There’s been a lot of articles on the Tara Reade sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden today. Quite a few of ‘em are crapola, either treating Reade’s allegations as the gospel truth, or insisting that the whole thing is a nothingburger which should be ignored. Neither take is correct or useful: Reade does have some holes in her story, and while I don’t see any fingerprints of the Trump Administration on this yet, they have proven that they will eagerly ratfuck Joe Biden, and use the weight of the US Government to do it—and that the Senate won’t lift a finger.
So… this needs to be addressed.
A few random points.
1. The story now has “legs”
This isn’t all bad news; as many have noted, the New York Times investigated her story and said it was inconclusive. Which is generally what you would expect in the case of a decades-old sexual assault allegation; if there’s no physical evidence and no witnesses, then it becomes a battle of dueling reputations.
But the story is receiving coverage, now, at major media outlets. CNN has covered it quite a bit; and while they are treating the allegations as allegations, the fact that the story is going to press, rather than being circular-filed by editors as unsubstantiated gossip, is a major change. There is something to see here, even if it’s not what you think.
Even though I still support Biden as the nominee at this point, those insisting that There Is Nothing To See Here are like Leslie Nielsen outside the burning fireworks factory in <i>The Naked Gun</i>. There is something. It might be actual sexual misconduct, it might be ratfucking, it might be something else. But it isn’t nothing.
2. Much of the “evidence” is hearsay… but does that matter?
One interesting issue is the various reports of associates of Reade confirming that she told them about the alleged assault. Some media sources, particularly hostile ones, are treating this as damning—as “corroborating evidence”.
Yes and no.
Were this matter to be tried in a court of law, no testimony of the sort “she told me it happened” would be admissible as evidence: it’s all hearsay. The witnesses in this case have no actual knowledge of whether the event happened or not, only what they were told by someone else—and the fact that A told B something is usually not relevant. On the other hand, this won’t be tried in any legal proceeding (the statute of limitations has long expired, and unlike the situation with Brett Kavanaugh, there aren’t any confirmation hearings in which testimony under oath will be solicited). And such evidence can establish that this wasn’t something that Reade thought up recently.
3. Trump’s best shot is to bring Biden down to his level
Right now, Trum’ps approval rating is in the hole by about 10 points at the 538 average, about where it was prior to his brief covid “bump”. Biden is leading in most swing-state polls, and within single digits in places like Texas. And nearly 90% of the population is in one of two camps with regard to Trump—they either love him, or they despise him. Unfortunately for Trump, the “despises him” camp is far larger. Fortunately for Trump, much of the “despises him” vote is sequestered in safe blue states, and the swing states are more favorable for him, though still breaking for Biden at this point.
Professional concern troll Damon Linker has an article on how this could swing the election back to Trump, despite the fact that even were the allegations against Biden found to be true, Trump is an order of magnitude worse. If Biden can be dragged down to Hillary levels of unpopularity, and large number of voters to stay home in disgust, his eager base of racists and bitter-enders might carry him to victory. And rest assured, he will not be stayed by concerns of hypocrisy. (I could even see Trump boasting of being a more accomplished p***y-grabber than Biden, noting that the latter was allegedly rebuffed in his alleged attempt to seduce Reade). Linker’s column is full of the usual sanctimony and “gosh my own side are twits too” virtue signalling that have long made him the go-to “liberal” for conservatives looking for evidence that their opponents are acting in bad faith, and he assigns too much weight to some of the “corroborating evidence” (see above), but Trump wants this election to be a mudfight. And if the Reade allegations come to dominate coverage of Biden much as email-gate dominated coverage of Hillary Clinton, he might get his wish.
4. Joe Biden will need, at some point, to address the allegations.
He (through his campaign) has issued a strongly-worded denial of the allegations, which is a good start. Far better to do that than issue a non-denial denial. But at some point, especially if the allegations become more specific, he may need to answer questions like the following:
* Where were you on the night in question?
* Did you receive a duffelbag from Ms. Reade?
* If so, Was there any sort of physical contact? Any conversation?
In short, either an alibi, or a more specific and detailed refutation of the allegations. At this point, again, this is not a judicial search for truth, but a battle of credibility. No judge is going to curate the evidence, no jury is going to render a verdict. A lot of opinions on the subject will be based on politics, with both the Right and the far Left screaming “guilty!” no matter what happens. But there are a lot of voters in the middle who might be persuaded either way, and a stronger defense argument than “didn’t happen”
5. That said, there are good reasons to be skeptical of Reade’s allegations
As many have said, women who make allegations of this sort should have them investigated, and not swept under the rug. There are more than a few legit concerns with the allegations as currently set forth, and dumpthechump’s diary goes over them fairly well. But we’re now beyond the point where simply sweeping them under the rug is possible.
6. What is the contingency plan if the worst occurs?
This is a question that should be answerable even in the absence of allegations like this—if Joe Biden were to pass away suddenly, who would become the nominee? Right now, the party seems far more united behind him than they were behind Hillary four years ago (and the #NeverJoe faction seems mainly to consist of folks who ordinarily won’t vote for Democrats), but were something to happen—what then? Should Sanders, who has the second most delegates, or had before covid-19 kiboshed the nominating process, get it instead? Are Biden’s delegates released to vote for whoever they like? And what about if something happens after the nomination is formally awarded—does his running-mate become the presidential nominee?
7. Is the party prepared to deal with ratfucking?
As noted in the lede, we already have evidence that the Trump Administration is willing and able to abuse its authority to hamstring its presumptive opponent. (And rest assured, the #MAGA hats will support every bit of this, thinking that the Totally Unfair And Tyrannical FBI investigation of Trump/Russia in 2016 provides all the justification that is necessary). After all, Trump was impeached over the Burisma business, and the GOP Senate signaled, rather loudly, that they no longer care about the sort of misconduct that essentially got Nixon driven from office nearly a half century ago. I almost expect that this is merely the opening act, and that at some point official “investigations”, from a Senate committee or by the DOJ, will be commenced, on this topic or on something else. Such investigations might have teeth, or they might be merely launched so “Biden’s under investigation!” FUD can be floated in the media, even if such investigations reveal nothing of substance.
At this point, though, to the extent that Reade’s allegations are organized ratfucking, it appears to be mainly coming from the political left, from factions looking to sabotage Biden’s path to the nomination, rather than trying to cripple in him the general election. (Note: I am NOT accusing the Sanders campaign of having anything to do with this). Trump might benefit more from an “October surprise” than from one in April. And the Trump Administration has a long history of being hamfisted fuckups, who routinely step on their own dicks, starting with Trump himself. On the other hand… we also know that Russian intelligence is likely to try to mess with the Democrats, as they proved in 2016; they do NOT want Biden to win. And unlike Trump, they are competent and ruthless, and I’m certain that this time around our counter-intelligence assets will be instructed to stand down by our corrupt attorney general. This observation is largely CT at this point, as there’s no evidence of any such involvement, but do expect it to happen. Putin can see that his puppet is in some trouble domestically, and the last thing he wants is a competent Democratic administration in Washington, especially one that has now far more reasons to distrust Moscow than Obama ever did.