New York Times Op-Ed: We Need a Plan B to Replace Biden

Update:

Kinda obvious, I guess, but I guess the medium is the message.

I have my own impressions regarding Ms. Reade's allegations, but no one -- save Ms. Reade and Mr. Biden -- knows with certainty whether her claims are true. What I can assert with firm conviction is that Democrats ought to start considering a backup plan for 2020.

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.

"It's not at all uncommon for someone to still have positive feelings about aspects of the person who assaulted them, or to admire or respect them," Scott Berkowitz, the founder and president of the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) told me. "With people who work for politicians, there's usually a strong measure of loyalty or respect in that relationship. So it's not indicative that someone wasn’t telling the truth."

...

This is collateral damage that Democrats -- who have spent the last few years championing the #MeToo movement -- should be loath to incur. Democrats who subject Ms. Reade's allegations to a level of scrutiny not widely applied to accusers in similar circumstances -- such as Christine Blasey-Ford, who famously came forward during the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court to allege that he had sexually accosted her in high school -- also open up past and future cases to reproachful disregard. Conservatives, like my colleague Bret Stephens, can see the plain gulf between how Democrats have approached sexual assault in politically advantageous cases versus Ms. Reade's, and the evident hypocrisy threatens to discredit the entire enterprise.

Liberal thinkers and organizations have begun to realize this...

To preserve the strides made on behalf of victims of sexual assault in the era of #MeToo, and to maximize their chances in November, Democrats need to begin formulating an alternative strategy for 2020 -- one that does not include Mr. Biden.

Meanwhile, the head of "Time's Up" -- an organization which supposedly exists to support all women making #MeToo allegations --tells Tara Reade to drop dead and says she believes Joe Biden and is only interested in investigating Donald Trump.

Tina Tchen is formerly Michelle Obama's chief of staff. If that name sounds familiar to you, that's because she's the one who arranged a phone call to Jussie Smollett's Soros-funded prosecutor to get the case dismissed.

Chicago attorney Tina Tchen--who was in contact with Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx before the charges were dropped against former "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett -- refused to be served with a subpoena on Wednesday, according to the process server.

Tchen, who previously served as former First Lady Michelle Obama’s chief of staff, refused to accept a subpoena that was issued by former Illinois Appellate Judge Sheila O’Brien.

O’Brien is petitioning for the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into the state’s attorney’s office’s handling of the Smollett case. She is calling for Tchen to attend a May 31 hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse and bring with her copies of "any and all documents, notes, phone records, texts, tape recordings made or received at any time, concerning [Tchen’s] conversations with Kim Foxx in re: Jussie Smollett."

She's a political fixer -- her job is to protect Democrats.

And the Democrats have installed their political fixers in dozens of allegedly non-partisan and independent agencies.

posted by Ace at 06:45 PM

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