If it wasn't obvious at the time, I think it's clear in retrospect that Tara Reade was effectively the nail in the coffin of the #MeToo movement. A movement which, regardless of the good it accomplished, was always fated to collapse under the weight of credibility concerns.
Not only did Reade turn out to be an unctuous Putin apologist, fu…
If it wasn't obvious at the time, I think it's clear in retrospect that Tara Reade was effectively the nail in the coffin of the #MeToo movement. A movement which, regardless of the good it accomplished, was always fated to collapse under the weight of credibility concerns.
Not only did Reade turn out to be an unctuous Putin apologist, further investigation revealed that she had a history of making dubious or ouright fraudulent assertions in her personal and professional life. Her claims regarding her educational and professional background, upon which she had served as an expert witness in several trials, were found to be fabrications. She could have been prosecuted for perjury had it been determined that her testimony was ultimately material to the cases in question.
You may also recall a separate accusation at the time which, ironically, ended up further dousing the flames of Reade's accusations. The daughter of one of Biden's old Delaware political rivals had claimed that decades ago, when she was around 14, he had made some inappropriate comments regarding her body at a political event. This story was notable for just how quickly it was snuffed out, as it was easily determined that Biden hadn't actually attended that event. At which point the accuser adjusted her story to state that it must have been from the same event the year prior. Turns out Biden wasn't at that one either.
But what was really notable about that case was the fact that the woman actually had several corroborating "witnesses" – which is to say, people who were willing to back her story up – despite the fact that it was patently false. For anyone paying attention, this was a harsh lesson in the limited value of so-called witness corroboration of events that are decades in the rear-view mirror – even assuming that people aren't outright lying. What we've learned in recent years about the reliability of human memory does not bode well for the veracity of witness testimony, long regarded as the gold standard of legal evidence. It's as sobering as it is chilling regarding its implications for past convictions.
Looking at Reade's cast of supporters, you see telltale signs of invented memory – stories changing with subsequent rationalizations, inaccurate recollections of the political atmosphere of the time, people who only recalled the events after having been prodded by Reid ("Oh yeah, you did tell me about that!"), etc. Yet pundit after pundit in mainstream publications – not to mention the various partisan rags – credulously accepted Reade's allegations based entirely on the "witness" count, tossing aside blatant contradictions with Reade's previous public statements as "revealing further details".
Ultimately, the Reade case forced people to acknowledge the untenable nature, however well intended, of "believe all women". Even more so, it shone a light on how readily pseudo-scientific claims from psychologists and therapists had created a standard by which claims of sexual misbehavior were rendered utterly unfalsifiable, under the belief that no contradiction in an accuser's story could be inconsistent with an expected pattern of jagged recollection. Combined with an understandable yet paternalistic, if not utterly infantalizing, ethic of hesitation to challenge public accusations on the basis of the chilling effect it will have on other victims, this creates an easily exploited culture of willful credulity.
For those of us in the Never Trump movement, what unites us is not necessarily shared politics, but a shared value for the essentiality of truth. And that includes acknowledging when, despite having incomplete information, the weight of evidence does not accord with our "priors" and suggests an inconvenient reality. This can't happen without standards of fairness and objectivity, and it's why modern social media "activist" movements, with their decentralized, grassroots nature and lack of accountability, are doomed to fail if their adherents do not value credibility and willingly submit to rigorous self-examination and mutual scrutiny.
If it wasn't obvious at the time, I think it's clear in retrospect that Tara Reade was effectively the nail in the coffin of the #MeToo movement. A movement which, regardless of the good it accomplished, was always fated to collapse under the weight of credibility concerns.
Not only did Reade turn out to be an unctuous Putin apologist, further investigation revealed that she had a history of making dubious or ouright fraudulent assertions in her personal and professional life. Her claims regarding her educational and professional background, upon which she had served as an expert witness in several trials, were found to be fabrications. She could have been prosecuted for perjury had it been determined that her testimony was ultimately material to the cases in question.
You may also recall a separate accusation at the time which, ironically, ended up further dousing the flames of Reade's accusations. The daughter of one of Biden's old Delaware political rivals had claimed that decades ago, when she was around 14, he had made some inappropriate comments regarding her body at a political event. This story was notable for just how quickly it was snuffed out, as it was easily determined that Biden hadn't actually attended that event. At which point the accuser adjusted her story to state that it must have been from the same event the year prior. Turns out Biden wasn't at that one either.
But what was really notable about that case was the fact that the woman actually had several corroborating "witnesses" – which is to say, people who were willing to back her story up – despite the fact that it was patently false. For anyone paying attention, this was a harsh lesson in the limited value of so-called witness corroboration of events that are decades in the rear-view mirror – even assuming that people aren't outright lying. What we've learned in recent years about the reliability of human memory does not bode well for the veracity of witness testimony, long regarded as the gold standard of legal evidence. It's as sobering as it is chilling regarding its implications for past convictions.
Looking at Reade's cast of supporters, you see telltale signs of invented memory – stories changing with subsequent rationalizations, inaccurate recollections of the political atmosphere of the time, people who only recalled the events after having been prodded by Reid ("Oh yeah, you did tell me about that!"), etc. Yet pundit after pundit in mainstream publications – not to mention the various partisan rags – credulously accepted Reade's allegations based entirely on the "witness" count, tossing aside blatant contradictions with Reade's previous public statements as "revealing further details".
Ultimately, the Reade case forced people to acknowledge the untenable nature, however well intended, of "believe all women". Even more so, it shone a light on how readily pseudo-scientific claims from psychologists and therapists had created a standard by which claims of sexual misbehavior were rendered utterly unfalsifiable, under the belief that no contradiction in an accuser's story could be inconsistent with an expected pattern of jagged recollection. Combined with an understandable yet paternalistic, if not utterly infantalizing, ethic of hesitation to challenge public accusations on the basis of the chilling effect it will have on other victims, this creates an easily exploited culture of willful credulity.
For those of us in the Never Trump movement, what unites us is not necessarily shared politics, but a shared value for the essentiality of truth. And that includes acknowledging when, despite having incomplete information, the weight of evidence does not accord with our "priors" and suggests an inconvenient reality. This can't happen without standards of fairness and objectivity, and it's why modern social media "activist" movements, with their decentralized, grassroots nature and lack of accountability, are doomed to fail if their adherents do not value credibility and willingly submit to rigorous self-examination and mutual scrutiny.