While, once again, we have a situation where only two people know for certain what if anything happened, we are all being forced to make a call. Assault or BS?
At this moment in the matter of “Is Joe Biden Just as Much of a Predator as Brett Kavanaugh and Donald Trump?” the ball is back in accuser Tara Reade’s court. Biden submitted to acceptably tough questioning from (long-time social friend) Mika Brezinski last week and flat out denied he did what Reade is now telling people he did. With that, the contemporary standards for public adjudication now requires Ms. Reade to present herself to some credible news outlet for similar interrogation.
Personally, I’d be happier with Biden if he chose someone like ABCs Martha Raddatz rather than an old friend on a liberal-leaning cable channel. If only because he’d be on higher ground if Reade opts for FoxNews, even if it’s with Chris Wallace and not one of their prime time chuckleheads. But whichever route Reade chooses … she has to step up to the mic.
To date, contrary to the predictable raging of the right-wing echo chamber, the “lamestream media” has now given Reade’s charges substantial and serious investigation. The problem for Reade though is that none have yet been able to come up with anything offering unequivocal proof she’s telling the truth. The best they’ve got to support her story of a 27 year-old incident is the call-in to Larry King’s CNN show in 1993 by a woman who sounds like, and may well have been Reade’s deceased mother. That, and an on-record statement from a Democrat-voting friend who recalls Reade telling her the assault happened. In other words … they heard Reade tell them a story.
But other than that, Reade’s own story has wobbled seriously, as has her brother’s. And that’s before we get to the part where not only doesn’t she have any paperwork from the complaint she says she filed, but has now shifted to saying she “chickened out”, and never actually followed through with an assault complaint.
Knowing how these things go campaign-wise, even if Reade never submits to a conditions-free interview, Republicans will howl and rant about a “liberal cover-up” and “hypocritical double-standard”, at least in relation to Kavanaugh. (With 24 women on-record accusing Trump of everything up to and including rape, he bears no comparison, and his devout, evangelical white base will continue to embrace him as God’s servant on Earth.)
The Kavanaugh “hypocrisy” of course falls apart if you were among those who actually paid attention to that drama. Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford, not only was/is a credible professional with a career to protect, she never made bizarre social media references about the “sensuous image” of Vladimir Putin. What she did do was suck it up, put her face, reputation and family safety on the line in front of an enormous TV audience and submit to cross-interrogation.
More importantly, where Biden is at least saying he will cooperate with a Senate investigation, the investigations into Ford’s accusations and charges of entitled frat-boy behavior on Kavanaugh’s part were strangled at birth. They were thwarted and neutered in the Republican-controlled Senate’s rush to confirm him — to a lifetime seat on the highest court of the land.
The righteous cry to “Believe the women!” has always been fatuous. No sane person goes around uncritically “believing” anything anyone says. The appropriate cry is, “Listen to the women!” That implies granting an accuser a respectful, non-threatening forum to tell the story they believe is important enough that all should hear.
With that in mind, the stage is all yours, Ms. Reade.
I’m not sure I’m persuaded that the mother’s phone call corroborates the current version of Ms. Reade’s allegations. I’m paraphrasing (because I’m too lazy to look up the exact quote), but my recollection is that she spoke of undefined “problems” with an unspecified senator. Accepting – as I’m willing to do – that it was indeed Ms. Reade’s mother, “problems” is one thing if it’s made her feel uncomfortable and objectified by the remarks of a person who may not have realized how the words were perceived by the subject and it’s another if it’s a stand-in for “pinned me against the wall and penetrated my vagina with his finger.”
I also seem to recall that there are others in Ms. Reade’s orbit who have offered corroborating comments (though I think some of those comments evolved over time).
Onward.
Austin
We of course are in no position to question your wisdom. So I’ll agree with you. Frankly, I was surprised that “Mom’s” phone call got as much traction as it did without any pudit I heard remarking that if they were a mother and had been told, by their presumably distraught daughter, that she had been sexually assaulted by a famous politician they would be a LOT more irate.
Things Joe has going for him: 1) many fewer accusers than Trump, and one-off predators seem pretty unusual; 2) no videotaped confession like Trump (i.e. Access Hollywood); 3) notable Inconsistencies in the accuser’s story; 4) the Russian fan girl stuff in a realm in which Russia has a well-documented history of asset recruitment and election interference; 5) no physical evidence – photo, tape video, DNA, written complaint; and 6) his encouragement of investigations makes his version feel more credible.
Things Joe has working against him: 1) history of non-assault handsy-ness makes assault allegations feel somewhat more plausible; 2) some evidence of contemporaneous reporting of incident, though mixed; 3) culture in progressive politics holds Democrats much more accountable (thank goodness) than Republicans face with such allegations; 4) false equivalence reporting practices will ensure these allegations get much more coverage than assault allegations against Trump, and perhaps become something akin to the over-the-top email coverage for Hillary; and 5) with razor thin races in battleground states, Biden can’t afford to lose any anti-Trump voters to non-voting and third-parties, and these allegations could make it difficult for some to pull a lever for Biden.
All in all, this issue presents a very big challenge for Biden.
Ms. Reade’s vitae contains quite a few peculiarities that she would be asked about if apllying for job. Like, for example, the five different names she’s used, along with the moony mash note about Putin. But I’m trying to resist indictment until I see her speak and answer questions. And I agree about Joe’s razor-thin margins. Hell, if the economy ticks back up 10% in October tribal Republicans, of the “my portfolio” variety, will forgive Trump’s “slow response” to the pandemic and pull the lever for him again. Fodder for a future post is Joe … doing something right now. Axelrod and Murphy and Heileman and McKinnon and the “Pod Save America” kids are unanimous that he needs to A: Get hip to the digital world, and B: create a regular series of interesting “fireplace chats”. And not with him nattering on, but with compelling interlocutors. Oprah has been mentioned. But he could do worse than Colbert, Trevor Noah, Letterman, etc. Point being … show who’s not a compassionate human by showing who is.