May 3, 2020

What photograph of Tara Reade do you choose?

Argument by choice of photograph...



ADDED:



Just kidding. But my Memeorandum screen grab doesn't include the photograph the NYT used for that Maureen Dowd column. Click through to that to see what the NYT got from its photographer. Looking at that photograph, I feel that Tara Reade — who is now 56 — was feeling she was getting a glamour shot, something that reflected how beautiful she was when she was 29 and — as she tells it — getting sexist attention from the powerful Senator.

36 comments:

brylun said...

The photo I would choose is the young Tara from Breitbart. But I would choose a photo of me when I was young too...

gspencer said...

An old lefty trick. When you're sympathetic with the underlying story, choose a flattering photo. Otherwise, go full Cruella de Vil.

Tara Reade was 29 at the time of Biden's digital rape. He found her attractive enough.

She's 56 now and not especially attractive.

wendybar said...

Same thing they do always. The picture you always see of Trayvon Martin is when he was a cute little 12 year old. If they actually printed a picture of what the little thug actually looked like, they wouldn't get the attention of all the world about what a racist and white supremacist that Hispanic guy he beat up was.

Meade said...

What photograph of Tara Reade do I choose? The photograph of murder hornet expert, Dr. Looney.

Rick.T. said...

I’d pick the younger picture too. Related to gspencer’s comment, would be interesting to be a fly on the wall during the editorial process of choosing which picture to use.

What really caught my eye was the story on the giant Asian hornet just below at the link. Yikes.

Gotagonow said...

I recall the kerfuffle over the OJ Simpson cover, adjusted to show him in a darker light I believe. Trump photos (IMO) in anti-trump media show him at odd angles to drive a narrative. While I'm enjoying watching Dem butts wiggle on their seats over this, wouldn't I imply that Biden had a reason to hit on a cute staffer if I used the old picture or imply that "Look how aged she is now!" with the present photo. Sexist.

Rick.T. said...

Haha. I see fellow gardener Meade beat me to it!

rhhardin said...

What personality would you choose. That's what's important to men.

Mr. Forward said...

We don't know anything new about Biden other than the Kavanaugh media has depantsed itself.

JML said...

Which one gets you more Horny?

Unknown said...

Did althouse every use "as she tells it" for vocal fry lady?

chuck said...

There are some pictures of Maureen Dowd that put murder hornets to shame. It's fun to see editors playing games.

Wince said...

In this case the photo selected not only goes to what we think about Tara Reade now, but what Sen. Joe Biden thought about her in 1993.

Earnest Prole said...

The penetration, however slight, of the anus or vulva by a hand or finger or by any object, with an intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, degrade, or arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person -- or, as some call it, "getting sexist attention from the powerful Senator."

Ray - SoCal said...

Great post!

Stuff like this just reduces the credibility of the media further.

The relevant photo is of her at the time of the incident.

Interesting with Blasey Ford, you only saw recent photos, to project a hurt, scarred, damaged image hair over eyes.

For worst deliberate photo propaganda usage, it’s hard to say between Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. Both were portrayed as innocent kids.

David Begley said...

Biden sexually assaulted the 29 year old Tara; not the 56 year old.

Dowd, “I’ve covered Biden my entire political career, and he is known for being sometimes warmly, sometimes inappropriately, hands-on with men and women. What Reade accuses him of is a crime and seems completely out of character.

But that is how my brother, who coached Kavanaugh in basketball at Georgetown Prep and stayed friends with him after, felt about Blasey’s allegations.”

See that leap in logic? Biden’s public and unwanted and creepy contact with female strangers is entirely consistent with sexually assaulting a young employee.

Jupiter said...

The question a man asks, is "Would I hit that?". Someone at the Times apparently is aware of that fact.

I suspect that editors take pride in knowing how to achieve an effect, rather like criminal defense lawyers. A CDL I know very well says that the case she is proudest of, in over 40 years of practice, is one where she got a rapist off by telling the jury that the victim sunbathed naked. Despite the fact that the prosecutor showed them pictures of what she looked like after he beat her with a bicycle chain.

Amadeus 48 said...

We don’t look to Maureen Dowd for logic. We look to her for smart- alecky mean girl quips from someone who didn’t get to be editor of her high school newspaper because the nuns thought she was to big for her britches.

steve uhr said...

How many people who would otherwise vote for Biden are going to switch to pussy-grabbing trump because of these allegations? Six?

Maillard Reactionary said...

I thought you were going to segue into a mention of the apparent Asian Giant Hornet invasion. They have apparently established a couple (?) of colonies in Washington State and nearby Canadian provinces.

If they can live in that relatively cool climate, it doesn't make me optimistic that the rest of North America will be spared their exciting company, if they're not eradicated soon.

https://nypost.com/2019/12/23/giant-bee-eating-hornets-from-asia-invade-washington-state/

No one is sure how they got here, but there has been speculation that some immigrants from the part of Asia where the hornets are considered a tasty food item (go figure) may have decided to make a contribution to our culinary diversity with this self-renewing resource.

Just in case anybody wants to worry about a real problem, for a change. You're welcome!

Maillard Reactionary said...

Well it looks like you hit the hornet story earlier today. Hard to get the jump on that early-rising Ann Althouse.

steve uhr said...

Ray-
So the fact that Reade is shown how she looks today evidences liberal media bias and the fact that Ford was shown as she appears today reflects liberal media bias. Consistency is not your strongpoint

Nichevo said...


steve uhr said...
How many people who would otherwise vote for Biden are going to switch to pussy-grabbing trump because of these allegations? Six?

5/3/20, 9:40 AM


Tell us more about how you don't care that Joe Biden raped his own 22yo staffer, uhr. Be sure to intersperse your remarks with assertions of your superior moral tone and that of D voters.

Sebastian said...

"I feel that Tara Reade — who is now 56 — was feeling she was getting a glamour shot"

Possibly. Though perhaps she isn't quite as deluded as the supposition makes it seem.

Anyway, it would have been naive. The NYT knows how to destroy people visually. Has any righty ever had a proper "glamour shot" there?

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

The one that makes her look kind of fat, or the one that shows how fat she really is?

Clyde said...

Dowd: "But he should also agree to let someone search his papers at the University of Delaware." Oh, I'm sure someone already has. We have already heard that Biden operatives were nosing around there last week. If there was anything incriminated, I seriously doubt that it's still there. Democrats have shown that they have no problem with "disappearing" inconvenient truths (Looking at you, Hillary).

Clyde said...

Char Char Binks, or the one from when she was young and hot enough for Biden to want to make her his finger-puppet.

cubanbob said...

steve uhr said...
How many people who would otherwise vote for Biden are going to switch to pussy-grabbing trump because of these allegations? Six?"

Yes sir. Biden could rape a hottie on 5th avenue in broad daylight and you would still vote him. Good to know.

narciso said...

laura Ingraham 27 years ago, in the magazine, after that the choices are few and far between, since then kristol and brock, turned to the dark side,

narciso said...

how is down there in dade, Cubanbob?

gadfly said...

None of the photos shown here make Alexandra or Tara or whatever-her-name-is-this-year appear to be pretty. Beautiful women remain so because they care about personal appearance. Extra pounds and a poor hair-do help explain Reade-Moulton-McCabe's obvious bipolar problem.

BTW, no one is screaming about showing a pic of septuagenarian Biden next to one of a 25 year-old Reade.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"... the one from when she was young and hot enough for Biden to want to make her his finger-puppet."

I'd pick a photo of her being "not sure" what she accused him of, but knowing it had something to do with making her feel icky. That could be just about any of them.

Jamie said...

Blasey Ford's allegations against Kavanaugh were supposed to be believed uncritically - media coverage at the time made that clear. I think that she was pictured, invariably, as she is in the present because to picture her as a teenager would have highlighted a few things: first, the fact that she was accusing another teenager, which many were inclined to say was an extenuating circumstance; second, that no one could (or did, at any rate) corroborate even her claim that she and Kavanaugh had ever met, much less her actual allegations against him (so a picture of her as a teen would have allowed Kavanaugh and his high school friends and acquaintances to say with even more conviction that she didn't ring any bells); and third, that teenagers are not generally people of substance, even when they end up as professors. It's important for Democrat women accusers of Republican or presumed Republican men to be seen as serious people. Was Anita Hill treated, pictorially, the same way? I was too young to know that I should've been paying attention, but my dim memories are that she was only pictured in the then-present.

Reade is not being pictured as the attractive young woman she was when she claims she was assaulted because it would lend credence to her story, given all the extant and well-known photographic evidence that Biden is all over pretty girls and women - or was until he was locked in his basement, anyway. It's also important that women of any political stripe who accuse Democrat men be portrayed in the least flattering light possible - which can change, situationally. If the woman hasn't aged well, by all means show her in the present (but watch the photography; you want to be sure she looks blowsy, overly made up, and/or saggy). If she is still attractive now, but in the past looked "trashy" in any picture you can find of her, then run that picture.

We all know lighting, angle, cropping, and other factors and choices can make or break a picture. We all have favorite pictures of ourselves and ones we wish we could disappear the way Stalin disappeared Yezhov. And the reason for our preferences is that we all know a "good" picture tells a different story from a "bad" one. Photo editors make choices for narrative reasons.

Jamie said...

I shouldn't have said Blasey Ford was pictured "invariably" as an adult. I'm fairly sure I saw at least one picture of her as a teen. But most of the photo choices of her were certainly as an adult.

The Godfather said...

BOTH photos of Reade are relevant. The "young" photo shows a woman that Biden might have thought attractive enough to assault, the "current" photo reminds us how long it took for her to go public with her accuation.

Ray - SoCal said...

The only teen photo I saw of Blasey Ford seemed to show she was a hard partier, and came from a party school. I remember it being hard to find. From what I read a lot of her history was professionally scrubbed.

https://tennesseestar.com/2018/09/22/researcher-uncovers-christine-blasey-fords-hidden-80s-era-high-school-social-life/

The photos that are chosen is to push a certain viewpoint.

Young Blasey Ford was a partier, and that was not the viewpoint the msm/ Democrats wanted. They wanted the sympathetic, deeply scarred Professor looking down in shame, with hair over eyes like a little girl, and Speaking with a little girl voice, and was afraid of flying. Yet had a hobby of flying to islands for surfing.

For Reade the image they are trying to project is crazy cat lady, over weight, spinster, that Joe Biden would never sexually assault.