Tara! Tara! Tara!

I have to address the Tara Reade story, because everyone else is addressing it - even the PBS NewsHour, which still - still - hasn't done a story about the possible collapse of the Postal Service.

The accusation from Reade that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993 when he was a U.S. Senator and she was a Senate staffer first surfaced in late March, soon after Biden took the lead in delegate votes necessary for the Democratic presidential nomination.  Because there was no proof beyond er word and a couple of corroborations, the mainstream news media ignored the story.  It has gotten more traction of late as more people have backed up Reade and as "evidence" in the form of a recording of Reade's mother calling in on Larry King's old CNN talk show to express concern about Tara having difficulties with an unnamed senator (nothing about sexual assault, no mention of Biden by name) has surfaced. Investigations in to the story led to the current brouhaha over the accusations, which Biden denied vehemently in a courteous manner toward Reade in an inquisition from MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski, who sounded like a disappointed mom questioning her child in a corner about a broken vase.

I'm sorry, but I'm not buying Reade's accusation.  The reasons for my stance are many, but among them are the fact that this story was promoted by supporters of Bernie Sanders, first appearing in the so-called progressive media while Sanders was still an active presidential candidate.  Another reason is the fact that Reade has changed her story  In the spring of  2019, she was one of seven women who said that Biden inappropriately hugged, kissed, or in Reade's case, touched them, which I talked about back then; Biden admitted to the transgressions and apologized by explaining that he never meant any offense to anyone.  The sexual-assault charge was only added much later.  She said she complained about the act to three supervisors and Senate personnel, then to two supervisors and Senate personnel with a report on file, and then to only one supervisors and Senate personnel with no filed report available. She's even changed her reason for leaving her Senate job, one time saying she was fired and another time staying she left voluntarily, i.e., quit.

Biden, who apparently isn't worried, asked the Senate to look in the National Archives to look for the Reade complaint to see what she exactly said, if the report does indeed exist, but progressive activists - who literally hate Biden - are demanding that he release this files at the University of Delaware, even though Biden has convincingly insisted that any personnel files would be in the National Archives and none of them would be in his University of Delaware files.  (And since the Secretary of the Senate has since refused to release any such report, the pressure on Biden to release his University of Delaware records may only grow.)  I can count all of the Sanders supporters who are satisfied with Biden's explanations on zero fingers; even before this story took hold in the mainstream media, Biden's detractors in the progressive movement have been seizing on any of his personality tics, such as his stutter and his avuncular image, to try to paint him as a menace to society.  Now they're going after his sense of decency by insinuating and by pushing these allegations that he has none.

The crux of this story is that Biden himself, along with other Democrats have once said that women need to be believed when they come forward with stories of sexual misconduct, or at least heard.  Biden has tried to remain consistent that by saying that Reade has a right to come forward with this accusation and that it should be taken seriously but that it should be vetted like any other accusation, and other Democrats have said the same.  Not good enough, Sanders supporters say; either you always assume a woman is telling the truth or you don't  If you don't, you're a hypocrite.  And, on cue, Republicans have seized on this charge of hypocrisy, saying that Democrats wouldn't give Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, when he was nominated for the Court, the same benefit of the doubt that they're giving Biden, while top Republican leaders - even Trump - are suggesting that the accusations against Biden have more credibility than the accusations against Kavanaugh. Thanks a lot, Bernie bros - you've just given the Republicans a weapon to attack Biden with.  It's like you think Biden will drop put and step aside for Sanders.  Oh, wait - that's right . . . you do!  Never mind that Sanders supports Biden now.  You'd rather be a purist than oust Trump.

I'm having flashbacks to 33 years ago this week in 1987, when far less serious womanizing charges against Gary Hart forced him out of the 1988 presidential campaign (that week ended on Saturday, May 9, just like this week does!)  and even back to Joe Biden's own 1988 presidential campaign, when proof of college plagiarism ended his bid for the White House.  (To underscore how far less serious that transgression was than what Biden is being accused of now, Presidents - especially Ronald Reagan, who was President in 1987 - usually don't write their own speeches.  Not even, for the most part, their inaugural addresses.  Yet we attribute famous speech quotes to John F. Kennedy, not his speechwriter Theodore Sorensen.)   But the biggest flashback to the 1988 election campaign that I'm having is to when Al Gore first used Willie Horton against Michael Dukakis in a Democratic debate, only for the elder George Bush to successfully use it against Dukakis in the 1988 general election, which allowed the younger George Bush to assume the Presidency in a campaign in 2000 against . . . Al Gore.

There is good news - so far, all indications are that not too many people take these accusations seriously.  I certainly don't.  As for polls, a Monmouth University poll shows that about a third of respondents believe Biden, a third of them believe Reade - with even 32 percent of those who believe Reade still planning to vote for Biden - and anther third don't have a clue one way or the other.  But unless something explosive happens, I'm not going to comment on this again.

And if Biden does drop out . . . let's bring back Al Gore.  After all, he's younger than Biden, he's even younger than Trump, he served in Vietnam, and he has a great environmental record.