Tara Reade's story of sexual assault looks to be unending. Her story has media attention, right, left, and center. She seems to be more successful at dropping bread crumbs along the way than she was at having a Washington career. Eventually, she will go away. The story will never go away because it will never have a resolution.
So idle speculation: As the presidential campaign wears on, the voters will realize they have a choice between two men accused of sexual harassment. One seems to be a serial harasser; the other seem to possibly (or not) be a one-time harasser. Whatever conclusion a fair-minded voter comes to it is unlikely to have anything to do with sexual harassment.
1. Voters will choose a president apart from questions of sexual harassment.
2. Sexual harassment will become a ho-hum at least in 2020 national politics, probably by September 15
3. The sexual harassment revelation movement will have to come up with a more refined system of revelation and resolution, if it is to have an enduring effect.
4. Women who are sexually harassed will have to turn to
a) the police and the courts;
b) blackmail;
c) karate;
d) lowering their quotient as sexual objects.
5. Sexual harassers will get the picture and stop out of fear or remorse.
I am not seeing much about this story at all. It hasn't received a lot of play in the NewsHour, NPR, and certainly not the state news I have been reading, which is all-covid19-all-the-time.
ReplyDeleteI think the "sexual harassment revelation movement" often conflates boorish behavior with felonious sexual assault. It is a strange mix of "we must always believe women" feminists and the right-wing that is obsessed with sexual sins and wants to hold elected officials to a higher standard of moral purity.
Lucky you...not seeing much. Everything I read...
DeleteThe lady reporters at the NYTimes are particularly dedicated to keeping us informed, well repeating what they have already told us. The WSJ's columnists are on it and the WashPost seems to keep fact-checking the same facts.....
Is the only valid reaction to no reaction to be overreaction? I definitely believe that all women must be listened to when they make their case, but the burden of proof still remains on the accuser. I realize that where there are not witnesses, then it is "she said, he said." The burden is tough, but so are the results of false claims and charges.
DeleteI read the WaPo on line, and Reade's story doesn't come up much in my feed. Or maybe I am not paying attention ...
DeleteJimmy, you need to stop making sense. You are clear my out of step with the times!
I definitely think #1 is correct.
ReplyDeleteIt is said that hard cases make bad law. Which is why I oppose applying different legal standards to sexual harassment than we do all other crimes. We shouldn't carve out an exception to "innocent until proven guilty". Victims should turn to the law early rather than late. I wonder how the Covid crisis is affecting victim's ability to get medical corroboration for rape? You would hope the system isn't so preoccupied that a victim couldn't get checked out with for sexual assault.
One thing that is different now. Everyone has cell phones, which take pictures and make recordings. These things can be used as evidence.
I hope your #5 is right but people are stupid.
I did not choose Biden. He was chosen for me by the Democratic voters of America. I am only a superannuated Bernie Bro and am unworthy to question their judgement. Of course, the little COVID soccerballs from hell might have another idea. We could have a President Pelosi before November. And Biden might already have been before the judgement seat for any sins he committed.
ReplyDeleteI don't wish Covid on anyone, but it is sort of entertaining to think of the freak-out in some quarters about a "President Pelosi". I almost wish she was actually running, she'd be good.
DeleteThe virus and the economic collapse are still going to be with us on election day. The election will be about what candidate and what party can deal with these issues not about personal past behavior.
ReplyDeleteThis story gets attention only because people have nothing much to do.
Margaret sees the story everywhere; Jean hardly sees it at all. I am somewhere in the middle. I saw the original story for three straight days. Then nothing until Reade, who is not suing anybody, got the free service of a lawyer who donated to the Trump election campaign. This is one of those stories that in the absence of Woman #2 and Woman #3 going public is impossible to "advance," as we like to say. That means we will be told what we have already been told every time The Don gratuitously throws it out as red mean for the base.
ReplyDeleteAnd while we are talking about the inabilities of the media I would like to call the attention of the television networks to two simple facts:
What has already happened is not "breaking news." News is only "breaking" when it is happening or when a reporter finds out something someone was keeping hidden, and
An interview on XYC is not "exclusive" if the interviewee went from the XYC morning show to the ABC morning show for another interview, and then dropped in at NPR for an interview before appearing before the New York Times editorial board before winding up as an "exclusive" interview on whoever is left over. If I alone have Garbo and you don't, it is "exclusive." Otherwise it is s promotional tour.
Alert readers know, or should, how little real reporting, gathering facts, interviewing, questioning, interviewing again, is done. A splash in one venue if it is a splash gets repeated, not re-reported, if it creates a bump.
DeleteEven the Newshour does little reporting of the unreported, i.e., breaks a story (except for interviews that make for "human interest" breaks). If you read the NYT or WP in the morning, you can be pretty sure what the news will be on the Newshour in the evening, and CNN and....
Cumulative "reporting on the reporting" goes from the heritage press to the mainstream TV news to the cables. I'd like to see one of those graphs that shows how a story begins, who picks it up, what gets done that augments (or debunks) the story, and how it ends.
It may not always end as it began, but most graphs would show a pretty straight story line from beginning to end.
Didn't the Poynter Center (Fla?) use to point these kinds of things out to the obsessed?
DeletePoynter in St. Petersburg is still putting out studies for editors (the few who are left) to discuss at seminars, but it seems mostly to be being run ragged with its PoitiFact Web site that tries to keep track of political lies and evasions. Counting Trump's lies seems to be a growth field, but it doesn't do much good; Fox never reports it.
DeleteToo bad. They could do graphs showing the percentage of "repeating" to actual "reporting."
Delete" If you read the NYT or WP in the morning, you can be pretty sure what the news will be on the Newshour in the evening, and CNN and...."
DeleteIs that how news gathering and reporting works these days: the newspaper reporters go out and find and report the stories; the for-profit networks make the same stories more visually interesting with lots of video, graphics and telegenic reporters; and PBS tries to go more "in-depth" on the same stories?
Yeah, that's pretty much how it always worked. Back in the '50s I knew a guy who was drying out after stints at the NYT and NY Daily News. The News in those days had a first edition an hour before the Times. When the Times came out, the News' publisher called his editors and told them which stories they overplayed, which they underplayed and which they missed. In those days, too, the Associated Press "B" wire always told editors around the country what the NYT front page looked like as "guidance" (so they could go and do likewise).
DeleteI don't know how many resources it takes a newspaper to put together and publish a daily paper (a concept which, I guess, is becoming less relevant), but if I'm not mistaken, the headcount in the newsroom at our local suburban newspaper has been sufficiently whittled that the remainder could meet in our coat closet each day (which they're welcome to do, if they bring cake and wear face masks).
DeleteIs the Corona Virus epidemic a money-saver for news media (of all categories). All reporters have to do is:
Delete1. round-up the daily data, locally, nationally, and globally.
2. Have a team of "experts" on call to pick up any news and/or anomalies: many of these will be freebies.
3. Have interns on the phones to scoop up human interest stories: emts., funeral parlors, prisoners, prisoner families, nurses, etc. freebies
5. Send a young woman, preferably not white, to the WH press conference to ask the president an annoying question so he can insult her...voila! another story.
https://time.com/5834049/tara-reade-biden-lawyer/
DeleteBiden Accuser’s Lawyer Is Trump Donor With History of Representing Sexual Harassment Accusers
I think Tom and Margaret are right. Reade has made the accusation; Biden has flat-out denied the accusation. Unless someone comes up with some new fact to wedge between one of the two principals and their respective stances, everything seems to be stuck.
ReplyDeleteThere is really very little "information" in the news, most of it is 'gossip' what people have heard from other people which is why I have always preferred books and journal articles to the news media.
ReplyDeleteAlmost everything on TV is entertainment, even the weather. That is why I no longer have a TV or cable.
Now Tara says Biden should resign. Too late, Tara. I don't care if it's true or not. You're only trying to manipulate history in the making. You may have broken MeToo while you were at it.
ReplyDelete"1. Voters will choose a president apart from questions of sexual harassment."
ReplyDelete... or, in spite of sexual harassment.
Using the Kavanaugh hearings as a point of comparison: there were three basic sets of facts to sort through: (1) Kavanaugh sexually assaulted, or didn't sexually assault, Ford at that party when they were in high school; (2) No other credible accusations against Kavanaugh were brought forward to constitute a pattern of criminal/abusive behavior; (3) He has had a distinguished and irreproachable career in law which has spanned 30 years.
I don't wish to relitigate the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing; I want to think for a minute about what one does with those three sets of facts. For the sake of discussion, let's assume that Kavanaugh really did assault Ford when they were in high school; and that this is the only blot on his record. Is that blot enough to disqualify him? Should he not only have not been confirmed for the Supreme Court, but also impeached and removed from the federal bench, and disgraced for life?
I don't know how each of us would answer those questions. But I don't want to live in a society in which a person's sins, especially youthful sins, have no possibility of redemption or forgiveness. Particularly if the person's subsequent life has shown that the blot wasn't a single instance of a larger, troubling pattern, but rather an aberration.
I might have supported Kavanaugh's confirmation, even if Ford's accusation had reached the threshold of credibility.
Biden's case isn't exactly the same; he wasn't a minor when he either did or did not assault Reade. Biden's case is much more typical of the sort of thing which the #MeToo movement has sprung up to end: a powerful male committing sexual crimes against a female subordinate.
For the sake of discussion let's assume that Reade's sensational charges are substantially true. Does Biden's distinguished career of public service allow one to vote for him anyway in good conscience, while acknowledging that he did this terrible thing? An important factor for me would be: was Reade an aberration, or part of a pattern? I understand other women also complained last year, at least to a reporter, about inappropriate behavior by Biden. What does one make of those accusations? It seems to me that they need to be sorted through.
What is "substantially true"?
DeleteFord's accusations seem more credible than Reade's, at least to me. What Catholic girl has not run into be bunch of Catholic boys who drink too much and do stupid things, stupid depending on the decade. Ford is given some credibility points on being more or less outed and made to testify. Reade came out of the wood work just in time for Biden's presidential bid, has tantalized a variety of reporters with bits of the story, had more or less forced the media to pay attention, and now has called for Biden to "resign" the nomination, and she is reported to be a Sander's supporter (not the Sanders is likely to acknowledge that--it's not his fault!).
I'm going with Reade's constitutional right for a judge and jury to hear her story and give her a fair hearing (witnesses, etc. under oath), and render a verdict.
"What is "substantially true"?"
Delete"Substantially" meaning that the substance of what she is accusing Biden of, actually happened (even if some of the details might be disputed in the confusion of he said/she said); that reporters or investigators are able to substantiate it.
Just to be clear: I'm not claiming that the accusation is substantially true; I was inviting us to make that assumption for purposes of the thought experiment I proposed in my comment to which you responded.
I don't know whether Reade's accusation is more or less credible than Ford's. Ford's has been considerably better-vetted at this point. I am sure there are reporters busily trying to do the same for Reade's, although I haven't seen much (or any) results from that activity so far.
"I'm going with Reade's constitutional right for a judge and jury to hear her story and give her a fair hearing (witnesses, etc. under oath), and render a verdict."
Whether Biden could be criminally charged, or whether the statute of limitations has expired, I don't know. Nor is it clear to me that Reade has made a formal criminal complaint to law enforcement authorities.
About Kavanaugh, wasn't he underage when the alleged incident happened? If he had been charged at the time (and it would have been as an "attempted" assault) aren't juvenile records sealed when the person comes of legal age, unless it was murder or something where he was charged as an adult?
DeleteI thought the statute of limitations was seven years unless it was first degree assault. If not, I agree with Margaret's suggestion, that it is Reade's "...constitutional right for a judge and jury to hear her story and give her a fair hearing (witnesses, etc. under oath), and render a verdict."
It isn't clear to me, either, that Reade ever made a criminal complaint. She has shown herself to be a rather unreliable witness in a number of regards.
My point about Kavanaugh is that if that was the only blot on his record, and he didn't accomplish the rape, normally the law wouldn't hold it against him as an adult. We supposedly do believe in second chances, I don't know what good it does to dig up dirt from decades ago.
DeleteMargaret: Ford's accusations seem more credible than Reade's, at least to me. What Catholic girl has not run into be bunch of Catholic boys who drink too much and do stupid things, stupid depending on the decade.
ReplyDeleteJim, as I recall, there were at least a couple of reports from fellow students at Yale accusing Kavanaugh of offensive behavior.
OK - this is gossip. Just gossip. But,Ford's account was very credible to me because I am personally very well acquainted with the culture at Georgetown Prep (Kavanaugh's school), and Holton Arms (secular, Ford's school), and with the DC area private school network in general. Our sons went to private schools also, both RC and Episcopal. Many of their friends went to the schools involved for high school.
Everything she said was totally plausible. Did it happen? I don't know, but the story absolutely rang true to me based on other stories I know involving the same private school group. I know many GP families, even though we didn't send our sons there. We are friends with parents of GP grads, have friends our age who are GP grads, and our sons are friends with boys and their parents who are GP and Holton. One reason we didn't send them to GP (besides the cost - very high) was because of the subgroups at Prep that were notorious for the type of behavior described in those hearings. We have never forgotten the TWO times the cops had to come to neighbors' homes because word got out in the private school network that there was a party at someone's house. Kids from all the schools - Prep, Stoneridge, Gonzaga, Holton etc. In the case of our neighbors, the parents were home, and when the kids kept pouring in,refusing to stay outside, the parents themselves called the cops. From what I recall, the party Ford described came about because the parents weren't home, a very common situation around here.
That said, most of the students and families are fine. But there has always been a rules-pushing, heavy drinking, heavy party group at GP and in most of the area private schools, Catholic and secular.
Not sure why one very vague charge against Biden should make a difference when the current president has multiple substantiated charges against him, video and audio of him bragging about his conquests, and on the record bribes to women to keep their mouths shut.
I certainly agree that what Kavanaugh was accused of *could have* happened. I went to a Catholic high school, too, during roughly the same era, and I had in-depth experience of the partying, drinking and bad decision-making.
ReplyDeleteI also have several decades of experience in the world of business, which has its own corridors of power, and I don't see anything intrinsically unlikely about Reade's account, either. It also *could have* happened. Powerful men did those sorts of things, distressingly frequently. (Cf. President Trump.) No doubt, somewhere, powerful men are doing it today. Her accusation isn't incredible. It deserves looking into.
From what I understand (I really don't waste much time on this story as it is so clearly a political ploy), Biden asked that any records in the Congressional apparatus (HR I suppose) related to her complaint to be released. Apparently there aren't any such records. She has a friend who claims that Tara R told her about it in the early 90s. Well, Ford also had friends who testified that she had told them about the high school incident.
ReplyDeleteBoth may be telling the truth. Both may be lying. Certainly, being in DC, I am well aware of many incidents of similar behavior, reported through gossip from friends who worked on the Hill. Sometimes it happened to them personally. Back in the olden days, when my friends were working on the Hill, nobody ever reported anything. I could tell you many stories, including stories about politicians whose names are still instantly recognizable, things that happened to women I knew personally, friends. I never worked on the Hill, but I was sexually harassed by a high level Army officer with whom I worked for a while as an IBM contractor. No young woman that I knew, no matter where they worked, was spared obnoxious, sexually harassing behavior from men. Yes, it still goes on, but at least now there are policies in place and reporting mechanisms that didn't exist years ago. Most certainly it is possible that what she says is true, but no more - or less - credible than Ford's testimony.
At this point, it seems that the report is anything more than an attempt to derail Biden. And as far as I am concerned, four more years of Trump would be a deathblow to this country.
p.s I didn't watch the Kavanaugh hearings. One of my very closest friends, the mother of two GP grads who are among our sons' closest friends, did watch them. She said he lost her when he lost it - getting angry and nasty towards the unfriendly questioners. That's when she started to think that it might be true - that his loss of control came out of a guilty conscience. She was also turned off when he had his basketball team (the team he coached at his daughters' school) come into the hearings - middle school girls wearing their Blessed Sacrament uniforms. Her opinion only of course, but she thought it was a pure stunt meant to show his clean-cut-ness, using young girls as props.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonian.com/2018/09/11/i-am-horrified-that-brett-kavanaugh-used-girls-from-my-school-as-a-prop/
Many DC "power" Catholics (politicians, journalists, lobbyists, etc) are members of Blessed Sacrament - both liberal and conservative. I don't know where Kelly Anne's kids go to school (she had trouble getting them into some of the local elite private schools according to the local....gossip). They might also be students at Blessed Sacrament, especially given the neighborhood where their house is located. But I don't know. It's a power parish now, as it has always been.
We are wondering how she and George stay married? My husband is guessing that he stays in New Jersey while she goes on Fox and to parties - must be tough for her right now, the nightly DC political party scene is shut down.
Among the distinctive features of the Reade coverage:
ReplyDelete1. all of the reporters have been women;
2. all of Biden's defenders have been women (most of them VP candidates);
3. all of those who attack the defenders are women.
4. No ones going to take this story seriously until a male reporter addresses the issues. What fool would that be?
Margaret, Not I. As I said above, Reade's story is nothing but a barnacle that attached itself to the election campaign until and unless Women #2 and #3 go public.
DeleteThat was basically my take on Kavanaugh as well. I already didn't like him because of McConnell. And because of the (very Catholic, btw, but you won't see any photos of Pope Francis there. Maybe JPII) Federalist Society. I didn't decide he was a total jerk until his outburst, which showed him as a pampered, snotty rich kid with an unwarranted sense of entitlement. So far on the court he is living down to the "total jerk" conclusion.