When Christine Blasey Ford, a feminist college professor, accused U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, the media believed Ford.
When Tara Reade (shown), a feminist former Senate staffer, accused Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden of sexual assault, the media ignored it until they were forced to cover it, and then clearly suggested they believe Biden.
Another difference? No one recalls a major media outlet dispatching a reporter to discredit Ford as an unstable nutter, which is what Politico has done to Tara Reade, who says Biden cornered and sexually assaulted her in 1993 when she worked for him.
Yet the report and double standard underlying it are hardly surprising.
One of Politico’s founders, Martin Tolchin, doesn’t care whether Biden assaulted Reade. He wants Joe Biden to remove Donald Trump from the White House, and if Reade’s allegations must be ignored, so be it.
Hit Job
Thus did Politico cast a net into the dark waters of Reade’s assault allegation and haul in a remarkable catch: at least half a dozen sources who say Read is a lying, manipulative, deceitful wacko.
The Reade hit piece, for which Politico assembled e-mails, texts, Facebook messages, billing invoices, and court and public records, opens with an elderly headshrinker, Harriet Wrye.
“Wrye and her husband knew Reade as Tara McCabe, the woman who had rented a yurt on their 12-acre California property and tended to the couple’s horses — and her own — for about 10 months beginning in 2017,” Politico reported. “They were well-acquainted with their former tenant, who frequently knocked on the door of their home seeking emotional support, asking for financial help or forgiveness for late rent payments, which they granted.”
But Reade, Wrye told the webzine, “never mentioned [Biden’s] assault or harassment” and instead sang his praises. And Reade wasn’t friendly for long, Wrye said:
After her husband suffered a brain injury that forced the couple to sell the property, Wrye said, Reade turned on them.
“She became really difficult,” Wrye said. “She said, ‘You’re going to have to pay me to get me to leave.’”
“She was manipulative,” said Wrye, a self-described feminist and social activist. “She was always saying she was going to get it together, but she couldn’t. And ‘could you help her’?”
And that was no “isolated” case, Politico reported.
Over the past decade, Reade has left a trail of aggrieved acquaintances … who say they remember two things about her — she spoke favorably about her time working for Biden, and she left them feeling duped….
A number of those in close contact with Reade over the past 12 years, a period in which she went by the names Tara Reade, Tara McCabe or Alexandra McCabe, laid out a familiar pattern: Reade ingratiated herself, explained she was down on her luck and needed help, and eventually took advantage of their goodwill to extract money, skip rent payments or walk out on other bills….
“You can use these words: manipulative, deceitful, user,” said Kelly Klett, an attorney who rented Reade a room in her home in 2018. “Looking back at it all now, that is exactly how I view her and how I feel about her.”
Klett says Reade is a deadbeat renter who borrowed law books to study for the bar exam and didn’t return them.
Even worse, Reade spoke highly of Biden: “Klett said Reade’s take on Biden never wavered. ‘In the time that she lived with me in close proximity,’ she said, ‘there was never one allegation against Joe Biden that was disparaging.’”
Another of Reade’s “aggrieved acquaintances” spoke to Politico as well:
Lynn Hummer, who owns a horse sanctuary where Reade volunteered for two years, beginning in 2014, told Politico that Reade is “very clever, manipulative…. I do think she’s a liar.”
Hummer provided an email from an exchange in which, within weeks of starting at the ranch, Reade asked whether she could bring her car on Hummer’s property to hide it from “the repo man.” Hummer declined.
In another instance, Reade came by the ranch desperately seeking $200 to pay the rent, Hummer said. On the way to Reade’s house, Hummer said she didn’t notice that Reade texted her and upped her request from $200 to $350.
Hummer also alleged Reade called a veterinarian to the ranch to service her personal horse, leaving Hummer to pay a $1,400 bill.
Politico also found Austin Chung, who leased a home to Reade. She not only stiffed him on the rent, he alleged, but also left animal waste on the floors.
Having assembled witnesses for the persecution, Politico found one source to say Reade is a very good person.
Tolchin: Forget Reade, Sex Assault Doesn’t Matter
One must wonder how the #MeToo movement would have reacted if Politico had gone fishing in Ford’s past, but that question aside, a letter from Tolchin to the New York Times about Reade’s accusation might explain the webzine’s move.
“I don’t want justice, whatever that may be,” the 91-year-old wrote to disagree with an editorial that said Biden must explain himself. “I want a win, the removal of Donald Trump from office, and Mr. Biden is our best chance”:
Suppose an investigation reveals damaging information concerning his relationship with Tara Reade or something else, and Mr. Biden loses the nomination to Senator Bernie Sanders or someone else with a minimal chance of defeating Mr. Trump. Should we really risk the possibility?
Whether or not Tolchin ordered up the hit piece, Politico, apparently, agrees.
Photo: AP Images
R. Cort Kirkwood is a long-time contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
