Most Americans are just learning that Joe Biden has been accused of sexual assault.
When a former Senate staffer, Tara Reade, alleged on March 26 that Biden had forcibly “penetrated me with his fingers” in 1993, most media outlets decided to ignore her charge. The TV networks and prestige newspapers that devoted blanket coverage to similar charges lodged against Brett Kavanaugh and before him Donald Trump practiced an extreme form of social distancing toward Biden’s former aide. The New York Times and Washington Post waited three weeks before publishing highly skeptical articles about her charge. Then they dropped the matter.
Biden was not asked about the allegation during April interviews on ABC, NBC, CNN and MSNBC.
The mainstream media finally lifted its brownout late last month as corroboration of Reade’s story mounted: more friends and associates (almost all Democrats) say she had told them about the incident in mid-1990s and a tape emerged of what sounds like Reade’s mother calling into Larry King Live in August of 1993 alleging that “a prominent senator” had acted inappropriately toward her daughter.
Once his media protectors dropped their shields, Biden was forced to officially deny the claim on May 1 issuing a statement that included the canard that Reade has changed her story. She has always said he touched her inappropriately, her recent statements identify the most extreme instance.
Decades old charges of sexual assault are almost impossible to prove; we may never know what, if anything, happened between Biden and Reade. But there is no doubt the media has treated her far differently than Kavanaugh’s accusers.
Unlike Reade, Kavanaugh’s main accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, told no one for decades about the alleged attack. While Reade certainly worked for Biden, Blasey Ford had no evidence that she even knew Kavanaugh.
But, reciting the mantra of the #MeToo movement, the press declared that no woman would make up such a story, so she must be believed.
Reade has not been afforded such trust at Biden’s expense – and nor should she.
Still, the reason the cases are receiving such different coverage is obvious: Biden is a Democrat and Kavanaugh was nominated by Trump.
Noting this clear double-standard, some conservatives assume this rank hypocrisy will end the #MeToo movement’s attack on due process which demands that women should not just be heard, and their evidence weighed: they must be believed.
This is wishful thinking. Consistency is but one casualty of the hard left turn taken by the Democrats and their media operatives. Truth and principles don’t matter; for them there are only useful tactics.
It was useful to accuse the president of treason for three years. When that was shown to be a lie that involved corruption at the highest levels of government, no reckoning or soul-searching ensued. Democrats and the media just moved to impeach him on other grounds.
The left repeats its libelous charge that Trump is the second coming of Hitler leading a nation filled with white supremacists ad nauseam because they might rally the base and win some swing voters.
Hillary Clinton’s false claims that the Russian meddling swung the 2016 election and Biden’s recent warning that Trump might delay the November election – are both laughable and deadly serious.
In a vibrant democracy, the media should expose such lies. Instead, most news outlets just repeat them. Instead of reporting without fear or favor, they shape the news to seek a specific result: Tout pour la guerre against Trump and the Republicans.
