Home » Tara Reade WalksAway

Comments

Tara Reade WalksAway — 50 Comments

  1. I give her a zero percent chance of going further in her political journey.

    She should started traveling right after this happened to her. Then the democrat reaction to Bill Clinton should taken her the rest of the way, decades ago. Failing that, she should have picked up on what was getting Trump in trouble, which hasn’t been any sort of credible allegations of anything like what happened to her.

    But no, somehow she remained happily and, apparently, thoughtlessly on the democrat plantation until Joe Biden became her party’s nominee. And now, she oh-so-carefully doesn’t want to hurt the party of her rapist.

    Her problem isn’t naivete. It’s stupidity.

  2. Yeah, I mean it’s not like Biden was totally out of the picture since 1993 only to reappear almost 30 years later. He ran for president in 2008. He was VP for eight years.

    I have no idea if her allegations are true or not but her shock now is pretty naive for someone who has apparently been involved politically for a long time.

    My guess is she is anti-Biden and that’s all.

  3. I think Tara Reade will not forget, but she will forgive. She will get over being stunned, and “mature” to a new position: An acknowledgement that this is what politics has to be, when an important election is at stake. “My little experience, as important as it is to me, is insignificant in the bigger picture.” She will see it as growing up, toughening. She can’t unsee what she has seen, but will give it an acceptable meaning, and see what has happened to her as a necessary sacrifice.

  4. “That’s the first step, Tara”
    When I think of the conservatives I know, and those whose story I’ve heard online, there are perhaps 20% who are lifelong conservatives. Grew up with traditional values, was comfortable with those values, had a consistent life’s philosophy.
    The other 80% are all WalkAways, including me. As the saying goes, “if you don’t vote liberal when you’re young, you have no heart but if you don’t vote conservative when you grow up, you have no brain.”

  5. I wonder what kind of obstacle would be the memory of all the terrible and false things she said with such relish about republicans and conservatives.
    She has to come to the conclusion that her outrage wrt Ford was all a matter of being manipulated by people smarter than she, and infinitely worse. And not that she was merely outraged, but what about the falsehoods she promulgated? The public statements she said, while the manipulators laughed at her.
    She knows who the cynical, manipulative scum are. Or, actually, knows who some of them are.
    I don’t think she can afford to leave, issues notwithstanding. Her entire self-image would collapse.
    Being victimized–twice so far–doesn’t make her smart or redeem her earlier actions.

  6. If she wants to pursue Bidencide, Reade should get a good attorney who can block and tackle for her. She’s a bit too soft for political hardball.

  7. I expect she’s one of those people who considers the NYT to be centrist.

  8. I’d like a post on Trump’s accusers. Something providing a factual overview.

    I’m familiar with the latest, I think it was Jean Carrol and her claimed of rape in a department store in the 90s. Her story is logically impossible as told. It didn’t help her that she mentioned rape fantasies in an interview.

  9. My thoughts:
    1. I distrust charges that appear toward the end of a campaign.
    2. I distrust charges that are made 20+ years later.
    3. Reade was silent in 2008 when Biden was running for VP. Why not say something then?
    4. She calls Pres. Trump a sexual predator. This tells me that words mean nothing to her.
    5. Ann Althouse made this point and I think it’s a valid one. In 1993 didn’t women wear pantyhose in an office environment?
    6. Her shock at push back is just not believable to me.
    7. Yeah this shows up the Democrats and the feminists for being unprincipled creeps. If that helps some people to start thinking for themselves, then that’s a good thing.

  10. Eva Marie:

    I can’t find it now, but somewhere I read that Reade said she kept silent in 2008, although she was alarmed, because she deeply wanted Obama elected and Biden would only be VP rather than president.

    Also, regarding pantyhose – some women did wear them in 1993, some didn’t wear them. The heyday of pantyhose was 70s and 80s. I don’t recall what time of year she says it happened, but in the summer in DC it can get really really hot and she’d be less likely to have pantyhose on.

    So it’s certainly possible. Did it happen? I don’t know.

  11. I believe it was the summer for whatever that’s worth. Reade’s mother called Larry King on August 11,1993 and said her daughter had left her job earlier that week so presumably the incident happened shortly before that.

  12. Interesting arm-chair psychoanalysis all around, some of it very likely true.

    Griffin & others, I think are correct: she still hates Biden, and what he did to her life. IF she could torpedo the man who allegedly raped her and certainly ruined her career, she was always willing to do it, so long as it didn’t hurt The Party.

    Maybe she thought about telling her story those other times Biden ran for President, but he got shot down soon enough that she didn’t need to.

    And, as Neo said, no committed Democrat would have dared to rain on Barack Obama’s Parade, for any reason whatsoever!

    Then we got the #MeToo movement, and suddenly rich and powerful Democrats were being taken down, sometimes for less than what happened to her!

    Maybe she thought, again, about telling her story when the Democrat primaries began last year; still, again, it looked like he was going to be ousted from the pack, so she didn’t need to relive the experience and the pain, in public, even though she knew that she could bring him down.

    HOWEVER, once it became apparent that the DNC was going to resurrect Joe’s zombie campaign, THAT would have been the optimum time to go public.
    Bernie & some of the other candidates, especially the women, would have had an incentive to support her, in order to bolster their own chances.

    She should have spoken up before the non-Bernie group dropped out and endorsed Joe, but she missed that golden moment!

    Naive, probably; stupid, maybe; clueless about the way the real world works?
    Clearly.

  13. I wonder what she would cite as the evidence that Trump is a sexual predator.

    Evidence? What a quaint notion. I don’t think evidence has been a requirement for a charge against a Republican since before the Clarence Thomas hearings.

  14. Xennady
    ”Her problem isn’t naivete. It’s stupidity.“

    Very correct statement. I would add; “Get a grip on yourself”.

    As someone who voted Democrat until 2016, there is no excuse to be so loyal to either political party in the USA. They will both disappoint you. Vote for the individual running and look at their political positions and choose. Be at least an Independent.

    Trump has always had women throw themselves at him. He is a billionaire. Bill Clinton had women throw themselves at him. He was a President and Governor. The huge difference is that Trump has not had a legitimate accusation of ‘rape’ from a woman. As far as I have read, they were willing participants.

    He is not dangerous. You may not like his personality, but he hasn’t’t started a war. Obama has a wonderful personality, but he started 5 wars, assassinate American citizens overseas (bad people), funded Issis (there are videos of him talking about this) and what is looking very clear, spying on an opposing campaign. He allowed his administration to do these dangerous acts. As a citizen that voted for Obama twice, this information is very disappointing. Time to ‘buck up’ and realised politics are ugly.

  15. “once it became apparent that the DNC was going to resurrect Joe’s zombie campaign”

    Regarding the timing of the accusation there are at least 2 potential motivations, and they are not conflicting. One is anger at Joe. Another could be allegiance to Bernie. I haven’t followed the story closely at all. Is it possible that she favors Bernie? Or is it simply that a few Bernie supporters have stood up to support her?

  16. JimNorCal:

    I recall reading somewhere that she had originally been a Sanders supporters and also a Warren supporter.

  17. The last thing I want to do is defend Joe Biden but (sigh) here is David Axelrod speaking about the vetting of Biden for VP, “The comprehensive vet certainly would have turned up any formal complaints filed against Biden during his 36-year career in the Senate. It did not . . . Through that entire process, the name Tara Reade never came up. No formal complaint. No informal chatter. Certainly, no intimation of sexual harassment or assault from her or anyone else. The team of investigators, expert in their work, would not have missed it.”
    I just want to add that if someone wanted a story that would capture the imagination – finger penetration would certainly do that. It’s not rape. If it was then there would be evidence and a criminal inquiry. But it’s serious enough a charge of assault that it can’t be dismissed as a misinterpretation of intent or an innocent flirtation.

  18. It is my observation that women of her generation tended to be establishment Dems. The fact she was a Biden staffer supports that.

  19. Here is what Reade herself says about the complaint she filed: “Reade has said that the complaint, if it’s found, would not include the sexual assault allegation that she came forward with in March. She told the Associated Press in an interview Friday: “the main word I used — and I know I didn’t use sexual harassment — I used ‘uncomfortable.’ And I remember ‘retaliation.’”

  20. Those changes occurred in the years 2000+ In 1993 the laws focused -from what those links seem to imply- on the more traditional definition of rape – which explains (or gives her the excuse) why she didn’t report what happened as rape.

  21. I was looking into the “golden gap” that I think Reade should have used to make her accusation (my comment at 6:00 pm).
    It wasn’t very long — only 3 days between his surge in South Carolina and his sweep on Super Tuesday. So, if Reade missed her chance to spike his campaign while there were still viable candidates that might have supported her,* I now think that was understandable. It also suggests she wasn’t sitting on the story looking to throw it into the ring.

    However, during my web surfing, I picked up a Kos post on the primaries, and decided to look around and see how the Democrats are treating the news. It’s what most of you would expect — believe all woman but there’s probably no there there so we don’t really have to support her.

    I was going to post a few excerpts in demonstration, but when I came back here to check what had been commented on while I was gone, I discovered that Eva Marie had saved me the trouble. I will just list the links for the posts she is pulling talking points from. (Eva did not link her sources.)

    Eva Marie on May 2, 2020 at 9:58 pm said:
    The last thing I want to do is defend Joe Biden but (sigh) here is David Axelrod speaking about the vetting of Biden for VP,…

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/5/2/1942111/-Arright-PLEASE-let-s-not-do-Her-Emails-again-Biden-was-already-vetted-by-Obama?utm_campaign=trending
    “Let’s just this once try to look at the FACTS and not flip out in a pandemic of virtue signaling.

    Remember. Joe Biden has been investigated. Barack Obama wouldn’t have chosen him if something like sexual assault had been discovered.”

    (As Don said — and it was my immediate reaction also — why should we believe them? If they found anything risible, they just filed it with Obama’s school records.)

    Eva Marie on May 2, 2020 at 10:16 pm said:
    Here is what Reade herself says about the complaint she filed: “Reade has said that the complaint, if it’s found, would not include the sexual assault allegation that she came forward with in March. …

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/5/2/1942126/–New-Sexual-harassment-and-assault-absent-from-Reade-complaint?utm_campaign=trending
    “Tara Reade says a Senate report she filed against Joe Biden didn’t refer to sexual harassment or assault. http://apne.ws/Wc2zvjx

    (This post also contains an actual link to Axelrod’s disclaimer – per CNN.)
    “Also, Biden was thoroughly vetted during Pres Obama years, any sexually charged report could have been unearthed by team Obama.”
    (They weren’t at all concerned about his touchy-feely conduct, though.)

    Now, I’m not yet convinced that Reade is being truthful — well, she’s stating her truth, and Biden once told us that was better than facts — and the Kos Kids have raised some damaging allegations.

    Here are a few more, if you are interested.

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/5/2/1942146/-Tara-Reade-backs-out-on-planned-interview-with-Chris-Wallace?utm_campaign=trending
    “Apparently she’d been in talks to give her first on-camera interview since claiming Joe Biden sexually assaulted her—with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.” But she abruptly backed out just hours before she was due to start taping.”
    (Fox says they never confirmed the interview. Twitter person says Reade cancelled because of death threats. Another Twitter person claims she has been seriously doxxed on-line.)

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/5/1/1941736/-Tara-Reade-s-apparent-lies-are-a-betrayal-to-ALL-survivors
    “On Wednesday, blogger Roman Smith detonated a bombshell. He discovered that mere hours before Tara Reade went public with her claims that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993, she edited an old post on her Medium blog to match the allegations she was about to make. No appending of corrections, no clarifications, nothing. Fortunately, Smith was able to compare the edited version to the original version published in The (Grass Valley) Union in 2019.

    Comparing her account in The Union to her edited blog post, the most benign interpretation for Reade’s behavior is that she wanted to call attention to how backwards things still were in 1990s Washington. Indeed, looking at Reade’s original account, one can draw disturbing parallels to how little things have changed since then. Remember, for a long time, staffers who complain about sexual harassment faced a very arduous and very degrading process for having their claims heard—and it could have been as long as 90 days before anyone knew that there was a potential predator lurking in Capitol Hill.

    But at best—at best—Reade seems to have embellished her previous account to match her current allegations. And in so doing, she may have delayed a badly-needed conversation about how backwards things still are on Capitol Hill. Even if she were telling the truth, given the matter in which she edited her post and when she edited it, who can believe her?

    It’s beyond belief that a woman with a law degree would have even thought this was a good idea.”

    (This post actually makes the very important point that lies by an alleged victim hurt the cause of real victims. The poster fails to draw any parallels to the epidemic of hate-crime hoaxes by Democrats.)

    What is going on here?
    The Democrats are doing their best to unravel Reade’s story, which argues against her being a DNC “plant” to take out Biden and bring in a viable replacement.
    Unless – the Destablishment is running an op that is being opposed by the Left wing?!?

    What am I missing here?

  22. * Would any of the other candidates have supported Reade if she had raised her allegations after Biden’s win in South Carolina and before they backed out
    around Super Tuesday?
    Why not take her story to one of them privately, see if there was any support forthcoming?
    Warren & Sanders especially might have listened to her, because they held out on either suspension or endorsements until late in April.

    Reference points:
    Who backed out when —
    2/29 South Carolina – Biden turnaround
    Tom Steyer – 2/29
    Gov. Jay Inslee – 3/1
    Mayor Pete Buttigieg – 3/1 suspended
    Sen. Amy Klobuchar -3/2 – endorsed Vice President Biden hours before “Super Tuesday,”

    3/3 Super Tuesday – 14 states and a third of the total delegates – Biden sweep
    Mayor Mike Bloomberg – 3/3 – endorsed former Vice President Biden 3/3
    Sen. Elizabeth Warren- 3/5 suspended – did not endorse Biden until 4/15, after Sanders on 4/8 & Obama on 4/14
    Sen. Cory Booker – 3/16
    Rep. Tulsi Gabbard – 3/19 suspended – endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden
    Sanders – 4/8 suspended – endorsed Biden

  23. One more from Kos, because it is the POV of the Left:
    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/5/2/1941800/-Seven-Reasons-not-to-worry-about-the-Tara-Reade-story-ruining-Biden-s-chances-Saturday-s-GNR?utm_campaign=trending

    If you count yourself among the people worrying: Stop. Or at least, tone it down.

    Below are seven reasons to not worry about this ending our chances of saving democracy.

    Note: the allegations are being investigated, which is good.

    These reasons below are focused on the worry that no matter how unlikely the allegations seem after investigation, it will still sink Biden. If evidence comes out proving that this happened, this would, obviously, be a whole different thing.

    Here are seven reasons to not worry about this ruining our chances to save our democracy.

    1. The election is six months away. The news cycles are FAST and this news will not maintain the nations attention for six months. There is too much else going on.

    2. Biden has some of the smartest people in the world working to get him elected. These are people who have seen dirty trick after dirty trick. They will know the best way to deal with this to get it to go away and they will do just that. It is not YOUR job to be Biden’s campaign manager. It is your job to GOTV, donate, and spread your enthusiasm to those around you. Focus on that. Let them figure out the best way to deal with this.

    3. The way Biden is handling this will provide a study in contrast with Trump. He is addressing it. He isn’t insulting her (even when given the opportunity). He is asking for an investigation instead of running from one. He is being respectful.

    4. When it comes right down to it on November 3rd, no one is going to vote for Trump over Biden because of this accusation. It is just not going to happen.

    5. A search is going to be made for the accusation she claims she filed and it isn’t going to turn anything up (or the Biden camp wouldn’t have agreed to it). If it DOES find evidence that he did something wrong then we need to face that so it would be best to learn it

    6. Twitter is not the world. You can look at Twitter and assume that many people everywhere are really worrying and focusing on this but they are not. Most people have way more pressing matters and concerns. It is easy (in particular with Russian help) to get an issue pushed up on Twitter.

    7. Biden is destroying Trump in every match up — even since this became a story (actually, even more so since then).

    No one wanted this to happen or to become an issue. Regardless of whether she is telling the truth or not, I wish Ms. Reade peace and happiness and a sense of closure over whatever she has going on. But most of all, I wish for all of you to not spend your time worrying about every issue that comes up. They will play dirty. We will have more things to deal with (look how hard they tried with the Ukraine thing). They will sling dirt and try to destroy him every minute from now until November 3rd. But, in the end, if we stay focused, they will lose anyway.

    Eyes on the prize, my friends. Eyes on the prize.

  24. This whole post is rather confusing, and I’m not sure of anything except the AP is waffling on their earlier story.
    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/02/ap-admits-not-reporting-deleting-tara-reade-2019-interview-detailing-charges-against-joe-biden/#

    I thought everybody always kept everything these days.
    Pixels are cheap and don’t take up much room.
    Not like 11 year old videotapes of non-political celebrities discovered in old vaults during presidential elections or something.

  25. Eva Marie, 10:16
    I passed that tidbit along to a friend who follows this story more closely than me.
    He replied:
    “an AP Politics tweet led with that. Reade got on twitter and called that false.”

    I’m not actually following this. On twitter or anywhere else LOL. But thought I would pass along that feedback to you

  26. JimNirCal “Reade got on Twitter and called that false.”

    The AP story quotes her. It’s a direct quote. True the AP may be manufacturing quotes and I wouldn’t put it past them but it’s a direct quote.

    Here is more from the AP. These are quotes from several interviews:
    “I remember talking about him wanting me to serve drinks because he liked my legs and thought I was pretty and it made me uncomfortable,” Reade said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press. “I know that I was too scared to write about the sexual assault.”

    Reade told the AP twice that she did not use the phrase “sexual harassment” in filing the complaint, but at other points in the interview said that was the behavior she believed she was describing. She said: “I talked about sexual harassment, retaliation. The main word I used – and I know I didn’t use sexual harassment — I used ‘uncomfortable.’ And I remember ‘retaliation.’”

    Reade described the report after the AP discovered additional transcripts and notes from its interviews with Reade last year in which she says she “chickened out” after going to the Senate personnel office. The AP interviewed Reade in 2019 after she accused Biden of uncomfortable and inappropriate touching. She did not raise allegations of sexual assault against Biden until this year, around the time he became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

  27. I think some people are starting to lose the point. The issue isn’t whether or not Reade’s claims are true. The issue is the blatant, hypocritical, and vile double-standard being applied to Biden as opposed to Kavanaugh. There is significantly more evidence supporting Reade’s claims than Ford’s allegations, yet people who wanted to crucify Kavanaugh are giving Biden a pass.

    The point is that, before Reade said anything, Biden ALREADY had a long and glaring record of inappropriate behavior toward women and girls. Maybe not assault or classic “sleep with me or get fired” harassment but the sort of gropey, handsey violations of personal space that women have also had to put up with forever. And it didn’t matter because it was just “Joe being Joe.”

    Mike

  28. AesopFan: “the AP is waffling”
    How so? According to the AP, Reade was interviewed in 2019 and spoke about “uncomfortable and inappropriate touching.” According to the article “The AP declined to publish details of the 2019 interviews at the time because reporters were unable to corroborate her allegations, and aspects of her story contradicted other reporting.”
    According to the article, “In recent weeks, Reade told the AP and other news organizations that Biden sexually assaulted her, pushing her against a wall in the basement of a Capitol Hill office building in 1993, groping her and penetrating her with his fingers. ”
    But the complaint she filed in 1993 (according to the AP reporting on what Reade told them) “ . . . would not corroborate her assault allegations because she chose not to detail them at the time.
    Here is the article in full:
    https://apnews.com/aec7beb03e9e0e0e6e3c58111293e0ea

  29. Mbunge: right, the issue is the double standard. Though I doubt that any voters’ minds will be changed by that. Sad to say.

    I’ve been a little surprised that no stories of marital infidelity of the usual sort seem to have been circulating about Biden. He sure seems like the Teddy Kennedy type.

  30. I’ve known people like Tara Reade for whom the Democrats were a way of life, practically a religion. I never felt that strongly about any party, I didn’t even hate Nixon when I was a Democrat. When I walked away is was a change, but I didn’t feel that I had changed all that much. That made it easier for me than I expect it will be for Reade.

  31. MBunge: to your point. There are 2 ways to go at this. The 1st is to say to the lefties – you destroyed our guy for the Supreme Court because you said all women must be believed. Now go and destroy your own guy for the same reason. The 2nd is to say to the lefties – see what it’s like when your guy is slimed by unsubstantiated reports from 25 years ago? This is exactly the reason we stood by our guy who was slimed. Only in our case there was even less reason to believe the slimer. Who knows which is the more effective tactic.

  32. Eva Marie. Lefties cannot be shamed. All that can be done is to demonstrate that we will do to them what they do to us.

  33. Her willingness to believe anything on media command is still strong, and that ensures she’s a Dem voter for life! And beyond, of course.

  34. Trump at his best:

    “I would just say to Joe Biden, ‘Just go out and fight it,’” Trump said in a podcast interview with Dan Bongino. “He’s going to have to make his own decision, I’m not going to be telling him what to do. Biden is going to have to go out and fight his own battles.”

    Then Trump identified himself with Biden. “I’ve been falsely accused by people that I’ve never even seen, I’ve never even seen many of these people. And some of these people, I met them – zero interest, Okay? Like zero,” the president said.

    “And all of a sudden you become a wealthy guy, you’re a famous guy, then you become president, and people just – people that you’ve never seen, that you’ve never heard of make charges. So I guess in a way you could say I’m, I’m sticking up for him,” Trump said of Biden.

    And Scott Adams take on it: https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1256283376949977088

  35. Not sure I get the laughs that Adams got about the whole thing. But the advice to “fight it” strikes me as a planted axiom that it is true and has to be dismissed, rather than it’s not true.
    There are two “it” possibilities. One is that it’s true and has to be fought against in the campaign. The other is it didn’t happen–thus implying it wasn’t true about Trump, either.
    Pick one Biden loses either.

  36. Eva Marie, my intuition says “bet cash money that the assault took place”
    Also, MBunge is correct- for us, the issue is the vast hypocrisy.
    But I am grateful to you for raising the opposing viewpoint. It would be a shame to fall into snark or “too good to check”

  37. I’m not going to self censor myself on topics such as Flat Earth theory. So what are you going to do?

    Tara has her own wake up schedule, as do every single individual here.

    Q Anon is another wake up movement. People usually have something they are anti or against. Getting them to become more spiritually enlightened requires more than just a political change. Do you think you are finished just by changing political votes?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>