And on top of that, we’ve yet to see a Republican employ the ‘hypocrisy accusation’ tactic to say ‘you Democrats are so quick to dismiss Biden’s accuser, yet you never dismiss Trump’s accusers!’ Oddly enough, it’s always Kavanaugh who gets employed in that argument—never Trump. It’s absolutely, consistently predictable. (For obvious reasons, of course.)
I had thought I’d refrain from posting in this thread, given how attractive it’s been to account-writers who are clearly allergic to good-faith argumentation. But this is an avenue of attack that (just as clearly) will be employed again and again, even if Reade’s accusations are fully investigated and consequently discredited. Someone else will be brought forward.
So far, though, Reade is the best the right has been able to do. That’s actually fairly encouraging. If Trump can’t get China to cooperate with anti-Biden accusations (and his current posture toward China doesn’t seem likely to get them to help him out), and Ukraine is useless as a source of anti-Biden accusations, given the way it’s strongly associated with Trump’s penchant for extortion----well, what else can Trump come up with?
I do think they’ll bring forward another woman, if the Reade accusation fizzles. But if Reade was their best shot, then the tactic may backfire on the right–reminding many of Trump’s vulnerabilities, while failing to dirty-up Biden enough to make a difference.
This is a perfect example of how so many on the correct side of this issue are also suckers for right wing manipulation. You’ve got even the most basic fact about the Tweeden accusation wrong (it was a photo, not a video) and you’re uncritically accepting that Franken’s admission that the photo was real was a verification of the accusation (“Al Franken molested me while I was sleeping!!!”). I’ve seen claims by so-called Progressives all over the internets that Al Franken is a “serial abuser” because other women noted that he’s a physically forward guy who some times puts his hands on people (which includes the subset of ‘women’) without their prior approval. Like Biden does.
But because much of the “left” is humorless about many subjects, they a) didn’t get the context of the photo (a tour to entertain troops during which all parties -including Tweeden- catered to the mostly juvenile and mostly earthy tastes of military personnel (mostly men), and b) didn’t even get the fucking joke (Tweeden is wearing a flak jacket in the photo. Do you know how you can distinguish a male torso from a female torso by feeling their chest through that garment? Answer: you’d kinda have to guess based on the padding underneath; it’s an inherently ridiculous action for mock ‘lecher Al’ to feel up a woman wearing one.), and also c) didn’t or weren’t mentally equipped to consider the clear context of the accused’s career accomplishments, stance and policy priorities regarding literally every important issue regarding American women and women’s rights.
Don’t continue falling for stupifyingly clear rightwing ratfucking.
And excellent article and I hope an even better reminder of how democrats and progressives chose expedience over nuance to throw Franken under the bus without due process and because of panic and fear of a “bad news cycle”.
Also I thought that the chest is not a sexual organ. The narrative that I’ve seen put forward time and again by the woke crowd is that a woman’s breasts are not inherently sexual at all; that in fact women should be able to go topless, just as men do; that we need to “free the nipple” because the nipple is utterly void of any sexual meaning. It’s a chest.
Would it be reasonable to expect that before Obama, H. Clinton, Sanders and these endorsers voiced public support for Biden, they would have had their own people investigate Uncle Joe for any possible wrongdoing before they endorsed him and tied their personal reputations to his? I mean, I can’t believe the Obamas would endorse Biden without being damn sure they wouldn’t go down in history as backing a sexual abuser.
That this sort of “thinking” is not deemed inherently offensive is an indictment of this place.
Is routine mockery of people who’d prefer that the world be less of a rapist’s playground and willful misunderstanding of basic ideas acceptable here? I’d think you might be creating a very uncomfortable place for, oh I don’t know, most of the world’s population by allowing it?
Another way is that I don’t believe Obama would have picked a Vice President who was guilty of that and I don’t believe that the Republican operatives who threw everything to take down Obama (remember Larry Sinclair?) would have missed it.
Not really. It’s an indication that this place welcomes people willing to engage. Some of those people are assholes. I’ll admit that I’m an asshole sometimes. But people put their opinions and ideas out here for discussion, which is what Lamoral did.
I happen to agree that Lamoral’s opinion about what “woke” people say about women’s breasts is bullshit. Also offensive. But we can discuss it.
Lamoral, the point about “free the nipple” is a recognition of the disparity between the societal acceptance of male sexuality versus female sexuality; it’s not some sort of artificial blindness to the erotic nature of the female breast. “Woke” people recognize the nurturing nature along with the wonderful sexy nature of tits. Don’t be a dick.
The point is to accept the equal agency, equal relevance and equal rights of all genders and orientations. That’s all.
Never mind critical thinking, it lays bare the deep siege mentality of most people dismissing Reade, including you with things like bringing up Russia.
By the way, on re-read, I realize I forgot what forum I’m posting in. I may get a warning for the “don’t be a dick” comment, and I accept that. I want to say to Lamoral, I’m not calling you a “dick”. I just thought it might be a clever punnish admonition in context. I let my inner smartass out to play without recognizing the playground.
In the U.S. over 50 million women voted for Donald Trump. Some of your own statements might make them feel uncomfortable.
While women outside the U.S. tend to have a more uniformly negative view of Donald Trump than those here, that could lead many to require a high standard of proof when someone says Trump’s apparent chief electoral opponent is a rapist. And you don’t have to be male to question reliance on hearsay evidence.
It would be great if this board had more demographic diversity. But I would value ideological diversity more. And it might be that they would both go together.
I am not a Trumpist. But treating them as if they have cooties does no one good. And I’m going out on a limb and say that millions of women would agree with me. If they were here. Which you say, if I understand correctly, they are not.
“Deep siege mentality.” Gosh, wonder where that came from. And “bringing up Russia” as if that’s even relevant regarding Biden, Trump and the 2020 election.
And I kinda remember a guy, Senator in fact, who was being flamed for his choice of Vice President in 2008
John McCain knew every skeleton and where every body was buried. He could probably tell you about a senator who didn’t wash his hands in the men’s room and what color tie he was wearing that day back in 1992.
