May 1, 2020

"It could be false accusations. I know all about false accusations. I’ve been falsely charged numerous times. And there is such a thing. If you look at Brett Kavanaugh, there’s an outstanding man. He was falsely charged...."

From yesterday's press briefing:
Speaker 7: Follow up regarding the Joe Biden, your campaign and surrogates going after him pretty hard with regard to these allegations from Tara Reade, what do you say to Joe Biden-

Donald Trump: I don’t think so. I don’t think they’re going after him hard with regard to Tara.

Speaker 7: What do you think of the allegations and what do you say to Joe Biden?

Donald Trump: I don’t know anything about it. I don’t know exactly. I think he should respond. It could be false accusations. I know all about false accusations. I’ve been falsely charged numerous times. And there is such a thing. If you look at Brett Kavanaugh, there’s an outstanding man. He was falsely charged. What happened with him was an absolute disgrace to our country. And I guess three of the four women have now admitted that. And of the fourth, give me a break. I mean, take a look. 36 years. Look, this is a fine man. I saw a man suffering so unfairly. I’m talking about Brett Kavanaugh. But I don’t know, I can’t speak for Biden. I can only say that I think he should respond. I think he should answer them.
Here are some question to ask Democrats who are supporting Biden in this: In retrospect, do you regret the way your party treated Brett Kavanaugh? What do you say to people who believe in equal treatment for anyone who faces accusations like this and who see your different treatment of the 2 men as nothing but partisanship?

I know how they will try to answer. They'll say Christine Blasey Ford was credible in a way that Tara Reade is not. Meanwhile, anti-Biden partisans say the opposite — Tara Reade is credible in a way that Christine Blasey Ford was not.

73 comments:

rhhardin said...

It's a stupid thing to worry about in the first place. You have to be crazy or a woman.

Ken B said...

More time spent asking Trump than asking Biden.

Skeptical Voter said...

To paraphrase the old line from Love Story---"Being a Democrat, or a journalist (but I repeat myself) means never having to say you are sorry."

And as my old drill sarge used to say, "I know you are a sorry little (supply your own ending here) but that's no excuse."

Freder Frederson said...

In retrospect, do you regret the way your party treated Brett Kavanaugh? What do you say to people who believe in equal treatment for anyone who faces accusations like this and who see your different treatment of the 2 men as nothing but partisanship?

Given the accusations against Kavanaugh, what was "my party" (and btw, what are you registered as, is it your party too?) supposed to react to accusations, if true, for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court? Just ignore Blasie-Ford and the other accusations (and there were others including into his college years)? The best way would not have been the debacle of the Congressional Hearing, but a independent investigation. Unfortunately, that is not possible.

Birkel said...

There are records from the Senate to be had.
There are records from University if Delaware to be had.
If records exist of women (including the other seven complaining about Biden, currently) paid by the Senate slush fund, that would be revealing.

The way to bet is those records will not be released and/or are destroyed.

The next bit of independent evidence for CBF's claims will be the first.
I anxiously await an acceptance of that fact.

Jim Gust said...

I'm not terribly upset by what Biden may have done. The really bad part is that when Reade complained about it, she was fired.

The reasons for the firing should have been documented. Let's go to the documents. Or have the documents already been purged?

I'm also more upset about the choice of Chris "waitress sandwich" Dodd to select the VP. This guy should have been disqualified from public life long ago.

Howard said...

It's crazy to deny the reality of sensuality misconstrued. Renember, the media is the massage.

Temujin said...

This is inexcusable. This press, which pushed the Flynn story, the Russia collusion story, when everyone knew it was fiction, pushed the impeachment saga, when everyone knew this was BS, covered up for Hillary and her in-home unsecured server, her holding back, then destroying subpoenaed emails, pushed the completely disingenuous Christine Blassie-Ford story and worked so very hard to destroy Brett Kavanaugh using a false story from his teenage years, now refuses to approach Joe Biden until they absolutely have to, and even then, only on a friendly, Democrat-run network, with pre-approved questions.

It's not just that our press is incompetent, smug, and wrong, it's that they have worked hard at becoming an enemy of the people of this nation. They are destroyers of our country. They should be mocked, and ridiculed. Not taken seriously.

Really- Joe has been groping women, on camera, for decades. To pretend that Tara Reade's story is a reach is an insult- once again. Maybe Joe is not guilty of this one. But his history of behavior and her complaints about it at the time, require that an actual press ask a LOT OF QUESTIONS. Not softballs. But multiple follow up questions.

Until we get a free press back, I refuse to take their word at anything. It's appalling how bad they are.

narciso said...

it's not the same, tara reade should be on every network, as should her family, and everyone else,

Anonymous said...

Reid had more contemporary corroboration in the (now-archive-scrubbed) CNN clip and other friends' accounts than CBF ever dreamed of presenting. The difference is staggering, and even your cruel neutrality should be able to acknowledge that.

Birches said...

I'm not sure his surrogates are going hard on Biden, they're going hard on the press for covering for Biden. The people going hard on Biden are farther left than Biden. He's going to be undone by The Intercept, not Breitbart.

Tara Reade at least has some corroboration. Something Blasey completely lacks.

Tom T. said...

Trump may believe that his saying "it could be a false accusation" may lead to infighting along Democrats, as some faction is now going to insist that Reade must be believed precisely because Trump has suggested that it might be false.

Wince said...

Biden is a weak but likely impregnable establishment Democratic candidate made weaker by this.

The best outcome for Trump is if these allegations against Biden remain a slow burning scandal through the "convention" until election day.

The Democrats tearing each other apart over this and other issues, rather than a quick and less painful resolution, is probably Trump's preference.

Limited blogger said...

Lost interest a while ago.

Hope justice for all is found.

Shouting Thomas said...

I say fuck feminism. Flush it down the toilet.

Junk the Marxist ideology.

Get on with business and quit using this club on anybody.

JohnAnnArbor said...

More time spent asking Trump than asking Biden.

That's true.

Stay Safe said...

I said at the time that the Kavanaugh hearings we're unfair and a mistake. Trump is another matter. He has a long and colorful history of disrespecting women. Does that prove he is a rapist? No. But it does prove that he us a low-class cad.

Kevin said...

They'll say Christine Blasey Ford was credible in a way that Tara Reade is not.

Exactly how is CBF credible in a way that Tara Reade is not?

In the interest of cruel neutrality, can you lay out their case for them?

Nonapod said...

anti-Biden partisans say the opposite

Even though I'm anti Biden, I'd like to believe that I'm being fairly reasonable on the "which accusation is more credible" front.

Psota said...

Isn't this a signal that Trump is not going to rely on Tara Reade as a "deus ex machina" issue?

Biden's got bigger problems: Ukraine-gate, Spy-gate, "stopping-flights-from-China-is-xenophobic" - gate.

All of those are much more compelling than some 30-year old tawdry story that we already know the media will go out of its way to obfuscate.

Pictures (or "blue dress") or it didn't happen

Temujin said...

To further my points about the press's coverage of Tara Reade- it's the same coverage they give any story that reflects badly on a Democrat, no matter the gravitas of the story. To wit: Michael Flynn coverage by our Journalists!

clint said...

I have no idea if Tara Reade is telling the truth -- but at least she can prove that she met Joe Biden. If she can also prove that she made specific allegations at the time, whether to her mother or in an official complaint, I think that would give her allegations significant weight. And it would be two points in her favor over Ford's allegations.

It still wouldn't be proof, of course. There's no way Biden should be charged or tried for this.

But aside from trusting one's gut about Ford, what facts or evidence would a pro-Biden partisan make to say that her claims were more credible than Reade's?

cf said...

It was a Masterful response, all the way around, beginning with sympathetizing with Biden's situation! what a fine way to start. And then to let that effortlessly lead us all to re-explore our memories of Kavanaugh in this light.

Masterful. Who else could have possibly withstood Obama's #SerenePoliceState and CorpMedia Cartel like this man?

An Epic President, (she writes, shaking her head in smiling amazement) amazing history to experience in real time.

iowan2 said...

The only thing conservatives want is consistent applications of norms.
#metoo, was an obliteration of due process. When I or others pointed this out, we are labeled misogynist. All women are to be believed.
That is all crap. Men across this nation were railroaded out of collage, an a mere accusation. Due process was intentionally prohibited from those processes. The Federal Government mandated the process to use.
The Federal Government banned due process.
There is no other way to go forward but to require everyone of legal age to report crimes to the police. Anything less than that, is a crime against a civil society.

The terrible part is accusations against R's will go forward unabated by Joe Biden's experience. We are in an election year, how many accusations years old are being crafted as we speak? Accusations the DNC scribes will pickup and run with, because the myth of a vibrant independent media, is just that, a myth.

Andrew said...

One obvious difference: Kavanaugh's alleged assault took place in high school. Biden's took place in his professional career.

Concerning hypocrisy, I still remember the phrase "drag a $100 bill through a trailer park." I don't recall many Democrats, feminists, or journalists being offended by that one.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

I don't think either one was particularly credible. Speak up immediately, or close to it.

Drago said...

The National Archives has just put out a statement that contradicts Biden from this morning.

The National Archives says any such complaint by a staffer would BOT be in their records.

So what we have here is Biden claiming vindication for the lack of any such documentation in a place that documentation wouldnt be while ordering everyone not to look in a place where such documentation might be.

Gee, nothing strange about that at all.

Even better, Biden is now saying it wouldnt be fair to look at his public records from his time in a lower office as he runs for a higher office...even after he demanded Trump release transcripts of phone calls with foreign leaders.

Gusty Winds said...

"Had to stop in my tracks for fear of walking on the mines I'd laid." - Sting

Virgil Hilts said...

I keep wondering if this will really just blow over. The gang attack on Bloomberg to release the NDAs (including by Biden - what an f-ing boomerang) and the current refusal to allow release of any Biden records relating to any complaint that might have been filed by Reade in the early 90s seems like it will keep this thing going. But I would not be surprised if some Biden rep with loose socks goes through the records, and simply destroys what's there (too bad Sandy Berger's no longer with us) and then announce that they're conducting a search for anything relating to Reade. I really doubt that we are ever going to see any Reade related documents out of the Delaware trove.

Automatic_Wing said...

More time spent asking Trump than asking Biden.


Sure, because when a Democrat politician has a problem, the story is never about the Democrat politician and his problem. The story is all about Republicans Pouncing and piling onto the poor Dem politician. That's taught in Journalism School, I suppose.

Sigivald said...

"Something something dollar trailer park?"

Partisan Democrats have less than zero credibility on "fairness around allegations of sexual misconduct".

If they want me to think otherwise, they can ... actually take accusations against a Democrat seriously, with repercussions.

Even once would be a nice start.

gilbar said...

What do you say to people who believe in equal treatment for anyone who faces accusations like this and who see your different treatment of the 2 men as nothing but partisanship?

there HAS BEEN equal treatment! ALL events are covered by The Single Standard*


The Single Standard* ALL EVENTS ARE PRESENTED IN A WAY TO MAKE DEMOCRATS LOOK GOOD

stevew said...

The allegations, having been made, require that they be addressed. Doing anything else IS partisan. The question will be whether Biden's addressing the allegation this morning will be sufficient. I think not. I think it is also likely that Trump will not raise this during the campaign. But he rarely does what I expect.

Virgil Hilts said...

Never mind. The archive has already been scrubbed -- "According to a University of Delaware spokesperson, operatives from Biden's campaign accessed Biden's sealed archive last spring after he launched his campaign.. . . That would mean . . . operatives ... accessed it after Reade and several other women came forward with complaints of inappropriate touching from Biden shortly before he announced his presidential candidacy."

cubanbob said...

I suppose Clarence Thomas and Kavanaugh most be secretly enjoying this. Unlike Ford who has no corroboration whatsoever Read does. Now what about Biden keeping his records at the University of Delaware secret? Ole Joe, stupid, sleazy, mendacious, corrupt and senile. The Democrats sure can pick them. Setting asides politics for a moment. Put Biden next to Trump and Biden looks old and tired whereas Trump has the energy of a guy twenty years younger.

alanc709 said...

Ford was credible in a way that Reade was not: Ford accused a Republican nominee, Reade a Democrat nominee. otherwise, no difference.

Shouting Thomas said...

The reemergence is a great opportunity. Where is the vision and the intelligence?

Althouse came out full Marxist yesterday. I thought it was restricted to feminism, but it's not.

She's essentially come out in favor of the Green New Deal, i.e., a command and control economy, using the epidemic panic as a lever. Feminism is Marxism. Recognize it for what it is and don't be fooled by the stalking horse.

Althouse's feminism, that is her desire to remake men and women according to ideological specifications, is Marxism. Reject every aspect of it. There is no good part.

Feminism isn't just an attack on the natural order. It's ultimately an attack on the free market economy and your basic civil liberties.

Tommy Duncan said...

"I know how they will try to answer. They'll say Christine Blasey Ford was credible in a way that Tara Reade is not. Meanwhile, anti-Biden partisans say the opposite — Tara Reade is credible in a way that Christine Blasey Ford was not."

"We choose truth over facts." --Joe Biden

Original Mike said...

I know the components of the argument that Ford is not credible (at least some of them). Is there an argument that Reade is not credible? Or is it the case that Biden partisans are just flatly declaring that Reade is not credible?

MadisonMan said...

What KenB said at 919! Why ask Biden when you can ask Trump!

rehajm said...

...or as Nancy says, 'It's Joe Biden'.

Yes, Nancy. Yes it is...

Sebastian said...

"Here are some question to ask Democrats who are supporting Biden in this: In retrospect, do you regret the way your party treated Brett Kavanaugh?"

Answer: Who are you to ask? What kind of question is that? Actually, no, we don't regret a thing. We never do. Kavanaugh is a rapist and it's a disgrace he's on the court.

"What do you say to people who believe in equal treatment for anyone who faces accusations like this and who see your different treatment of the 2 men as nothing but partisanship?"

Answer: Who are those people? Kavanaugh was up for a lifetime appointment to the court; Joe hasn't even been nominated yet: big difference. CBF came forward very bravely against a tremendous right-wing onslaught; Tara is late to the party -- what's her scheme? There's no partisanship: one woman did the right thing, the other is doing the wrong thing: big difference.

Or they could answer: "Kavanaugh was already in a public forum in a large way. Kavanaugh's status as a Supreme Court justice was in question because of a very serious allegation. And, when I say in a public way, I don't mean in the public way of Tara Reade's. If you ask the average person in America, they didn't know about the Tara Reade case," Baquet told Smith. "So I thought, in that case, if The New York Times was going to introduce this to readers, we needed to introduce it with some reporting and perspective. Kavanaugh was in a very different situation. It was a live, ongoing story that had become the biggest political story in the country. It was just a different news judgment moment."

Achilles said...

It isn't just partisan.

Reade filed reports, named locations, named witnesses who back her up.

Ford was clearly just a lying piece of shit. All her witnesses contradicted her. She allowed a gap of 3-15 months depending on the version of her story. She changed her story multiple times.

Reade is objectively more credible.

rcocean said...

What a ridiculous comment at the end! Its the Democrat partisans IN THE MEDIA, who thought Blowsey-Ford was credible and Reade is not. I don't know of a single well-known Conservative or Republican who thinks the opposite JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE REPUBLICANS.

You're equating two positions that are NOT equal. Blowsey wasn't credible because the facts PROVE she wasn't credible. She waited 36 years to make the accusation. She couldn't name the time or place of the attack. She couldn't even prove she KNEW Kavanaugh. She had zero contemporaneous evidence the attack took place.

Reade has contemporaneous evidence, says she was retaliated against, worked for Biden, and can name times and places with perfect accuracy.

Whether either attack/harassment took place, Reade is credible. Blowsey ford was not. You can have your own opinions, you can't have your own facts.

rcocean said...

Trump has been accused of attempted rape in a dressing room from 25 years ago. Zero credibility. He's been accused of all kinds of things, that have zero crediblity. that didn't stop CNN from having Stormy Daniels and her lawyer on CNN a 100 times. Or asking Trump about it, 50 times.

But CNN has asked about Biden-Reade ONCE, and will move on. Its the DNC News Network, just like MSNBC and NBC.

Yancey Ward said...

Someone wrote a comment yesterday, forget who (they can pipe up and take credit), said that there is no limit to the self-degradation the DNC will force Democrats to engage in order to support Biden. Notice how the reporter here tries to palm all of this Reade stuff off on Trump surrogates rather than ask Biden surrogates about it? Does this reporter not really grasp how stupid this sort of ploy makes him look?

Gusty Winds said...

Figure these Senators in 1993 were hitting on the help. It was probably part of the culture, and some women went for it. Lewinsky did. And then, the Senator runs into a resister. Someone who doesn’t want the Senator’s hands down her pants. Now you’ve got a problem. The only real way to know the truth is if the women who said yes came forward, but they’re not going to do that. They probably gained something from the encounter they don’t want to sacrifice. Nor do they want to admit the slept their way up the ladder like Senator Kamala Harris.

Dave Begley said...

Any fair, intelligent and reasonable person had to conclude that CBF was lying.

Reade, on the other hand, is an open question. Given all the facts and circumstances, I think she is telling the truth. I wonder if she will do her "little girl voice" on Sunday with Chris Wallace. Or maybe cry.

Birkel said...

Has anybody mentioned the humanity revealed by Trump's statement?
Democratics would never allow the conversation about false accusations if the roles were reversed.
Trump extends an olive branch to Biden and his defenders.

And since everything Trump does must - by definition - be wrong, Biden must be guilty.
That's an effective answer.

The press cannot say Trump pounces.
Trump offers a limited defense for himself and Biden.
Biden is protected by Trump to make it to the Democratic Convention.
Trump appears reasonable and human.

One cannot know if Trump spends time gaming these responses but it would not surprise me if he does.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

We are all being snowed. The deep state Clinton corruption machine still cranking out the crank.

Drago said...

"Here are some question to ask Democrats who are supporting Biden in this: In retrospect, do you regret the way your party treated Brett Kavanaugh?"

Sebastian: "Answer: Who are you to ask? What kind of question is that? Actually, no, we don't regret a thing. We never do. Kavanaugh is a rapist and it's a disgrace he's on the court."

Its even worse than that.

Currently 80% of democratics still believe the hoax dossier is real and Trump colluded with Russia AND they also believe that Kavanaugh is a rapist, they believe Kavanaugh was a gang rape leader...for decades.

Gusty Winds said...

Do we really believe that Biden's crack-head baby-daddy son picked up his sexual prowess and privilege on his own? Really?

Joan said...

Are interns “staffers”? Because Reade was managing interns until the alleged incident, and subsequent to her making a fuss about it, she says she was summarily removed from that position. I’ve heard from several different sources that the former interns corroborated she was in fact whisked away. So Biden saying that no former staffers support any of Reade’s allegations is just another lie in a series of lies.

The problem isn’t just that he raped her, the problem is that her career was destroyed when she complained about it. But she was too good a Democrat to want to make a big deal of it at the time. Maybe her true motivation is not wanting to install Biden as a puppet. It’s good to be able to see who’s actually running the country. At least then there is a slim chance of holding them accountable.

Howard said...

The treatment is equal. Equal opportunity not equal outcome. It's that not what you people preach all the time? Bootstraps affirmative action glass ceiling, etc.

You need to up your game because someone is picking up there end of the playing field while you guys are sitting around having a covfefe kvetch bitch session.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

even if Balsey Ford's account is real - kavanaugh didn't rape her.

and her account does not have much of any credibility or backing.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Don't democrats feel cheated?

Pete B, E Warren, Amy K, even that rich little guy named Bloomberg were all better. Instead - you get the same old piles of corrupt insider pol who refuse to exit stage left.

n.n said...

Flynn, Iran, China, Reade, and other Democrat missteps. Following diverse precedents, Democrats are attempting to use JournoListic bullhorns to confound and disperse attention.

Leland said...

Has Tara Reade filed a police report? I don't know, but unless this is being investigated by a prosecutor, neither Reade or Biden is getting due process. Either she filed a criminal complaint or she didn't. If the latter, this is all an attempt by her to embarrass Biden in public. This is what #MeToo was about, getting people to simply accept a woman's accusation without her having to go to trial to prove it. Harvey Weinstein got away with what he did because the woman didn't take it to court.

Ford skipped the courts and went to the Senate. Her hearsay evidence was weak from the start and nobody could corroborate any detail of it. The "trial" of Kavanaugh was pathetic and should scare anyone about what could happen if #MeToo could run all rape trials in such a fashion. I'm glad the situation resolved itself as it did.

Biden is in a position to win his party's nomination using the rules defined from the start and hopefully carried through the convention and to the general election. Protecting those rules is protecting Democracy. I'm for that. I'll admit bias, because I think Biden is a worse candidate than Hillary, but I didn't force Democrats to accept Biden. I'm just hoping Democrats will follow their own rules. In this case, their literal Primary rules.

I don't see how I'm being a hypocrite for expecting Democrat's to follow the rules they established.

Lance said...

They'll say Christine Blasey Ford was credible in a way that Tara Reade is not. Meanwhile, anti-Biden partisans say the opposite — Tara Reade is credible in a way that Christine Blasey Ford was not.

I don't see how anyone can say that either accusation is credible. The accusations against Franken were much more credible. In the USO case we have a photo. In the fondling cases several of the women made their accusations at the time, and we have corroborating witnesses.

Ford said there were four witnesses at the party who could back up her claim. None of them remember any such incident, and one said she had never met Kavanaugh at all.

Reade says she filed a complaint, but no record has been found. She says she told family and friends, and they now say that she did, but it's very hazy what she actually told them at the time. We have the Larry King call, but it doesn't go into detail and there's still some question whether the caller is her mom.

The real problem here is that Democrats turned Ford's unsubstantiated claims into a witch hunt. They wanted to go through every scrap of documentation on Kavanaugh's life. It was an obvious oppo research ploy. Now Republicans want to do the same to Biden, whether to drag him down or to punish Democrats with their own Kavanaugh standard.

I think we're missing what's important: look at Biden's composure in the Mika interview: he's so easily flustered. Is this who we want as President?

I'd already made up my mind not to vote for him, but to me this was like John McCain's we-must-suspend-the-campaign moment. McCain showed he wasn't savvy enough to be President, and I think Biden has now done the same.

Birches said...

Trump's answer seemed off the cuff and not written by staffers. He's already doing better than Biden who had a month to prepare.

Lance said...

Do Democrats learn anything from this? If and when Pres. Trump nominates a replacement for Justices Ginsurg and/or Breyer, will the Democrats repeat the Kavanaugh witch hunt? Will they find some barely plausible accusation and demand that it be uncritically accepted? Maybe it won't be a sex thing. But will they and their media allies whip up the same frenzy?

I think they will. Their either don't recognize the damage they've caused or they don't care.

RigelDog said...

Trump is another matter. He has a long and colorful history of disrespecting women. }}}

From the distance we all have, since we don't personally know Trump, I'd say he has a history of a certain kind of disrespect for women, sexually-speaking. He was a famous and powerful and rich man of a certain era. As a young woman I knew to stay far away from such people because what they had to offer wasn't worth the kind of price I knew I would pay. Think how much fun it would be to party with a rock star, for instance. But then think of the inevitable sexual overtones involved in that. Powerful men didn't invite me to join the party because of my sparkling wit; they invited me because I was young and hot. I realized that after a while (I was naive) and passed up on further opportunities to hang with such people.

At the same time, as far as general life and business skills, he seems to respect women just fine if he thinks they are the right people for the job. Ivana is a strong woman with a lifetime of various achievements. Trump hired a woman as construction manager decades ago, when it was unheard of.

Bob Smith said...

In my working life I saw three accusations of harassment. They ranged from hands on/everybody knew to questionable, to pure BS/ everybody knew. So my experience is exactly 1/3 each.

Kevin said...

Pete B, E Warren, Amy K, even that rich little guy named Bloomberg were all better.

No. No they weren't.

That's what Democrats have to face today.

Joe is still the best they have.

walter said...

Psota said...Isn't this a signal that Trump is not going to rely on Tara Reade as a "deus ex machina" issue?
---
All the other oppo research/campaign strategery is a terrible thing to waste.

William said...

Amen to Temujin's comments at 9:34....The people who really look not just bad but truly despicable in this case are the media.....As worldly sophisticated Democrats note, everyone lies about sex. This is true of Clinton and Trump and most probably of Biden. I give them, if not a pass, a certain amount of mmm, okay. The press, however, are not paid to lie about liars or to cover for them. Their double standards in this case are blatant and made even more infuriating by their bland refusal to acknowledge their double standards.

Richard Dolan said...

Yes, they will invoke credibility and all the goes with it (meaning each gets to decide for himself). But as I read this, I was thinking about the case of Cardinal Pell, in which the intermediate Australian court upheld the conviction on the grounds that the complainant was credible (there was no corroborating evidence), while the Australian High Court reversed and dismissed the charge on the grounds that, despite the complainant's credibility, the physical evidence was sufficiently strong to raise, as a matter of law, a reasonable doubt that the sexual assault could have occurred in the way claimed by the complainant.

Looking at the other evidence in the two cases as the Australian court did in the Cardinal Pell case, both Reade and Ford had told inconsistent (or at any rate less complete) versions of their story before. Reade can point to corroborating witnesses who say, in substance, that she told the same story early; Ford can only point to much later instances. Reade clearly worked for Biden; the only evidence that Ford ever met Kavanaugh is her say-so -- the others who supposedly attended the party at issue (including her best friend at the time) all say it never happened. And then you have Biden's creepy behavior generally around women, with nothing like that in Kavanaugh's history (the Ramirez 'incident' is really a stretch given how it was generated after she disclaimed any recollection).

Many grounds to discount Ford's story even if you thought her a credible complainant; far fewer grounds in the Reade case.

While the general 'witch hunt' atmosphere in the Australian media targeting Pell as an obvious pedophile did not figure (at least overtly) in the court's decision, the parallels in the Biden/Kavanaugh sagas all weighed against Kavanaugh (the media other than Fox all portrayed him in the most negative light, and signalled that they accepted Ford's story completely). Until this morning, Biden has gotten a pass (and that will probably continue with a claim that Mika has already grilled him, so time to move on).

All of that leaves the 'Reade is not credible but Ford is' team twisting in the wind, in a way that is all a bit too obvious.

DavidUW said...

I'm pretty sure the author is a lawyer.

presented with 2 plaintiffs, which one is more credible:
1) "remembered" the incident 36 years later, no contemporaneous reports, no witnesses. Of supposed witnesses to the event, 2 can't remember, 2 explicitly state the incident never happened/weren't there to witness. Obvious political motivations, oddly completely scrubbed social media history.

2) discussed incident with friends and family at the time of the alleged rape. Those friends and family still remember the discussion. Tape recording of the mother discussing something relating to alleged incident at the time. Plaintiff was removed from her position after the incident, possibly showing retaliation by accused. Lifelong democrat, NeverTrumper, and live social media history.

Who's objectively more credible?

rcocean said...

To me, if you can't remember where the attack happened, and you cant' even pin down the month or year, you have zero credibility.

Everyone else seems to think differently. They think it perfectly natural to remember almost every fucking detail about what happened 36 years ago, including how they much had to drink, whether music was playing, what everyone was wearing and what the room was like, and NOT REMEMBER THE MONTH, YEAR, OR THE PLACE.

People always astound me.

Lurker21 said...

I don't think either incident happened exactly as described, but it's likely that there's more truth in Reade's story than in Ford's. Ford's own friends can't confirm the story and her own birth family doesn't believe it. Of course, it's possible that her family is screwed up and that's why CBF is such a mess (though that wouldn't necessarily make her story more believable), but it takes more leaps of faith or prejudice to believe Kavanaugh did something to her than to believe that something went on between Reade and Biden.

mikee said...

Profesor, how do you determine fact from fiction? There are several ways, from testing a hypothesis against the null hypothesis, to accumulating conflicting/confirming data, to using wonderfully archaic tests such as swearing to the truth while holding a red-hot piece of iron.

In an adversarial system, Kavanaugh carried a massive weight of exculpatory evidence against charges of soggy toilet paper. Biden? He gropes and sniffs women, and has a reputation for doing more - and he has zero exculpatory evidence.

Comparing Kavanaugh and Biden is to demean the Justice.

Francisco D said...

Whether Reade is telling the truth or not is a moot point. There is no venue for determining the truth unless Biden is induced to defame her and she sues him.

I want Joe to stay in the race. Let's not do to him what they did to Kavanaugh, regardless of the verisimilitude (or lack thereof) of the charges.

The Tara Reade story is about how the DNC Media covers up for Democrats and defames Republicans. Let's not get distracted.

Anga2010 said...

I recognize that I'm not nearly as credulous as "they" are and so will say that I require more evidence before I can come to a conclusion.
I'm a skeptic by nature, and don't believe either of the allegations, yet.
In the mean time, I'm processing.