Nah. That’s fake news. It isn’t true, but you knew that.
Joe Biden’s bid for the Democratic nomination is alive and well and indeed, Bernie Sanders has dropped out leaving the former Vice President alone in the race. Tara Reade’s allegation that Biden sexually assaulted her when she was on his staff in 1993 has not only failed to dent his chances at the nomination, it’s been relegated to the status of Non-Story by essentially all major news organizations. The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC have utterly ignored Reade’s claims. Feminists have been as silent as the grave about her allegations of digital rape.
All that of course makes quite a contrast with the most noteworthy attempt to take down, via sexual assault allegations, a high-profile public figure. When Christine Blasey Ford accused Brett Kavanaugh, the aforementioned news outlets covered everything about her and her allegations in excruciating detail. Above-the-fold headlines screamed the most trivial developments. Twenty months later, all’s quiet on the Reade/Biden front.
So it’s useful to compare the two claims. First the similarities.
Each woman says she was attacked by a man who was or would become a prominent public figure seeking higher office. The supposed attacks happened long ago, in Reade’s case 27 years and in Ford’s, 36. At the time, neither reported the matter to the police or anyone in authority, so no investigation was conducted and no forensic evidence adduced to support or contradict the claims. Both women have political leanings that are opposed to those of the men they claim attacked them. Ford is a Democrat and apparently a never-Trumper and Reade leans toward Bernie Sanders and therefore not Joe Biden. Both women’s stories changed somewhat over time, but not in ways that clearly indicate lying. Both Kavanaugh and Biden adamantly deny the allegations.
Given all those similarities, it seems reasonable to treat the two claims the same.
But there are at least three major differences between the two.
First and foremost, Reade reported her allegations to three people immediately after the incident. She told her mother, who is no longer alive, her brother and a friend. Both the brother and the friend have been contacted by investigative journalists who report that both say she told them about the alleged incident shortly after it happened.
By contrast, Ford told no one at the time. She says she told her therapist 30 years later, but the therapist’s notes nowhere identify Kavanaugh. The boy she said witnessed the incident says he has no memory of it.
In short, Reade’s claims are, at this point, at least as believable as Ford’s and probably more so.
Second, what Reade says Biden did is objectively worse than what Ford said Kavanaugh did. Reade says Biden cornered her in an out of the way place alone, put his hand down her skirt and his fingers into her vagina. Ford said Kavanaugh forced himself on top of her on a bed and groped her but that no form of penetration occurred.
Third, the incident (if there was one) Ford complained about occurred when Kavanaugh was an adolescent. Reade’s claim is about an incident that occurred (if it did) when Biden was 50 years old. Most people are willing to give adolescent boys at least somewhat of a break when they behave badly. We rightly understand that they’re too young and inexperienced to be held completely responsible for all of their behavior. But we, again rightly, don’t give a 50-year-old man the same break. He’s considered fully able to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct and to refrain from criminality.
All of that militates strongly in favor of the MSM treating the allegations against Biden at least as seriously as those against Kavanaugh. But in fact, the opposite is true. The NYT, et al show not the slightest interest in Reade’s allegations having, less than two years ago, given breathless, front-page treatment, over a period of weeks, to Ford’s. That breathtaking hypocrisy demands an explanation. After all, this is the #MeToo Era, isn’t it?
I suspect the explanation is as simple as the MSM’s continuing fixation on getting Donald Trump out of the White House, a process that’s been going on since immediately after Election Day in 2016. Journalists and others, once considered of sound mind, proclaimed Trump to be Hitler (Adam Gopnik), not once but many times and not in off-the-cuff remarks, but in writing. We’ve been told that Trump is the end of democracy in the U.S. (George Packer), the end of the rule of law (Tom Steyer) and, yes, the end of Western civilization (Packer again).
From the outset, removing the president from the office to which he was elected has been almost a non-stop project. So the electors of Electoral College were urged to nullify the votes of the people of the various states. They didn’t, so a recount was tried. That didn’t work either. A few hopeful psychologists announced that Trump might be insane and so should be removed from office via the 25th Amendment. No sale. Then came two years of Robert Mueller who disappointed the faithful, and eventually impeachment. All those efforts came to naught.
In that context, it seems perfectly predictable that the MSM would ignore Tara Reade, their supposed fealty to #MeToo and any semblance of principle. The goal of removing Trump from office is Job One for some and they will allow nothing to stand in their way. Far from taking Biden down, the MSM is doing everything in its power to keep him afloat.
