Yesterday I wrote this story about Tara Reade and by the end of the day it had 228 comments (some of them my replies) and a paltry 14 recommendations.
Many of the comments were along the lines of these:
I don’t believe her. And I’m a survivor. IMO, She’s a cheap hit piece.
What? We’re supposed to ditch Biden for the Pussy Grabber in Chief? WTF?
Without even being able to observe body language?
Has the diarist ever been acquainted with a pathological liar, skilled manipulator, fabulist, compulsive seeker of attention and sympathy, individual with histrionic personality disorder?
Has the diarist read her history with the horse rescue association: great diplay of warmth and charm, succeeded by sympathy plays, manipulation, lying, outright fraud— and then threats? Has he noticed her claims to be a skilled actress?
Not labeling, I don’t have the qalifiations, but how does a tremor in the voice alone tell anyone enough to judge veracity, without considering anything else?
I listened to the whole interview. She sounded convincing. However I landed in the same place you (the above commenter) did when combined with all the other things I’ve read about her. I remember that woman, Susan Smith, in SC in 1994 who drowned her sons in her car and how totally convincing she sounded in her grief and in her lies about a black man hijacking her car and driving away with her kids inside.
But others were less than an expression of perfectly rational opinions like those above and, shall I say, a tad more negative about me. My emphasis added.
Although I’m not sure if it is the right thing, I will not put down a flag. I would be more comfortable refraining from doing so, however, if the diarist would amend his diary to show a good-faith, honest attempt to reconcile his purported impressions with the numerous holes in her story that tend to demonstrate a lack of credibility. As it reads now, the diary is just garbage.
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It’s just political hackery.
You know who’s convincing? Stephen King reading one of his novels.
At least we aren’t hearing from a “body language” expert … so far.
Good fucking grief this is lame.
This is such a stupid diary. So, she makes a claim, and because she makes that claim she is to be believed? That is such a horribly shallow way of looking at things, it begs incredulity.
What about the background of this accuser? ? What about the crazed tweets, the many lies, the unheard of reversals on practically EVERYTHING, in the course of just 1 year? The sneaky changing of what she wrote in a Medium article in anticipation of her going after Biden, but was caught doing so? Now the cancelling of what was sure to be somewhat of a grilling to an extent in a FoxNews interview, telling the world that she intends to pull back because she is "nervous about being in the public eye."
Despicable diary.
this is trash.
Joe Biden’s written statement is like the USA Today article in that he also enumerates the inconsistencies and changes in Reade’s story. He also describes all the work he has done in support of women’s issues. He includes the following:
While the details of these allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault are complicated, two things are not complicated. One is that women deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and when they step forward they should be heard, not silenced. The second is that their stories should be subject to appropriate inquiry and scrutiny.
Responsible news organizations should examine and evaluate the full and growing record of inconsistencies in her story, which has changed repeatedly in both small and big ways.
I agree 100% with the above. I hope readers here do the two things (bolded above) when they consider the complexities of a sexual assault complaint against a presidential candidate. In a he said — she said case like this, one that will not be litigated, the public counts on the press to do the investigation. We must weigh the evidence as objectively as a sworn jury would. This, by the way, counts as my opinion.
As for the other opinions expressed in yesterday’s diary, I didn’t really express strong opinions at all. My title used the phrase that her interview sounded credible. “Sounded” means sounded. This is why I urged people to listen to it.
Most of the diary consisted two quotes from the Tara Reade interview with Katie Halper.
The only parts of what I wrote, aside from the title, where I expressed something that could be construed as an opinion follow in bold. I made sure that I had a link to the USA Today article in the first sentence and I did not think it was worth summarizing the reasons laid out in the article to doubt her story since this article had been widely publicized.
- I originally had many doubts about the veracity to Tara Reade’s account of being sexual assaulted by Joe Biden especially after reading this USA Today article.
- I had no idea this interview existed. Before any of us jumps to the conclusion that Biden is to believed when he states “unequivocally” that it didn’t happen, I think if this is important to us it behoves us to listen to the entire interview like I did.
- If we accept that there might be a very dark side of Joe Biden that he has up until now successfully hid, we aren’t going to change our vote. However, as out of character as so many people who have known Joe Biden for many years say it is that he’d do what is alleged, it still awfully disturbing, at least to me, to even consider he might have violated Tara Reade the way she says he did.
- I think those who are expressing doubt about Tara Reade’s allegation should say whether or not they listened to the interview. I know spending a full hour doing so may be asking too much but I did it before expressing my opinion. I happen to have had some experience interviewing women who were victims of sexual assault either many years before they got into therapy or recently since I was a therapist for 40 years. (About 40% of the 163 people who answer the poll said they listen to all or most of the interview, about 60% said they didn’t listen to any of it.)
- I just came across this (video interview with Krystal Ball) thanks to a commenter. I only am suggesting that she “sounded” credible. I hope people not jump to conclusions and keep politics out of their judgment as to the veracity of her allegations. There are well documented reasons to question the truth of the story, but I think Kos readers ought to inform themselves before jumping to conclusions.
Now to the Salon article which addresses the way the Tara Reade allegations have led to what the front page title suggests to be part of a 2020 election shitshow.
I recommend reading the entire essay. Here are a few excerpts:
Now we have the greatest and least subject of all: the agony of Joe Biden, a man who seems singularly ill-equipped for this moment and is now beset by a scandal that could not be more perfectly timed or calibrated to destroy him. Far more important than that — because I do not think Joe Biden is the principal character in this drama, except in a limited, accidental way — Tara Reade's accusation and its spreading repercussions are like an underground explosion that threatens to lay bare many of the contradictions of left-liberal politics and gender relations and feminism that lie just below the surface of this historic election.
I do not know whether Reade's allegation about Biden is true or not, and neither do you. There is some evidence that tends to corroborate her account — including friends or family members who say she told them various versions of the incident at various times — and other evidence that tends to undermine it.
It is a story about our struggle to hear Tara Reade, at perhaps the most challenging possible moment. In particular, it is a story about the nearly impossible dilemma faced by women and by the feminist movement, who want to hear, respect and believe women's stories even when they are painful or difficult, and who also believe that ending Donald Trump's presidency — and his all-out assault on women's rights and gender equality, not to mention the already-crumbling foundations of American democracy — is a matter of urgent historical importance.
Andrew O’Hehir concludes:
We can't survive the pandemic-election clusterf**k of 2020 by hiding in the basement and hoping that the mean orange man will just go away. We might, however, find a path forward if we come to understand "believe women" not as a commandment to accept everything said by all women — who do not, in my experience, necessarily always agree — but as a more complex equation. We can believe women are real, that they confront complicated moral narratives and have complicated agency, that they do not need their stories packaged or constrained in existing frames. I do not know whether Joe Biden is guilty or innocent, or what will become of him. I'm starting to think it's the wrong question.
More of my opinion:
I feel that even if Joe Biden did what he is accused of doing he is still qualified to be president. Unlike Trump, no other women have come forward with highly credible allegations like this so if, a big if, it happened it could have been a one-time lapse of impulse control. It could be, again I feel compelled to say, a big “could be” something he to this day feels terribly guilty about.
The defense of Biden we keep hearing (and Robert Gibbs on MSNBC is making it as I type this) is that there is nothing in Biden’s character that would suggest he’d have done something like this. Character counts though men of what we’d call good character have had lapses where sex was involved.
As a psychotherapist I know that the subject people lie about the most in therapy is sex. They lie to their spouses and they lie to the therapist.
Reade could be lying. Some have pointed out that she used to want to be an actress. Biden could be lying. Successful politicians are also adept at lying. In my view the arguments cancel each other out.
Comments are welcome but is it hopeless to ask that people stay on topic and resist the temptation to make Trumpian ad hominem attacks?
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I will only reply to substantive comments, preferably those which show that the commenter has read the entire diary and which cite sections they disagree with. Those with gratuitous insults will also be ignored.