Joan Walsh at the Nation-The Troublesome Tara Reade Story

[Azathoth]

34. The *exact* same criticisms of Reade were leveled at Ford

1) She "changed" her story.

The Right wrote endless columns about how Blasey Ford supposedly "changed" parts of her story. I won't link to any since they will just be used a pretext to have this post removed, but if you google them, they're all over.

2) She's politically/ideologically motivated.

This one goes without saying. Ford's lawyer even outright admitted during a speech that protecting Roe was part of the motivation for going public.

3) She doesn't have a lot of contemporary witnesses.

Again, same situation with Reade. It was actually worse with Ford, because one of her key witnesses (who initially stated she didn't remember anything but believed her friend nonetheless) actually came out later and stated that she didn't think the allegation was true.

4) There was no pattern of behavior.

This situation changed slightly when additional accusers came forward after the Ford allegations came out (although Avenatti's antics unfortunately helped muddle them). Right now, however, there are more women accusing Biden of inappropriate behavior than were accusing Kavanaugh.

I will say that, for me, the Putin stuff is the reason I don't believe Reade. Putin is a kook magnet. He attracts unstable people with anti-Democratic Party agendas, from Glenn Greenwald and Jill Stein on the left, to Richard Spencer and Trump on the right. Anyone who writes love poems to him and then does something that hurts Democrats is inherently suspect as far as I'm concerned.

That said, I have enough self-awareness to realize that's a judgement call on my part rather than a logical argument disproving Reade. Anyone who does not share my distrust of Putin groupies will not feel the same way. Unless something really discrediting comes out, Democrats are going to face endless comparisons between Reade and Ford.