“I want equal treatment.” So demanded former Biden aide Tara Reade in late April. At the time, the media were still maintaining radio silence with respect to her claims that the then-senator had sexually assaulted her. “It’s inexcusable,” Reade continued. “I’m sorry that I’m politically inconvenient but my perpetrator was Joe Biden. And people need to deal with it.”
When Reade’s story was finally deemed newsworthy, prominent Democrats interviewed by the media all had the same reaction to the allegation. The “believe all women” mantra they had tenaciously clung to during their persecution of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was suddenly gone, replaced by “believe Joe.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was “satisfied” with Biden’s response to the allegations against him, anointing him “a person of great values, integrity, authenticity.” Other Democrats said the 2020 election was “too important'” not to take Biden at his word.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Ultimately, the hypocrisy became too much to bear for even the media, which began churning out thoughtful and sympathetic articles like one that appeared over the weekend in the New York Times, which explained:
Ms. Reade’s account is not nearly as incredible as some have argued. In the course of my reporting, I have worked closely with many survivors of sexual assault. It isn’t unusual, in my experience, for survivors to exhibit behavior that seems unstable or erratic to others. They may initially disclose to investigators or journalists only a fragment of what happened, and then reveal more over time — some even falsely recant, either because they sense the police don’t believe them, or because they fear the consequences of pressing their claims. And victims often maintain relationships with their attackers or harbor mixed feelings about them.
This argument places the ball squarely back in the Democrats’ court. So where do they now turn in their attempts to rationalize their double standard? It will be interesting to watch.
