Tara Reade

I haven't commented on the allegations that Joe Biden sexually assaulted Tara Reade back in the early '90s, but since Biden has, I will.

I think two things can be true. Joe Biden was not always respectful of personal space; Joe Biden is not a sexual predator.

Biden has admitted to and apologized for his tendency to hug people and touch them on the shoulders, when perhaps they really weren't interested in that. Reade's original allegation felt like it might have been in that category.  Maybe Biden made contact with her that was short of groping, but still made her feel uncomfortable. Maybe it dealt with - again her earlier allegation - that she was asked to do work (serving drinks) that felt beneath her pay grade. I'm prepared to believe that, and still feel that Joe Biden is an immensely preferable chief executive to Donald Trump.

That charge, in fact, (Joe Biden was a little too touchy feely) likely didn't land when she made it a year ago, precisely because Biden has acknowledged and apologized for that behavior.  He still does weirdly intrusive stuff like sniffing babies heads, but he "gets it" that he shouldn't be hugging and touching the shoulders of people who might not want it.

When the charge of Biden Being Biden didn't register, a few months later, she came up with the allegation of sexual assault. And that's where we are now.  Biden's first live response to the allegations was measured and appropriate from someone who has a long record of working on women's issues.

While people have rightly compared Biden's behavior with Trump's, perhaps the more illustrative example is Al Franken.  Like Biden, Franken has a long record of supporting women's issues. Unlike Biden, Franken was accused to groping women.  Biden's intrusions into physical space is not limited by gender.  Secondly, and by far the most important point, no other women have come forward.

As Biden said in his statement, we need to believe women when they come forward, but we also need to subject the allegations to fair scrutiny. When the allegations against Franken came out, the first allegation was sketchy, precisely because the source was a conservative media personality, similar to how Reade has connections to the Sanders' campaign and a weird fascination with Putin. However, with Franken, more and more allegations tumbled out. Whether it's Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby or Donald Trump, sexual predation is not a one-time impulse; it's a defining personality trait, especially in powerful men who are often shielded from accountability. 

Joe Biden was powerful man such as those men. It is certainly likely that if he had engaged in pushing a female staffer up against the wall and shoving his hand inside her, that this was a behavior that we would see repeated.  Again, look at his behavior of touching people and crowding their physical space.  That's a behavior. He's trying to change it, but that is a real behavior ingrained over decades.

While it is certainly possible that Tara Reade is the only person upon whom he forced himself, it's unlikely. Combine that with the myriad inconsistencies and changes in her story, then add in her motives to smear Biden...it doesn't add up. Biden has made a judicious statement and been transparent to the degree that he needs to be.  (Karen Tumulty is wrong that Biden should open all of his Senate papers to opp researchers.  That's just stunningly naive, even for a pundit.)

Absent another accuser, Reade's allegations feel like an exaggeration of an uncomfortable moment or perhaps a conflict over work duties that has become a political cudgel without substantiation.