The Joe Biden/Tara Reade story is one of rank hypocrisy, right? Biden’s a hypocrite for his role in the Obama Administration’s curtailment of students’ due process rights in sexual assault allegations, while refusing to apply the same standards to himself. The liberal press is hypocritical for its astonishingly different treatments of Christine Blasey Ford and Reade.
Feminist organizations fare no better. They’ve been deafeningly silent about Reade, but waxed outraged over every aspect of Ford’s accusations. Even feminists who once claimed to regret giving President Clinton a pass on l’affaire Lewinsky are now doing the same for Biden.
Ditto the ubiquitous celebrities, usually so desperate to get their mugs in front of a camera. Of course, they rushed to Ford’s support; Reade’s, not so much.
So yes, the story of Biden/Reade is one of jaw-dropping hypocrisy. But no, it’s not. Hypocrisy is just the low-hanging fruit, the part of the story that’s easy to grasp, that reflects so badly on so many and therefore makes for juicy, clickbait press. The hypocrisy is real, but not the real story.
That story is about power, its use and its withholding. It’s about the power to bring down a man, destroy his career, his marriage, his reputation, his educational aspirations and perhaps send him to prison. Or not. It’s about the power to do all of that solely on the word of a woman. Or not.
When a Roman emperor, seated in the Coliseum, extended a fist, thumb outstretched, he either turned it up for life or down for death. But whichever way the moment struck him, no one doubted that his was an exercise of naked power, the greatest of all power, the power to sustain or end a human life. The very whimsy of his decision, embodied in his thumb, demonstrated his power all the more clearly.
#MeToo of course has no such power of its own. It’s nothing but words in the ether. The power of #MeToo lies in what others do with the women’s allegations. Those others may be the police, prosecutors, employers, political parties, the press. Sometimes a man is criminally charged, convicted and sent to prison. Other claims lose a man his job and still others the office to which voters elected him. “J’accuse!” is cried by #MeToo; the execution is carried out by others. Or not.
The latter is what’s happened with Biden/Reade. The liberal press largely ignored Reade and, even when they acknowledged her claims, did so in the most backhanded ways. The New York Times story was little more than an effort to “put behind us” an inconvenient accusation against a favored candidate. For many obvious reasons, the Democratic National Committee never seriously considered dumping Biden. Feminists whistled past the graveyard. For Joe Biden, waiting in the arena, the decision was thumbs up. Those in a position to destroy him opted not to.
Imagining what might have been isn’t hard. If the NYT, the WaPo, CNN, NPR and others had decided to gin up a campaign against Biden, if feminist organizations, domestic violence organizations and sundry celebrities had railed against him, demanded an investigation by police, dug into his background, shouted that his serial inappropriate touching of little girls corroborated Reade’s claims, screamed about his hypocrisy in the Dear Colleague letter, pointed to his childhood abuse by his sister, etc., etc., ad infinitum, would the DNC have then pressured him to stand aside? Would he have caved? After all, Biden’s far from the ideal candidate and Trump is the real enemy, right? Better to make way for someone who can win, right? Biden would never turn on the party to which he’s always been loyal, right?
As you read this, the Biden/Reade case is passing into the dustbin of history. It’s had its day. It will not derail Joe Biden’s bid for the Democratic nomination and my guess is that it will have little-to-no impact on the election in November, still almost six months away. Those who were going to vote for Biden still will, mostly because he’s not Donald Trump. Trump supporters were never going to vote for Biden, regardless.
Those in a position to destroy Biden chose not to. Who knows what their decision will be next time? And that is a salient feature of #MeToo. We don’t know, from one case to the next, which way the thumb will point, or why.
