There aren’t a ton of synonyms for the word “hypocrisy.” I’ve become aware of this problem ever since I began writing about the Tara Reade–Joe Biden situation. I keep gravitating towards phrases such as “despicable hypocrisy,” or “partisan hypocrisy,” or “unconscionable hypocrisy,” but you can only go to the well so often. Really, though, I’m not sure how else to describe the actions of someone like Senator Dianne Feinstein.
You might recall that it was Feinstein, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, who withheld Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh from the Senate so that it could not be properly vetted, in a last-ditch effort to sink the nomination.
Feinstein knew that Ford’s credibility was brittle — the alleged victim could not tell us where or when the attack occurred, hadn’t mentioned Kavanugh’s name to anyone for over 30 years, and offered nothing approaching a contemporaneous witness.
At first, Feinstein did not want to provide Ford’s name, or a place or time of the alleged attack, or allow the accused to see any evidence against him, denying him the ability to answer the charges.
Henceforth this brand of justice could be referred to as “The Joe Biden Standard,” since it’s exactly the kind of show trial the presumptive Democratic nominee promises college kids via Title IX rules.
When finally asked about Reade yesterday, Feinstein responded: “And I don’t know this person at all who has made the allegations. She came out of nowhere. Where has she been all these years? He was vice president.”
To put this in perspective, when Ford came forward “out of nowhere,” Feinstein said: “Victims must be able to come forward only when they are ready.”
What’s changed?
During the Kavanaugh hearings Feinstein noted that “sharing an experience involving sexual assault — particularly when it involves a politically connected man with influence, authority and power — is extraordinarily difficult.”
Is Biden not a politically connected man with influence, authority, and power? Feinstein is now arguing the opposite: She is saying we should dismiss Reade’s allegations because she failed to come forward against a powerful man earlier.
But to answer Feinstein’s question about what Reade has been “up to” the past 27 years: Well, she’s been telling people that Biden had engaged in sexual misconduct. She relayed her story to her former neighbor, her brother, her former co-worker, and at least two other friends. It is also likely that her mother called Larry King Live asking for advice for her daughter the year of the alleged attack.
Yesterday a document uncovered by local journalists in California — somehow missed by Barack Obama’s crack vetting team — shows Reade’s ex-husband bolstering her claim in 1996 divorce proceedings: “On several occasions [Reade] related a problem that she was having at work regarding sexual harassment, in U.S. Senator Joe Biden’s office.”
The reaction to the divorce papers has been extraordinary. Biden defenders argue that because Reade alleged “sexual harassment” — a catch-all term used in the 1990s when men were getting away with despicable behavior far more often — it proves her story has changed. Biden, through his deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield, alleges that “more and more inconsistencies” come up every day.
Even if Reade didn’t tell everyone everything that allegedly happened every time she mentioned the incident, that doesn’t definitively prove anything. If it did, none of us would have ever heard the name Christine Blasey Ford.
Indeed, at time of Ford’s evolving story, there was a slew of journalists taking deep dives into the unreliability of memory and trauma and complexities of relaying assault allegations. I assume that science hasn’t changed in two years.
Let’s also not forget that, despite Ford’s inconsistencies, Biden still argued that Kavanaugh should be presumed guilty. Why shouldn’t he?
It is also quite amazing to see Biden’s defenders implicitly contending that Reade is only credibly claiming that she was sexually harassed for nearly 30 years, so her story must be politically motivated.
Even if we concede that Reade is a wily Sanders operative or Putin stooge, what political motive could Reade possibly have had back in 1993 — after working for Biden — to smear the senator? What motive did she have to repeat that story to her family before Sanders was a candidate or Putin was running Russia?
Typical Liberal Democratic Hypcoracy disarm the American People while arming the Cartels just look at Fast and Furious
the democrap liberals, the press and mainstream media: I see nothing, I hear nothing , I know nothing. all have the brains of a goldfish. the issue is that this country is being run by hypocrites, rapists, thieves, muggers, buggers, all in congress. feinstein orchestrated the attack on Brett Kavanaugh directed by the gay ex pres obama. just wait, the documentation will become very evident .
Democrats either never considered they would never find themselves in a trap of their own making (a very foolish assumption) or they simply figured they could power their way through it with the aid of their partners in crime in the liberal media. I would bet on the second option, since that has gotten them out of numerous scandals in the past. Not quite sure it is going to work this time.
@Deplorable Me:
when the gay mulin ex pres’s birth certificate is found and proven he is not a US citizen, a stroke of Trump’s pen will wipe out eight years of terrorism and the list of cronies will follow.