About Joe Biden, Biased Journalists and Hypocritical Feminists
By now you know that Tara Reade has accused Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993 when she worked in the then-Senator’s Washington office.
And you also know that Biden’s campaign has said the allegation is not true.
Since there obviously were no witnesses, no proof one way or the other, it sounds like a typical “he said/she said” story.
Except for one thing: For over a month since the accusation surfaced, the “he” – Joe Biden – hadn’t said anything publicly about the allegation. Not a word.
Until last Friday.
Asked about the accusation by Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC, Biden said, “No, it is not true. I’m saying unequivocally it never, never happened.” And he added, “I assure you it did not happen. Period. Period.”
Brzezinski didn’t go easy on Biden, but she failed to ask at least one pertinent question: After he said, “I assure you it did not happen,” she should have said: “If it’s that clear cut, why did it take you over a month to finally say that?”
If he really is innocent – “Period. Period.” -- if the charges really are a fabrication, why not say so early on?
His silence until now, of course, doesn’t mean Biden is guilty of anything. Like anyone else, he’s entitled to the presumption of innocence.
Maybe his political team simply figured that he didn’t have to say anything because Democrats know him; they know his character; the allegation wasn’t resonating, so why respond.
What changed?
Biden likely broke his silence because the New York Times – after ignoring the story for almost three weeks -- published two long articles on Tara Reade’s allegation and the absence of Biden’s response.
Just two days before Biden went public, the Times reported that pressure was building on him to say something – and it wasn’t only coming from the usual suspects on the right. Liberals were also concerned, privately complaining that Biden was not showing leadership on a matter of importance to women.
“Activists and women’s rights advocates have urged Mr. Biden to address a former aide’s allegation that he sexually assaulted her in 1993,” the Times reported. “His lack of response has angered them.”
The Times also reported that, “Biden advisers have circulated talking points urging supporters to deny that the incident occurred.”
One of those talking points even suggested that an investigation by the New York Times found that “this incident did not happen.” But that wasn’t true. And the Times issued a statement saying its investigation “made no conclusion either way.”
So why would Biden’s political team urge supporters to go on TV and say something that was untrue? Why would the campaign prod supporters to lie for their candidate? Even people who want to see Biden defeat Donald Trump must have wrestled with an uncomfortable question: Is that what his campaign would do if Biden really were innocent?
The Times may have come late to the party, but some news organizations didn’t show up at all.
According to the Media Research Center – a conservative organization that monitors liberal bias in the news, “ABC, NBC, CNN and MSNBC [have] all invited Biden on their airwaves for interviews, but they refused to confront him even once about these allegations. Out of 77 questions, not a single one asked the former Senator and Vice President about Reade's charges.”
As Mark Hemingway put it on the Real Clear Politics website: “If the mainstream media were on the payroll of the Democratic National Committee, how would they have handled the Biden allegations any differently?”
Compare that to how the mainstream media dealt with accusations made against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. They pretty much ran with every accusation thrown at him, no matter how flimsy or outrageous. And Tara Reade’s story is supported by her brother and multiple friends who say she told them about the alleged attack not long after it supposedly happened.
This is how the liberal media double standard operates: If a Republican up for a seat on the Supreme Court has been accused, publish every unsubstantiated claim that might bring him down. If a Democratic presidential candidate is in the crosshairs, play down the accusation – or ignore it for as long as you can.
But if Tara Reade was getting the cold shoulder from journalists running interference for Biden, she figured she might get some public support from prominent political women who have championed sexual assault victims in the past.
But that didn’t happen either.
Before she went public with her story, Tara Reade sent letters to Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris describing what she claims happened and asking for their support.
As National Review Online explains, “Warren, who argued on the floor of the Senate that [Christine] Blasey Ford’s allegation was sufficient to disqualify Brett Kavanaugh, responded with a form letter informing Reade that she couldn’t help because Reade was not a constituent of hers and suggesting that she reach out to her own representatives. Harris, who similarly insisted on the veracity of Blasey Ford’s claim despite the lack of evidence, didn’t respond to Reade’s letter at all.”
Then there’s Senator Amy Klobuchar, another supposed champion of women who claim sexual abuse. When asked about Tara Reade’s claim, she echoed a talking point from the Biden campaign and said that the New York Times conducted a “thorough investigation.” That apparently was good enough for her – not surprisingly since she would like Biden to pick her as his running mate.
And then there’s Stacey Abrams, the losing candidate for Governor in Georgia in 2018, who also wants to be Biden’s vice presidential candidate. She went even further than Klobuchar. Speaking about Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation against Judge Kavanaugh two years ago she said, “I believe women.” That was then. Now she says, “The New York Times did a deep investigation and they found the accusation was not credible.”
Again, that was a Biden camp talking point but it was a lie. Even the Times said it wasn’t true.
And when asked about Reade’s accusation, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who once called on the FBI to investigate Brett Kavanaugh, said she “stands by” Biden. “He’s devoted his life to supporting women, and he has vehemently denied this allegation.”
Because of statements like that, because of endorsements for Biden from Hillary Clinton and other high-profile liberal women, Tara Reade, who had been a lifelong Democrat, has now been abandoned – tossed aside by feminists who lecture us about believing women but put politics over principle – and by journalists who were running interference for Biden.
For over a month, Tara Reade says she hadn’t been invited to tell her story on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN or MSNBC. Now that Biden has told his story publicly, it’s a safe bet that some TV news organizations will finally discover her. At least one, CBS News, says it already has asked for an interview.
Fox wanted her on but she initially said no – then decided to appear on the channel for an interview conducted by Chris Wallace on Sunday. She cancelled, however, because she had received death threats, and was afraid.
As for Joe Biden, if he thinks the matter is now in the rear view mirror, he apparently didn’t read the New York Times on Saturday, just one day after his TV proclamation of innocence.
In its lead editorial, the Times wrote that, “Last year, this board advocated strongly for a vigorous inquiry into accusations of sexual misconduct raised against Brett Kavanaugh when he was nominated to a seat on the Supreme Court. Mr. Biden’s pursuit of the presidency requires no less. His campaign, and his party, have a duty to assure the public that the accusations are being taken seriously. The Democratic National Committee should move to investigate the matter swiftly and thoroughly, with the full cooperation of the Biden campaign.”
We may never know the truth about what happened, or didn’t, in 1993. But we do know this: Too many journalists have a corrupt and unholy alliance with the Democratic Party and its liberal values. And too many Democratic women are hypocrites.
As Joe Biden might put it: Period. Period.