Saturday, May 02, 2020

What to do about Joe Biden?

God damn it, this is inconvenient. Biden has been accused of sexual assault. The details are disturbing. Now, what to do about it?

The "me too" part of me echoes the New York Times editorial: These allegations should be investigated. After all, every outraged comment from the left is lifted straight from the Republican playbook: "Why did she wait so long?" "But there are inconsistencies." "This happened 25 years ago, so who cares anyway?" "The other side is worse." "Other women in his office say he's been a perfect gentleman."

There's not a thing being said by the left, in objecting to further investigation, that wasn't said about Kavanaugh, or Clarence Thomas. 

Actually, that's not quite true. We on the left have added a new one: "She praised Putin!" Well, if that's not proof that she's lying, I don't know what is.

Unlike the accusations against Al Franken -- which were disheartening but not all that disturbing -- Biden is actually accused of violence -- of penetrating the accuser. That's a big deal. If a Republican candidate were accused of the same acts, we would be all over it -- as well we should be.

So as much as I would like this case to be different from Kavanaugh or Thomas, I just don't see how it is.

But then there's the "let's save the nation" part of me. Even if the accusations are proven true, I'm voting for Biden. So why go through the drama of investigating? Why risk the presidency? Why risk democracy? Besides, the other side really is worse. Trump has confessed to assault and has been accused numerous other times besides.

I can't, in good conscience, evaluate veracity based on whether the accused is red or blue. I need a standard that applies to both Democrats and Republicans. And that means we investigate, god damn it. And that really sucks.

That doesn't end the discussion, however. While it's important that we give accusers the benefit of the doubt initially, the accuser should still have the ultimate burden of proof. That's just as true when it's  a Republican who's being accused. We shouldn't unconditionally believe an accuser on one side of the aisle, but completely dismiss accusations from the other side.

So how to apply this to the present case? Reade has accused Biden of sexually assaulting her. So far, there's no more reason to disbelieve her than we would disbelieve any other accuser. The fact that she was a Bernie supporter is relevant, but certainly doesn't settle the issue.

She now has the burden of providing some evidence, if she can (and let's note that the absence of evidence doesn't mean the crime didn't occur, especially when it comes to rape).

As of this writing no documentation has found regarding Reade's accusations, and this is certainly a problem for Reade. She claims that she filed a sexual harassment complaint in 1993 and surely finding such a document would be important evidence, although not dispository.

The left likes to point out that no documentary evidence has been found. However, given the large volume of documents to be sifted through, it is too soon to conclude that no such evidence exists.

I will say this, though: While the nature of the accusations aren't substantially different in nature, there is one big, big difference between the accusations against Biden and those against Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Trump: Biden has invited an investigation (as did Franken). That speaks volumes.

But it doesn't negate the need for an investigation.

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