Democrats, Tara Reade and the #MeToo Trap
COMMENTARY
To be clear, the fact that Reade timed her charges for maximum political impact doesn’t mean they’re not true. If Biden assaulted her, it’s understandable that she’d want to destroy him politically. Her story about that assault has changed, but as my colleague Elizabeth Bruenig points out, that is not unusual in survivors.
Reade’s story about filing a sexual harassment complaint has also changed, in ways that seem less explicable by trauma. On March 18, she tweeted, “When I filed a complaint against Joe Biden for sexual harassment and more I was fired in ’93.” But The Associated Press reported that last year she said, “They have this counseling office or something, and I think I walked in there once, but then I chickened out.” According to AP, she now says she meant that she chickened out about reporting her full experience but did fill out an “intake form” with some broad details.
Again: None of this means an assault didn’t happen. Reade’s former neighbor Lynda LaCasse says she recently remembered that Reade told her the story in 1995 or 1996. Other people have told reporters that Reade shared her account with them years ago, but without going on the record by name. (Her brother has said the same thing, but his recounting of the story has changed.)
Still, where things stand now, it’s hard to compare Ford’s case with Reade’s. Ford had four sworn affidavits from people whom she’d told that she’d been assaulted, as well as therapist’s notes and the results from a polygraph. She testified, and was cross-examined, under oath. The Democratic plea, at the time, was for a thorough FBI investigation.
Now feminists are caught in a trap. They don’t want to repeat the errors many of them made when they dismissed Bill Clinton’s accusers, nor do they want to erode the #MeToo taboo against picking apart the motives and histories of women who recount sexual assault. But just as Reade’s story can’t be wished away because it’s politically inconvenient, neither can its contradictions.
I suspect that whatever happens in this campaign, the credibility of the movement will suffer. The original #MeToo stories were carefully and meticulously documented. Now it threatens to become a way to handicap one political faction in the middle of a partisan free-for-all. In a season full of appalling and sickening losses, this is just the latest one.