, Jim nailed it.
DeletePowerful men have sexually harassed women - forever. If you don't believe me, you could start by reading the Bible and a few thousand history books.
ReplyDeleteThis has nothing to do with the invention of the pill. Not exactly the fulfillment of anyone's "prophecies ".
Paul VI, by capitulating to the conservative voices in the Vatican instead of heeding the birth control commission (who understood the sensus fidei ) did more to hasten departures from the RCC than any almost any other pope.
There were prophetic voices at the time, warning of the potential loss of trust in all the church's teachings on sexuality, but Paul VI ignored them.
Anne, I worked for one of the notorious prophetic voices of those times. And I still don't think much of HV because the pope never engaged the question. But I have also watched the child with two parents become enviable instead of the norm. And I have seen hypocrisy wander off to other uses since vice no longer has to pay tribute to virtue since vice and virtue are equally whatever. (Said he, banging his cane on the porch.)
DeleteFWIW, last night I watched Biden's interview with Mika Brzezinski from "The Morning Joe" program. It was painful for all, including me; Brzezinski seemed pretty uncomfortable asking the questions, so I give her credit for persisting. If you've watched Biden in the debates, you'll recognize some of the same behaviors: at the beginning, he was Energetic And Prepared Joe, but as the ordeal continued, he started to fray just a little bit. On the whole, I thought he did a reasonably credible job of denying everything categorically without being too hard on his accuser.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/joe-biden-this-is-an-open-book-there-is-nothing-for-me-to-hide-82865221937
One thing about it, the "Hunter/ Burisma / Ukraine" thing has largely gone away. Now it's "Joe the old letch". Maybe so, maybe no. All I know for sure is that 2020 has lasted about a decade already.
DeleteOn Facebook someone queried, "what kind of cookie would you characterize 2020 as?" My reply was "a Brussels sprouts brownie with Sour Patch frosting".
All indications remain that the The Don will let his hit men and women use the accusation against Biden. As Kellyanne already is saying, The Don answered all the charges against him. No one says when. And Burisma will be back.
DeleteIn other words, "I'm rubber, and you're glue. Everything bounces off me and sticks to you!"
Delete