New York Magazine offers what it says are the top 3 reasons why Kristi Noem is telling us that she killed her dog.

Here's the article, which I wanted to read because I have 3 theories. Let's see if mine are in this "top 3."

No! They are not. The NY Magazine top 3 list is:

Theory No. 1: Kristi Noem is an incredibly bad politician.... 

Theory No. 2: Kristi Noem is trying to impress Trump, and he hates dogs.... 

Theory No. 3: Kristi Noem wants off Trump’s VP shortlist....

Ugh! Poorly done! 

My 3 reasons are all so much better: 

Althouse Theory No. 1: There were witnesses, so the story would almost surely come out in some form eventually, and Noem chose to control the narrative, telling it in her own words, in her book. 

Althouse Theory No. 2: It was a trap to lure coastal-elite people into displaying their arrogance and ignorance. After they have their say, she's predicting, lots of working class people will step up and make fools out of them for failing to understand difficult, down-to-earth farm work and bird hunting.

Althouse Theory No. 3: Noem wanted to counter a stereotype about women, that we are too empathetic and indecisive, and she thought the anecdote about shooting the chicken-killing, person-biting dog showed her fitness to serve as Commander in Chief. 

Is Tara Reade part of Russian disinformation?

Tara Reade just said the default crisis was a distraction manufactured to divert attention from the money being spent on supporting Ukraine, which she called a “money laundering operation.” Yes, she is actively helping Russian disinformation efforts. https://t.co/WoITayYxvy

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) May 30, 2023

"I’m still kind of in a daze a bit but I feel very good.... I feel very surrounded by protection and safety.... I just didn’t want to walk home and walk into a cage or be killed..."

"... which is basically my two choices.... [The decision to defect to Russia] was very difficult. I’m not an impulsive person. I really take my time and sort of analyse data points, and from what I could see based on the cases and based on what was happening and sort of the push for them to not want me to testify, I felt that while [the 2024] election is gearing up and there’s so much at stake, I’m almost better off here and just being safe. My dream is to live in both places, but it may be that I only live in this place and that’s OK.... To my Russian brothers and sisters, I’m sorry right now that American elites are choosing to have such an aggressive stance. Just know that most American citizens do want to be friends and hope that we can have unity again. I am enjoying my time in Moscow, and I feel very at home."

Said Tara Reade, in Russian media, quoted in "Tara Reade, who accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, defects to Russia/Former Senate staffer who made claim in 2020 appears on Russian media alongside convicted Russian agent in US Maria Butina" (The Guardian).

"When Joe Biden was the presumptive nominee against Donald Trump, they quickly vilified his accuser Tara Reade as a mentally unwell liar..."

"... just as they did in the 1990s to the group of women who accused Bill Clinton of various levels of sexual impropriety, including rape. When something like the presidency is at stake, female accusers of key Democratic male leaders are to be mocked and destroyed, not believed. That is because there is no discernible principle at play. It is only about power. Why was the highly educated Christine Blasey Ford to be believed with no evidence in her accusations against Brett Kavanaugh, and why is Stringer’s accuser, political consultant Jean Kim, to be believed, but Reade was not, even though she had more evidence of contemporaneous complaints to support her allegations? But the far more important point is that any culture that is willing to destroy reputations and lives based on totally unproven accusations is one that is inherently corrupt and unjust. The ability to destroy someone’s life with nothing more than an uncorroborated claim voiced more than eighteen years after the alleged incident is a power with which nobody should be trusted."

From "The Left Continues to Destroy Itself and Others With Evidence-Free Destruction of Reputations/Equating accusations with proven fact is reckless and repressive. It is also standard behavior in liberal politics, whereby they ruin lives without a second thought" by Glenn Greenwald (Substack)(Stringer is NYC mayoral candidate, City Comptroller Scott Stringer). 

(To comment, you can email me here.)

Anita Hill says she's "willing to evolve myself" and "work with" Joe Biden.

"One of the impacts of 1991 was my desire not to really work with the government in any way... I always said, I think I can be more effective as an outsider, as opposed to an insider. And now, I'm willing to evolve myself, to work for change inside."

That's from "Anita Hill vows to vote for Joe Biden and work with him on gender issues" at CNN. She did an interview with CNN. Anita Hill is the person who most prominently brought sexual harassment in the workplace to the forefront of American culture, and she did this in the Senate Judiciary Committee when it was chaired by Joe Biden.



I'm not going to fault her for offering to work on the inside, after 3 decades devoted to her "outsider" approach, but I will fault CNN if it did not, in the course of its interview, bring up the charges of sexual harassment that have been made against Biden. Is the name Tara Reade in the transcript?

"Notwithstanding all of his limitations in the past, and the mistakes that he made in the past, notwithstanding those -- at this point, between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, I think Joe Biden is the person who should be elected in November," Hill told CNN's Gloria Borger. But it's not just because he's running against Donald Trump, she adds. "Its more about the survivors of gender violence. That's really what it's about."

All his limitations and mistakes in his past? Is that including what Tara Reade says he did or does Anita Hill think Reade lacks credibility? Did Anita Hill hold back from supporting Bill Clinton, given all the allegations against him? It was disheartening, after Hill's Judiciary Committee testimony in 1991, to see so many purported feminists put Democratic Party power above the cause, and I hear echoes of that decision in Hill's "at this point, between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, I think Joe Biden is the person who should be elected."

Biden called her, seeking her support, all the way back in April 2019. Her support is strategically useful to him. She said at the time that he failed to apologize:

"An apology, to be real and sincere, has to take responsibility for harm," Hill told CNN. That's not what she heard when she spoke to him at the time. She wanted to hear him acknowledge the harm done to victims of sexual harassment. "He didn't take responsibility. He didn't hold himself accountable in any way, except that he was sorry that I felt I wasn't treated fairly. He didn't take ownership of his own role as chair of the committee." She called the conversation "unsatisfying." After that call, Biden told ABC's Good Morning America that he acknowledged his role as chairman in her treatment.

"As the committee chairman, I take responsibility that she did not get treated well. I take responsibility for that," Biden told ABC in April 2019. Hill was listening. She now says she believes he's evolved.

He's "evolved" and she's "willing to evolve" herself. Whatever that means. Ostensibly, it means I will rearrange myself into what is politically effective.

Anyway, I'm not surprised in the slightest to find nothing about Tara Reade and the harassment allegations against Biden in this CNN interview with Anita Hill. Once again, women are expected to support men, and the interests of women are deferred because a man must advance. Alternatively, Hill really wants a job for herself within the Biden administration, and it is a case of a woman doing what she needs to do to advance her career.

In Scranton, Trump stepped on Mr. Biden’s general-election rollout.

In "Joe Biden Accepts Democratic Nomination: ‘I Will Draw on the Best of Us’/Mr. Biden urged Americans to have faith that they could 'overcome this season of darkness,' and he pledged to bridge the country’s divisions in ways President Trump had not," the NYT observes that Trump — "[s]hedding the political tradition whereby each party defers to the other during the week of its nominating convention" — has been trying " to step on Mr. Biden’s general-election rollout" but "with little success."

What's the evidence of "little success"? Is it the way Rasmussen's "approval index" jumped 6 points overnight from Wednesday to Thursday? The Times is just making an assertion — essentially wishful thinking. Trump, deviating from tradition, is having "little success." Just report what you want to be be true! Meanwhile, you'd think Joe Biden was some sort of religious transfiguration — the embodiment of light! It's so stupid that I'm drawn to read the transcript of the speech Trump gave yesterday in Joe Biden's home town of Scranton.

Maybe later I'll get to some of the convention speeches. I will confess to being seated in front of the TV at one point last night. It was just Chris Coons talking into the camera. I tried to watch for approximately 20 seconds, then said "Why do I have to listen to Chris Coons?" and got up and left. Oh! And I saw a triple-split screen of the [Dixie] Chicks singing the national anthem. Why them? Because long ago, in 2003, they outraged country music fans by openly opposing the war in Iraq? But Joe Biden voted for the war in Iraq. Because after all these years they dropped the word "Dixie" from their name, though they kept "Chicks"? The name Dixie Chicks was interesting because of the rhyme and the specificity. Now, they are generic, and why do these dames get to be all women?

I think it's that there's some idea that they have been irritating the deplorables since 2003. The Democrats wanted to pick that scab, remind people of the pain of that war their candidate supported?! "When the war was debated and then authorized by the US Congress in 2002, Democrats controlled the Senate and Biden was chair of the Senate committee on foreign relations. Biden himself had enormous influence as chair and argued strongly in favor of the 2002 resolution granting President Bush the authority to invade Iraq" (The Guardian).

Now, let's look at what Trump said in Scranton:

"For years, critics have expressed disgust at Trump’s statement that 'I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn't lose any voters.' Yet..."

"... they now afford Biden the same immunity even if he turns into the ancient god Cronus and starts snacking on boiled babies."

Writes Jonathan Turley in "Why Joe Biden can do no wrong" (The Hill). Here's the mythical image:



Cronus was eating the babies raw, by the way. Not boiled. Maybe Turley is mixing it up with...



Anyway, what does Turley have to say here except to give us the statements of Biden supporters? I've been avoiding blogging this kind of stuff, because it's so disgusting and trite and I've seen it all before. I don't like to reward it by linking to it. But I'll link to Turley's summary:

Women’s rights attorney Lisa Bloom said she believes Biden did rape a female staffer and has lied about it publicly but she still will endorse him for president. She tweeted, “I believe you, Tara Reade ... sorry.” To use [Katha] Pollitt’s language, defending a rape victim is now a “luxury.” Likewise, Linda Hirshman wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times titled “I Believe Tara Reade. I’m Voting for Joe Biden Anyway.” She explained, “Democratic primary voters knew all about Mr. Biden’s membership in that boys’ club when there was still time to pick someone else. Alas ... I’ll take one for the team. I believe Ms. Reade, and I’ll vote for Mr. Biden this fall.”

"A woman who worked with Reade... said she remembers Reade mentioning that she was scolded for her attire and that Reade asked her..."

"... if it was a legitimate complaint. That coworker and two other staffers who worked with Reade said they believe she was not appropriately dressed for work.... Some former staffers told the NewsHour that if Biden did assault Reade [where she says he did], it would have been a brazen attack in an area with a high risk of being seen. 'When I worked in the Senate, it was always crowded [and] packed with lobbyists, staff and tourists,' said Sheila Nix, who was Biden’s chief of staff on the 2012 presidential campaign.... In interviews, staffers have also raised doubts about Reade’s claim that she was asked to serve drinks at a fundraiser.... [M]ore than 50 former staffers said they didn’t remember ever attending a fundraiser for Biden in Washington, D.C., when they were on his Senate staff.... 'Never would have happened,' said Melissa Lefko, who was a staff assistant in Biden’s office during the time Reade was there. 'We all knew there was a very hard line there.'... Further, two men who worked as junior staffers for Biden said the senator specifically did not want women to serve beverages, like coffee, or perform other menial tasks in his Senate office or on the committees he chaired. Men were typically asked to perform such tasks. 'He didn’t want an image of a young woman staffer serving him,' said John Earnhardt, who took over Reade’s duties.... Victoria Nourse, who served as Biden’s top lawyer on the Judiciary Committee in the early 1990s, recalled Biden’s reaction when another official made a comment about her looks in front of Biden during a flight in 1991. The man said, '"Oh Joe, let me sit next to the pretty girl,"' recalled Nourse, who later served as Biden’s chief counsel in the White House. Biden told the man off, Nourse said, 'making it clear that we were here for work, and that was inappropriate — in a very no nonsense way.'"

From "What 74 former Biden staffers think about Tara Reade’s allegations" (PBS News Hour).

"Why is Tara Reade’s official complaint against former Vice President Joe Biden so hard to find?"

"Possibly because the system for lodging it was opaque and challenging for accusers. Reade, a onetime Biden staffer, says she filed a complaint against him in 1993 when he was in his fourth term in the Senate representing Delaware. The process would have subjected her to a system that did little to protect Capitol Hill staffers from retribution and offered little recourse if they were not satisfied with the outcome. It would take a 1995 overhaul of congressional personnel laws to bring Congress in line with federal labor and anti-discrimination laws. Even almost 30 years later, the alleged complaint — the secretary of the Senate won’t even confirm or deny whether there is one — may never be released because of strict disclosure rules.... Four in 10 women who responded to a 2016 CQ Roll Call survey of congressional staff said they believed sexual harassment was a problem on Capitol Hill, while one in six said they personally had been victimized. 'Unfortunately, due to the system that Congress created to protect itself from being exposed, there has been no accountability,' [said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif.]. Between 1997 and 2014, the U.S. Treasury paid $15.2 million in taxpayer dollars toward 235 awards and settlements for Capitol Hill workplace violations...."

From "The opaqueness of Congress’ workplace rules hangs over the Tara Reade allegations about Biden/Secretary of the Senate says law prohibits disclosure of any complaint" (Roll Call).

"26% of Democrats, including 40% of those under the age of 45, said the party should select a different nominee."

"The party’s younger voters and women are less likely to view Biden’s denial as credible than older or male Democrats. 38% of all voters say elected officials should resign when facing credible accusations of sexual misconduct, down 18 points since late 2017."

The Morning Consult reports on its new poll.

When Jake Tapper asked Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer to explain her belief in Christine Blasey Ford and not Tara Reade...

... she really got desperate. Let's look at the transcript from last Sunday's "State of the Union." Tapper asks a completely fair and well-stated question:

TAPPER:  You have said that you believe Vice President Biden. I want to compare that to 2018, when you said you believed Dr. Christine Blasey Ford after she accused now Justice Brett Kavanaugh of assault. Kavanaugh also, like Biden, categorically denied that accusation. And Blasey Ford, to be honest, she did not have the contemporaneous accounts of her view of what happened that Tara Reade does. You have spoken movingly about how you're a survivor — survivor of assault yourself. Why do you believe Biden, and not Kavanaugh? Are they not both entitled to the same presumption of innocence, regardless of their political views?

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.

Things no one was picturing in 2016... but we are now!

I'm going back to my old posts in early October 2016 to see what I said about Trump's Access Hollywood remarks (because I want to see how well I'm maintaining my cruel neutrality now as I process the news about Joe Biden). I was struck by this post from October 9, 2016, "Jake Tapper attempts a euphemism — and it's not 'vulva'":

So what Trump said was "And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."

And Jake Tapper obviously didn't want to say "pussy":



If you're going to use the anatomical term to avoid the slang, use the scientifically correct term. "Vagina" for "vulva" is as much slang as "pussy." "Pussy" is at least a quote. "Vagina" is ridiculous.

No one was picturing grabbing a woman by the vagina.

No one was picturing that back then, but we are now! That's the Tara Reade allegation. We're not talking about a grabbing of the outer genitalia, but the penetration of the vagina using the hand — grabbing by the vagina — the seemingly ridiculous phrase used by Tapper.

The old post ends:

If we were, those of us who are saying that Trump was referring to sexual assault would be saying rape, not merely sexual assault.

The accusation against Biden is an accusation of rape.

"Joe Biden’s most effective campaign strategy has been to lie low and let people vote for whatever imagined version of Joe Biden congealed inside their heads."

"On Friday, he went on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to discuss the Tara Reade allegations. It was not a good argument for changing this strategy.... In the face of mounting evidence that Reade’s allegations are more than the baseless smear his campaign has dismissed them to be, Biden has mostly faded into the background, while his surrogates, supporters, and some pundits went to bat for him, deploying timeworn canards about sexual assault victims and what circumstances justify disbelieving them, or dismissing Reade outright before a fuller picture sees daylight.... [C]olumnists from the New York Times to the Nation stepped up to discredit her, and politicos from Stacey Abrams to Nancy Pelosi reaffirmed their support of the vice-president. Even Kirsten Gillibrand, who drew ire from within the Democratic Party when she pushed for Al Franken to resign after evidence of his misconduct surfaced in 2017, doubled down on her support.... [Biden is] largely staying true to the strategy that’s guided his campaign since early on, which holds that the winningest Biden is one to be imagined, not seen, heard, or even thought about too hard. His staff recognizes that the less its candidate speaks, the less opportunity his supporters have to neglect evidence that undermines their faith — in his competence, his election odds, and, increasingly, his innocence. If there’s one thing for which the Democrats have yet to punish Biden this cycle, it’s his silence in the face of lingering doubt. To change that now would be to change the very foundation of his campaign’s success."

From "Tara Reade Is Making It Harder to Hide Joe Biden" by Zak Cheney-Rice (in NY Magazine).

I don't think Cheney-Rice mentions the coronavirus lockdown that's helping Biden hide. Biden doesn't have the option to come out of hiding by doing events surrounded by supporters who make him seem comfortingly normal. He can only do that face-in-the-camera sort of appearance from his basement, and he's not that great at that — and, in fact, no political candidate is good at campaigning like that.

The pro-Biden talking point was the NYT did an investigation and found the Tara Reade allegations to be false.

So it's especially inconvenient that The Editorial Board of the New York Times is saying "Investigate Tara Reade’s Allegations/Americans deserve to know more about a sexual assault accusation against the likely Democratic Party nominee."

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....

In his statement, Mr. Biden said that if such a document existed, there would be a copy of it in the National Archives, which retains records from what was then the Office of Fair Employment Practices... Later on Friday, after the National Archives said it did not have personnel documents....

Any serious inquiry must include the trove of records from Mr. Biden’s Senate career that he donated to the University of Delaware in 2012..... Any inventory should be strictly limited to information about Ms. Reade and conducted by an unbiased, apolitical panel, put together by the D.N.C. and chosen to foster as much trust in its findings as possible.... No relevant memo should be left unexamined....

There's no mention in the editorial of the way the NYT was used by so many Biden supporters, who claimed that the NYT had done an investigation and absolved Biden.

IN THE COMMENTS: The Editorial Board speaks of "an unbiased, apolitical panel, put together by the D.N.C. and chosen to foster as much trust in its findings as possible," which prompted Roger Sweeny to say: "'Unbiased, apolitical panel' and put together by a political party do not go together."

But, you know, it makes sense to me. Who can believe in such a thing as "an unbiased, apolitical panel" in the first place? They don't arrive from Planet Neutralia. Are you going to find a neutral panel to appoint the neutral panel? Where do you start?! The Editorial Board puts the burden to pick the panel on a political entity with a huge political stake, and sets it up for our political judgement by announcing the standard that must be met: It's supposed to be "an unbiased, apolitical panel... chosen to foster as much trust in its findings as possible." Why would the DNC meet that standard? The reason is stated right there, and it's a political reason: the interest in getting us to trust the outcome.

Now, I wonder who could be chosen who could perform the task. We're told that the Biden archive at the University of Delaware arrived in the form of "nearly 2,000 boxes and more than 400 gigabytes of data" and that "most of it has not been cataloged." The Reade incident is alleged to have occurred in 1993: Was that the gigabytes era or the paper-in-boxes era? Who are the hyper-trustworthy, unbiased and apolitical investigators who can and will handle a project like that and do it quickly enough to work on the election time line? That's the problem I see. How is the DNC supposed to find people like that?!

ADDED: To state the problem is to see the real solution. This "unbiased, apolitical panel" — if anything like it could be convened — cannot get a creditable search done within a satisfying time line. Therefore: Biden needs to withdraw. 

"By Biden’s Own Standards, He Is Guilty As Charged."

Headline at the new Andrew Sullivan column (in NY Magazine). Excerpt:

Perhaps in part to atone for his shabby treatment of Anita Hill, Biden was especially prominent in the Obama administration’s overhaul of Title IX treatment of claims of sexual discrimination and harassment on campus. You can listen to Biden’s strident speeches and rhetoric on this question and find not a single smidgen of concern with the rights of the accused. Men in college were to be regarded as guilty before being proven innocent, and stripped of basic rights in their self-defense....

In 2014, the Obama administration issued another guidance for colleges which expanded what “sexual violence” could include, citing “a range of behaviors that are unwanted by the recipient and include remarks about physical appearance; persistent sexual advances that are undesired by the recipient; unwanted touching; and unwanted oral, anal, or vaginal penetration or attempted penetration.” By that standard, ignoring the Reade allegation entirely, Joe Biden has been practicing “sexual violence” for decades: constantly touching women without their prior consent, ruffling and smelling their hair, making comments about their attractiveness, coming up from behind to touch their back or neck. You can see him do it on tape, on countless occasions.

Of course, his argument about all of that is that it wasn't sexual. Who thinks that hair smelling and neck nuzzling was a sexual advance on all those little girls (even if it always was on girls and not boys)?

He did not stop in 2014, to abide by the standards he was all too willing to impose on college kids. A vice-president could do these things with impunity; a college sophomore could have his life ruined for an inept remark.

Biden is now claiming simply that he never did what Tara Reade said he did. Let’s posit that he didn’t. Too bad.... By Biden’s own standards, he’s guilty as charged. He never got affirmative consent from Reade, and she feels and believes he assaulted her.

He says the entire incident didn't occur. There was no gym-bag-in-the-corridor encounter at all. Or... was there? Did Mika nail that down or not??

He never got affirmative consent for countless handsy moves over the decades that unsettled some of the recipients of such affection. End of story. By Biden’s own logic, it is irrelevant that he didn’t mean to harm or discomfit anyone, that Reade’s story may have changed over time, that she might have mixed motives, that she has a record of erratic behavior, a bizarre love for Vladimir Putin, and a stated preference for Bernie Sanders, who was Biden’s chief rival. It’s irrelevant that she appeared to tweet that she would wait to launch her accusations against Biden until the timing was right. And her cause has been championed by the Bernie brigade. The many red flags and question marks in her case are largely irrelevant under Biden’s own campus standards....

Bottom line: "I’ll vote for him anyway, because Trump."

"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.

Mika Brzezinski confronts Joe Biden with the Tara Reade allegation and he says "unequivocally" that it "never happened."

UPDATED: The original post did not have the full interview, so I want to put this at the top:



ORIGINAL POST BEGINS HERE:



So there you have it — his flat denial. No follow up question, no grilling. Just the denial that is exactly what you would expect. No signs of lying jumped out at me. I do wonder if it's something that he could have forgotten. The flat denial implies that if it had happened he would have remembered. He's not asked if he remembers Tara Reade or knows what happened with her employment in his office. I'm not positive this is the entire clip.

Also: At the beginning of the clip, Biden coughs into his closed fist. Not a good look for the coronavirus era, but no reason not to assume that he washed his hands thoroughly afterwards.

ADDED: Based on this WaPo article, I see that the MSNBC clip above is not the full interview. And I see that Biden has issued a written statement, and, in that he "called on the National Archives to release any record of a complaint Reade says she filed." The statement asserts, "If there was ever any such complaint, the record will be there."

On "Morning Joe," according to WaPo, Brzezinski does proceed to grill Biden:

“I’m not going to question her motive,” Biden said of Reade, adding, “I don’t understand it.”

The presumptive nominee said he has never asked anyone to sign a nondisclosure agreement. And Biden said that “women have a right to be heard,” but that “in the end in every case, the truth is what matters.”

In a tense exchange late in the interview, Biden repeatedly resisted the idea of querying his Senate papers at the University of Delaware, saying that they do not contain personnel records.

“Why not just do a search for Tara Reade’s name?” Brzezinski asked.

“Who does that search?” Biden replied. Brzezinski suggested the university or a commission could conduct it. Biden then returned to his initial point — that any complaint would be contained in the archives, not his papers.

That sounds evasive. Yes, if she said she filed a complaint, so the complaint should be in the archive, let's do that search, but why not also search his papers, not to find the complaint, but to see if there is anything at all about her? A big part of her allegations is that she was mistreated as an employee in retaliation for her failure to respond to sexual demands on her. Maybe the papers would show that she had other problems as an employee that justified the consequences she experienced.

He said the papers contained “confidential conversations” with the president and heads of state and he did not want them to be made public while he was still an actively pursuing public office.

Asked what he would say to Reade directly if he could talk to her, Biden responded, “This never ever happened. I don’t know what is motivating her.”

That too is evasive. The question — as paraphrased in this article — isn't why do you think she's accusing you, but how would you speak with her. He immediately inserts his denial. Maybe that's what he'd say to her: This never ever happened. I don’t understand what is motivating you. ADDED: Watching the entire interview — the video at the top of the post — I see that Brzezinski did ask Biden what he thought was motivating Reade.

AND: Let's read Joe Biden's written statement. It begins with 4 paragraphs expressing pride in his role introducing the Violence Against Women Act 25 years ago. He proceeds to talk about his role, as Vice President, starting the “It’s on Us” campaign, addressing college men and telling them that "they had a responsibility to speak out" — "Silence is complicity." He considers himself "a voice, an advocate, and a leader for the change in culture that has begun but is nowhere near finished." And:

"Despite the growing uproar from many of his progressive supporters over the sexual assault allegation leveled against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden..."

"... Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has remained quiet on the matter in recent days. The only time Sanders mentioned the allegation against Biden was earlier this month during an interview with CBS, in which the Vermont lawmaker asserted that 'any woman who feels that she was assaulted has every right in the world to stand up and make her claims.' But Sanders added... 'I think that she has the right to make her claims and get a public hearing and the public will make their own conclusions about it... I just don't know enough about it to comment further".... Sanders, who just days before that interview endorsed Biden’s White House bid upon dropping out of the race, has not publicly commented on the matter since. Fox News has reached out on multiple occasions to Sanders campaign officials and political aides, and has yet to receive a response."

From "Sanders keeps quiet on Biden sexual assault allegation despite uproar from supporters, ex-aides" (Fox News).

Also in the news this morning: "Biden reaches deal to let Sanders keep hundreds of delegates" (AP).

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden has agreed to let former primary rival Bernie Sanders keep hundreds of delegates he would otherwise forfeit by dropping out of the presidential race in a deal designed to avoid the bitter feelings that marred the party in 2016 and helped lead to Hillary Clinton’s defeat. Under party rules, Sanders should lose about one-third of the delegates he’s won in primaries and caucuses as the process moves ahead... The rules say those delegates should be Biden supporters, as he is the only candidate still actively seeking the party’s nomination....

In some ways, the delegate count is a moot point....

Is it a moot point? At any moment, Joe Biden could have a genuine or faked health crisis and become unavailable. Isn't that what plenty of Democrats want? If that happens, who gets to be the nominee? Maybe some people think it should be whoever Biden picks as his VP, even if that is a person who hasn't participated in any of the primaries and caucuses, who never had to debate. But there's good reason to think that if Biden becomes unavailable, the candidate should be the person who clearly came in second — in 2020 and in 2016 — Bernie Sanders.

Sanders is keeping himself clean on the Tara Reade allegations, and he's continuing to acquire delegates. Is he not thinking of somehow getting the nomination? I assume there are other Democrats who are looking for a path to the nomination and not conceding that Joe Biden owns it. So it's right for Sanders to plot a win.

"As an activist, it can be very easy to develop a black and white view of the world: things are clearly wrong or clearly right."

"Harvey Weinstein’s decades of rape were clearly wrong. Donald Trump’s alleged sexual assaults were clearly wrong. Brett Kavanaugh’s actions, told consistently over decades by his victim (and supported by her polygraph results), were clearly wrong. So were Matt Lauer’s, Bill Cosby’s and so many others. As we started holding politicians and business leaders and celebrities around the world accountable for their actions, it was easy to sort things into their respective buckets: this is wrong, this is right. Holding people accountable for their actions was not only right, it was just. Except it’s not always so easy, and living in the gray areas is something we’re trying to figure out in the world of social media. But here’s something social media doesn’t afford us–nuance. The world is gray. And as uncomfortable as that makes people, gray is where the real change happens. Black and white is easy... Gray is where the conversations which continue to swirl around powerful men get started.... It’s not up to women to admonish or absolve perpetrators, or be regarded as complicit when we don’t denounce them. Nothing makes this clearer than the women who are still supporting Joe Biden even with these accusations. Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, Amy Klobuchar, Nancy Pelosi, and Elizabeth Warren have all endorsed Biden and like me, continue to support him.... This is the shitty position we are in as women....  Believing women was never about 'Believe all women no matter what they say,' it was about changing the culture of NOT believing women by default.... I hope you’ll meet me in the gray to talk and to help us both find the way out."

From "Alyssa Milano On Why She Still Supports Joe Biden & How She Would Advise Him About Tara Reade Allegations – Guest Column" (Deadline).

If "Donald Trump’s alleged sexual assaults were clearly wrong" — alleged — then why can't you say "Joe Biden’s alleged sexual assaults were clearly wrong"? It's black and white at the allegation level. But then, you didn't say "Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged actions." You said "Brett Kavanaugh’s actions." You can get out of the grayness whenever you want just by saying "alleged." I don't know what motivated you to give Trump the "alleged." Maybe some editor worried about a defamation lawsuit and inserted that after you wrote it.

Anyway, grayness. Yes, real life as grayness to it. Let's be mature and fair and realistic. But don't confuse the grayness that is the uncertainty about what happened with the grayness about whether something is right or wrong. Tara Reade alleges that Joe Biden did something that Alyssa Milano — and all those other Democratic women she names — should have absolutely no hesitation to say is clearly wrong. The grayness is at the level of evidence. Who should be believed?

What do you do when someone on your side, on whom you've staked your party's success, is accused? You want to believe your guy! That's one way out of the grayness, and that looks like the way you have chosen. Why not be black-and-white honest that's what you and Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, Amy Klobuchar, Nancy Pelosi, and Elizabeth Warren are all doing?

You say "Black and white is easy," but it's not, because you are still choosing what to call black and white and you are still smudging it into gray to suit your political preferences. That looks black and white to me.