I Can Feel Bad About It

I don't want to slam Tara Reade. I don't even know her. Her week has probably fucking sucked. After all, The Vox story that detailed the difficulty a sympathetic reporter had in trying to nail down the details of Reade's claims was a good look into the seriousness that reporting on survivor stories needs to take on, and reminded us that her story has changed, and that her new admissions have even made people who recalled her sharing pieces of it with her change their own recollections.  That was not helpful to her. Her own reporting history has been cast somewhat into doubt. And now, a well-reported deep-dive into her claims from PBS featuring dozens of Biden staffers brings certain discrepancies into focus, and a Politico piece examining Reade's fraught personal history, cast further doubt on her character.

I really wish it wasn't this way. It feels a little like a pile-on, the way her claims have been battered by solid reporting. And every person who has concerned themselves with survivors' rights knows things in their hearts, like there are no perfect victims, and trauma and time can cause situations to blur. I can feel a lot of sympathy for Tara Reade, because even if I don't know her whole story, I strongly suspect something bad went down in her life. And I truly believe that her story needed to be vetted and protected from the kind of way it was reported out. Because it could have not been politicized. And she could have been treated like the both the subject of a news story and a person, not as an issue.

I think that's how she was treated, though, and I feel bad about it.



About a year ago, I wrote that the potential of sexual harassment allegations should be a reason for Joe Biden to consider giving running in 2020 a pass, because they were unlikely to go away. In my opinion, it was a serous vulnerability, not in the least because in TrumpWorld, accusing your opposition of your very own faults is the norm, and also, because the least physical thing could become construed not as affection, but as sexual. It's not fair (especially as Donald Trump is a serial adulterer and multiply-accused harasser/rapist), but it's a real consideration.

In 2020, the landscape has changed. Former VP Joe Biden is the presumptive nominee, and has been widely endorsed. Reade's story was introduced very much as: "And now would you like to change your 2020 Democratic nominee?" The political aspect was a thrown gauntlet: "You believe women, don't you? Then drop Biden."

How unfair to her. To predicate not only belief in her (or at least, our belief in the right to hold open a space for her story) on our real feminist values, but to also force a choice: that Biden should drop out because we believe. That wasn't about her story--it was an act of culture war. It was weaponizing her claim into a radioactive political football of negative partisanship to the liberal masses: either side with her and reject Biden, or be the hypocritical shitlibs that DSA's and Republicans alike expect and actually....

Think a flawed claim through. The timing, the outlets, the choice of interviewers, the framing, the changes--red flags appeared everywhere on the field. This really could not change anything. Even the lefty venues that broke her story should by now grasp that Biden couldn't step aside for Sanders over this because it would lose the base, who would know their choice got stolen by a trick. The Biden voters at this late hour would not take it well.

After so much solid reporting, her story should be discounted, but it won't be. The doubt was thrown out there. "Maybe Biden is a sex creep?"...someone, maybe, will wonder, and an oleaginous cretin like Don Jr. who just called Biden a pedo mindless of his father's alleged fuckeries, will amplify that bullshit.  Once done, the fuckery is seldom undone.

Nothing had to be this way, but Reade helped make it so, and in that way, I guess there's only so much I can do. I can feel bad about it. But at this point, I can't believe her.