SIO236: Honestly Evaluating the Biden Accusation

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, this is episode 236, I'm Thomas Smith, and I'm coming at you by myself, solo show, I am also on a little bit of a different setup, because of quarantine, kids, yada, yada, all that stuff, quick couple notes before I get to this incredibly difficult episode, first off, it is, it was always hard for Jamie and I to record, we are on opposite sides of the coast, time difference, the kids, the schedules, everything, thing, but we were able to mostly do it before. Now it's, it's way more difficult. Our schedules are way less compatible than they were and they aren't, they weren't great to begin with, but now they are far less compatible because I have very select times that I can do anything now.

0:01:16 Thomas: Um, this is not to say that we can't record. We're, we're trying to find time. Hopefully we will record soon. But for now, my head is swimming with thoughts on today's topic, the Joe Biden accusation and more. And I just, I have to record. And Jamie was happy to bow out of this one. She didn't really, I think it's too depressing and difficult, and she didn't want to do it anyway. So I'm going to give you my thoughts. So about that, about me giving my thoughts, I I have been reading about this. I've been posting a little bit about this, but I don't want to get into that now. But at any rate, this has led me down a rabbit hole and it's gotten to the point where I just can't, I can't even think about anything else. I'm just so consumed by this thing.

0:02:03 Thomas: And what I'm finding really rough is how few, I don't know, of the kind of the usual sources online that I feel like I can trust. You know, this has been a problem with Me Too that we've worried about for a long time, which is, is it just Me Too when politically convenient or is it all the time? And then, you know, we all want it to be all the same, but then conveniently it also tends to line up with what we politically want. All that kind of stuff. And I've just been worried that there hasn't been a real honest conversation about this, that it's filled with bad faith a lot of the time. And so with that in mind, again, this is another privileged dude giving opinions on this kind of thing.

0:02:51 Thomas: And if you don't want to hear it, that's just turn it off. I have no hard feelings on that. But, like, the only reason I'm doing this is I just really worry about how little honesty there has been in a lot of this conversation. You know, I'm sure there are places, I'm sure there plenty of individuals who are dealing with this, grappling with it as honestly as they can, but a lot of these media sources that are, you know, are our go to's, or goes to, either one, I just, just feel so, it's so hard to trust, you know, because there's been so, what I want to do is just, what I'm going to do, is give you what has been my honest grappling with this, is difficult, has been, has been very, very difficult.

0:03:37 Thomas: It's, it's hard to know when to push record on episodes like these. Cause I just keep reading and reading and thinking, reading, reading. And I have really gone all over the place on this. I promise you, I have, I've, I, in some ways I haven't known where I'm going to end up, you know? And that's the process that, that's because if there's anything that I've done my best to give to you guys that, that I have heard that people value from time to time, uh, and, and it's, it's hard in this polarized world, but it is that my, my best effort at an honest process, you know, and, and that's what I give you. And, and I guess the only thing I'll say, if anybody doesn't know me, um, is listening to this, I would say that this is coming from someone who very, very, very, very much takes Me Too seriously, and, uh, it's not just a matter of political convenience, inconvenience.

0:04:30 Thomas: And just two examples, I think, I don't know, maybe one's more important than the other. But to me, they were both very, very difficult. One would be Louis C.K., my favorite comedian of all time. And I'm not making that up. You can go back in the history of before I knew about the accusations against him, how much I would talk about him. I love Louis CK's comedy. I loved his work. I loved the show Louis. I was a huge fan of it. But I had to kill that hero because the, the accusations were credible and they're disturbing and he didn't deal with it right. And he hasn't made amends for it. And, uh, so he's kind of, kind of dead to me. And that was a really hard process. The other would be Al Franken. Um, I was a huge fan of Al Franken and I had just read his book, uh, Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, still sitting on my bookshelf.

0:05:17 Thomas: It is, I still find it inspiring. Um because you know, if, if I could imagine someone who's not Al Franken doing those things. It's still an inspiring story. Someone who didn't also, you know, abuse people. Uh, it's an inspiring storytelling that he told and it really had an effect on me. And I was, you know I was thinking about Al Franken for president a little bit, you he, he was doing such a good job. And, uh, when it was one sort of questionable accusation, it was, it one thing. And then when it became many, uh more than than one accusation, especially from people who were were Democrats, people who I say people, it's women, obviously women who were Democrats women who Were his fan. And then we're like, yeah, I can't believe he did this to me. It was a betrayal of trust.

0:06:03 Thomas: Yeah, I believe them. And it was really hard. But that's another hero killed. So this is, this is, I done my best. Nobody is free of bias. I don't think we can be, I think it's unrealistic to expect we are, but I really have done my best with this to honestly evaluate it, and I've gone back and forth. Okay, so what are we talking about? Well, if you don't know, there's a woman named Tara Reid. She has a few other names you may see referenced. She's changed her name, I believe, partially. One of the times she changed it was because of a bad divorce, that kind of thing. Not really material, other than if you see a different name, that would be why.

0:06:50 Thomas: But Tara Reid seems to be what she's going by now, to the best of my knowledge. And she has accused Joe Biden, and again, content warning, I don't plan on going into any too much gruesome detail, but just about to describe what happened, so content warning on that. Uh, he, according to her accusation, in 1993 he kind of cornered her and, uh, was, was trying to kiss her and digitally penetrated her, uh, and, and there's a little more to it, in terms of, he also, she also says that he was just, um, very, like the stuff we already kind of know about Joe Biden, handsy, you know, that kind of inappropriate touching, all that stuff.

0:07:37 Thomas: She also alleged that first, and then she has now added to that and said that there is more to it. And I have read so much about this. I initially shared the salon piece by Amanda Marcotte. Gosh, I can't remember if it's Marcotte or Marcotti. I've known that information and lost that information several times. Apologies. I've heard it going both ways, referred to. But anyway, I've shared that initially, and now I'm a little worried that some components of that article are perhaps a little too, what's the word, that she used language that I think kind of subtly undermined Tara Reid's story in ways that I don't think were appropriate.

0:08:24 Thomas: And I also read this Jezebel article that is similar. It's by Emily Alford. And it's, these two articles are more about the idea, like, why isn't the media talking about this, you know? And there are people on the far, I, well, okay, I'll call it mainly the Bernie, it's mainly the Bernie Sanders left, who are crying conspiracy that the mainstream media is not covering this. And then there was an attempt by Emily Alford and Amanda Marcotti, um, to kind of highlight, highlight some problems with the story and why people, media sources might not be wanting to talk about it. So initially I was going down that rabbit hole, and I have some thoughts on that, because I think there's something to that.

0:09:10 Thomas: It is true that if you're a major media source or corporation or whatever, you need to be careful legally about what you can and can't say. And vetting these accusations is very important, and it's why, you know, by the time these accusations get to major media sources, usually you can bet that the, it's not just a haphazard thing, like, you, you should know that if you're, if you're at all informed about this, you know, this is not a haphizard thing, this is NOT, okay, we'll hear your story and publish it uncritically, you know?

It's another reason why I've been so, I don't know what the right word is, but like, so pro Me Too, in that I don't think that people are lying. I don't think that people are making this stuff up. I don't, I also think that, you know, by the time you're seeing a lot of these things, whether it's the accusations against Kavanaugh or whether it's against, you know, Weinstein, you know, those, those especially, I mean, so much effort is made to not just listen to a first person story and publish it. Like that's usually not enough for these companies, for these papers, papers, whatever, sources, what do you call them now? They're everywhere, every different kind of media, but these media sources, I guess is what I'll say. That's, that's not enough. You know, that, that doesn't cover their asses enough legally. You You need to have made an attempt to verify the facts yourself. That's the standard. You know, we talk about it on Opening Arguments. And I'm going to tell you right now, I've also had to discuss this with my lawyer about stuff I've tried to do on this show.

0:10:58 Thomas: There have been a couple of times where I've come very close to trying to publish episodes with accusations against people. But you have to be careful, and it's not just for me, it's for the people who would go on the record. There are certain legal standards that you have to meet to be sure. And by the way, even if you meet them, that doesn't mean you can't be sued, that just means you're likely to win, but that entails being sued, which can be a costly, costly process. And it's frankly a way that a lot of people continue to get away with this stuff, is that they have more money and resources, and they can use the legal system to bully people.

0:11:47 Thomas: And that's just the truth. And you know, that sucks about our system. And the, the couple times that this has almost happened, I wasn't able to meet that threshold. And I can't, I'm not saying anything about who this involves or anything, because I wasn't able to meet that threshold. And, and uh, it wasn't, and again, in it wasn't about me, I wasn't worried about covering my ass, it was about the, the people who were considering speaking out, it was, was about protecting them, and they, and not me protecting them, protecting them. I mean, we went through a whole conversation process, and in the end, it's just too scary to imagine being sued and having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on, uh, on defense.

0:12:33 Thomas: So that is a very real concern. And when I read the salon piece by Amanda Marcotti and the Jezebel piece, which I'll link both of those, um, I think that's definitely a factor here because when it comes to this this accusation by Tara Reid, there are many legitimate concerns with her credibility. I think, I think there are, there Are reasons and there are there's so it's already hard enough to try to corroborate these stories, you know, because one of the major problems is it is he said, she said a lot of the time. And but one thing you can do, one thing that is is very compelling and shows at least the legal standard that you tried to verify it, which, you know, as long as you have, I think as long As you haven't shown reckless disregard for the truth, that's usually the New York Times we solve and standard we talked about in opening arguments when you're dealing with public figures.

0:13:30 Thomas: And it was even worse, by the way, if you ever try to publish anything about someone who's not really a celebrity, it's a harder standard. So, like, I can't, if I get on here and try to talk about my neighbor or something and try to expose them, you know, that's, that I'm far more likely to be sued than if I'm talking about a public figure. Now, that being said, Biden is obviously a public figure by any, any definition. So it is New York Times to. Solvent, but there's still a responsibility that you have not shown reckless disregard for the truth. And you could get into legal trouble if there's any argument to be made. And this is, again, this is my opinion, I'm not a lawyer, but this is from my experience with it, so take it with a grain of salt. But journalistic enterprises want to make sure that they've made every effort to verify what they report in general when it comes to things like these.

0:14:23 Thomas: And so that involves tracking down, did you tell anyone at the time? Okay, where were you? What do you remember? Who did you talk to? And you do things like verify that Tara Reid even worked for Biden, which of course she did. You know, that's something that's easy to verify. Verify who you talk to, that kind of thing. And according to Amanda Marcotti in Salon, Salon tried to get those corroborating sources. And the only two that I'm seeing that anybody has been able to confirm with is Tara. I think it was her brother and a friend, and there might have been two friends, but either way, in the current affairs piece that I'm also going to reference a lot here, there's both an interview published by Katie Halper.

0:15:16 Thomas: I think this is the written version of the podcast interview, so that's what eventually ended up happening. Tara Reid said that basically nobody would take her up on her story, so she eventually had to go to, she was referred to Katie Halper, who is a podcaster, I guess she's also a comedian, some sort of director, I don't know much about her, but I do know that she co-hosts podcast with Matt Taibbi, who's one of my least favorite authors, uh, a Russia denialist kind of person, along with, uh, kind of like Greenwald, that camp. So this has been one of those difficult things, and, and just to step back for a minute, this is, this is one of the tough parts about this whole thing. Again, so many people were like, well, I know this person's motivation, like, I know where they're coming from, I know where this other person is, is coming from on the other side.

0:16:13 Thomas: And I know why I typically take what they say with a grain of salt in certain ways. But all that being said, I've been quite surprised to find who I've ended up siding with on this. So anyway, she did the interview with Katie Halper. And then there's a text version on current affairs. And dann there's also a piece that Nathan J. Robinson, who's like like the main guy for Current Affairs, I've talked about from time to time. He wrote an article called Evaluating Tara Reade's Allegation Against Joe Biden. And there's that. And there is also, so another thing that's made the rounds is a Medium post by the Krasensteins that has highlighted, like, you know, problems with the story kind of thing.

0:17:01 Thomas: Here's reasons why Tara Reid, it's called Evidence Cast Doubt on Tara Reid's Sexual Assault Allegations of Joe Biden. And I've taken all this in. I've gone over it a lot of times. And so let's talk about the problems, I suppose. The Krasensteins highlight that she has an interesting history on Twitter. She has some really weird pro-Russia stuff that makes no sense. Praising Putin and And all the same. And I, I, some people are saying she was like, oh, is she a Russian asset? You know, that's nonsense. It's obviously nonsense that I don't really think anybody serious thinks that.

0:17:47 Thomas: But it is just weird that she posted like just it's bizarre. You know, it's one of those things where like, if we talk about our principles, and maybe this is something I meant to do at the outset and I didn't, the principle of believing women, in, you know, in my opinion, and not just me, people like Rebecca Traster has a good quote on this. It was never about anything, any woman says about anything, is the truth. That's the straw man version.

That's obviously not what was meant by that. What I believe was meant Byatt in my opinion, and again, as a dude, you maybe you've turned this off long ago, and that's, that's fine. I don't even want to hear my own thoughts about this, but I can't stop thinking about it. And I, I haven't liked what I've seen in a lot of places, so that's why I'm here.

Anyway, my version of believing women, believe, hashtag believe women, is that we needed to change how we thought about these things. In the past, people were very skeptical of, uh, of accusations, and it was, it revolved around the men. It revolved around, uh, poking holes in the credibility of the the victims and saying, ah, well, we can't know. You know, it's the whole ethic of approach the accusations with more respect, and realize, realize that statistically there are not very many false accusations. And realize that there is so much more for women to lose by coming forward than they ever gain. Nobody gains anything from this, you know. Nobody who directly talks about the... Now, maybe some other people gained from it either way. But like, you know, Dr. Ford is still, as far as I know, is still worried about her life.

0:19:36 Thomas: Like, she had to go into hiding, her family. You know, nobody profits on that. This isn't a thing that women do for funsies or for profit. It just does not work like that. It's, it, far more often, if not almost every single time, it more often ruins their lives that they come forward, and yet they still do it, which is incredible bravery. And it's, so that's what believe women is about. It's not to say that that means you believe every woman about everything, because it is, pop, you know, statistically there are a few false accusations, you know, strategically it does. And we know there are problematic examples involving race. It used to be that women's accusations were used as a tool of racism against black men, for example.

0:20:24 Thomas: There are times when there are false accusations, and you have to do your best to evaluate them, but believing women means shifting to be more accurate to the truth. You know, rather than being hyper skeptical of victims' claims, it means shifting that and realizing more often than not, they're probably telling the truth and trying to evaluate it from that point of view. So that's what it means to me.

0:20:51 Thomas: And it still means you need to do your best, to everyone's got to do the rest, to evaluate what they think the truth is. And in an effort to do that, I've tried to read everything I can about Tara Reid, and read things she's written on her Medium account, on her Twitter, which is now protected, but there are many tweets that are saved that people have. And it's weird, I'll be frank, it's bizarre.

In fact, if you read the first Medium post that I see that she did on this, it was about a year ago, and that was when she talked about Biden just being like handsy, kind of that kind of behavior, which was gross, I'm not making light of it, I'm just saying she initially only talked about that component of it, and the fact that he would do the stuff that he's, that we all know he does, that has been reported to have done, and that we've seen him on video doing, which is like kissing weird times, and it's just super inappropriate. I've always hated that about Biden. And it's yet another reason why I don't, I wish he weren't our candidate. But I'm, I'm not, I'm doing my best to just talk about the accusation for now. And then if we have time later, I'll talk about the ethics around the voting and all that stuff, because that, that I also have a ton of thoughts on.

But I think it's kind of a separate thing for now, and I want to just mainly talk about the the accusation. So all that being said, trying to evaluate for this, for myself, for, for one thing, we already know Joe Biden is inappropriate, and again, I wish he were not our candidate right now, and I wish more voters had taken the concerns about him being inappropriate seriously. And I, I also want to say we already had a credible accusation from Lucy Flores of a weird thing.

0:22:43 Thomas: You know, again, it's not the same level of... I guess you wouldn't say it's technically sexual assault, because this was a kiss to the back of her head, maybe, is that technical, I don't know. Anyway, is not digital penetration like this current accusation is, from Tara Reid, but this, this was last year, and it somehow hasn't made a difference. You know, this was, this was Lucy Flores. And she, she said that before they're about to go on stage for a rally, Joe Biden comes up behind, this is in 2014, when he was VP, he comes out behind her and like smells her hair and gives her a kiss on the back of the head. This is gross stuff.

And I, you, know, maybe I didn't make enough of this. I, I'm having a hard time remembering now because of how much has happened since then, but you know, I, I hope that I covered this, and I honestly don't remember, but Joe Biden has been handsy and gross, and it comes from, a I think it, it comes from a feeling of ownership over women's bodies and not having much regard. Now, there's also tons of examples of him doing it with men, actually, but it's not the same. He does some stuff with men that's like, okay, he's just a handsy guy, sure, but I don't for a minute believe that he's smelling men's hair and kissing men on the back of the head in that way.

0:24:15 Thomas: I don't really think there will be any examples of that, and I think that even if you could even if you could find an example, it's still really fucking inappropriate. And especially when you read this accusation by Lucy Flores from last year, which again, she talked about it last year, but it happened in 2014. There's a lot of that in this. There is a lot keeping dates straight and all these things.

0:24:43 Thomas: It's gut-wrenching to read. And again, this is a Democrat. You know, not, again, not that it, it wouldn't disprove it if she was a Republican, by any means, but, like, it's an, it's another level of credibility when it's like, yeah, no, I was a fan of this. It's the same way that it was such a, uh, devastating, uh, thing for the, uh, the Al Franken accusations, was to realize that so many of these women, like, were looking up to him and trying to get a get a photo with him because they looked up to hem, you know, like, what, that, it's, it's even more gut-wrenching and, and horrible to, to read about, you know, in the, in the same way, yeah, Lucy Flores is a Democrat. Uh, I believe she still is. She certainly was at the time. And, uh, to have the Democratic Vice President of the United States doing this to her is just, it's devastating.

0:25:36 Thomas: It's gross. And I wish it had knocked Biden out of the race a year ago. Um, more on that later, but, but anyway, all this is to say that going into this, I very much think that it's not at all outlandish that there are going to be accusations of inappropriate stuff against Joe Biden. Now, so far, they've all been more along the lines of this, like a smelling the hair thing, a handsiness, whatever. And this is the only one that I know of. And maybe there will be more. I feel like we would have seen them by now, but maybe not. Um, people don't come forward again. There's nothing, they don't have a lot to gain, but, um, this is the first one that I know of that's of any sort of actual sexual penetration kind of thing.

0:26:27 Thomas: Um. So all that is to say that, like, I could see a world in which Joe Biden was just super awkward around boundaries, which is still not okay, but also never ever committed like criminal sexual assault. Like, I could, that world could exist. Um, but it's also true that if someone feels like they are entitled to someone's bodies, especially in 1993, long before any of the, you know, long before Me Too, and all this stuff, that that same mindset that makes you think you're entitled to touch women all these ways could lead you to commit something. So I see both of those as plausible things. I don't think one or the other necessarily means that the other happened, is what I'm trying to say.

0:27:15 Thomas: So all this is to say that I'm like, I'm very open either way on this, like going into this accusation, this one accusation that I want to focus on next year.

0:27:34 Thomas: I'm lots of weird things that she has said. You know, there are things like, well, there's also the fact that she was praising Joe Biden up until a year or two ago. In fact, specifically about standing up for women. She praised Joe Biden for standing up for woman just a few years ago.

0:27:56 Thomas: There are minor inconsistencies about like, oh, how did she travel to her new job? I don't really find that Not terribly compelling, but in one story she said she drove, and then in the other she said she flew somewhere. Eh, whatever. This is from 1993. It's not unreasonable to imagine you might misremember something like that or give a few different versions, but the Russia stuff is very weird. It feels easy to believe, especially if you're someone who has dealt with far Bernie-left left people that I've had negative experiences with, it's not hard to believe that the fact that her accusation is timed with her starting to support Bernie Sanders, like, oh, is there something there?

0:28:49 Thomas: Was that incentive for her, kind of thing? And that's something the Krasen scenes in the Medium article try to talk about. So, you know, there are a few other reasons. Those are the main things, um, that that call her into question, like, and if you read her original posts about, it's called like, "A Girl Walks into the Senate," I'll link it, it's again, it's on Medium, that one's from a year ago, it's, a it's odd, I find it, I find the way it's written about it odd. So those are reasons when you're reading something that it's, it's like, okay, is this somebody, because, because, like, you have to think about, like. Who's the kind of person who would fabricate an accusation? And you'd have to thing that, you know.

0:29:35 Thomas: That takes a certain kind of a person. And I think all of us are trying in our minds to be like. Well, who would do this? What kind of people would do It's the same thing we do with, you now, like Serial and all that. Well, I did Adnan do it? Is he the kind person? Is he talking like a person who did it or a person that didn't do it? It's really hard. But at the same time, I think we can't resist it. We can't resist trying to find that truth for ourselves and and what what patterns of behavior we think are compatible with people who did do something versus people who didn't. There are times in that first post where she types out like conversations she said she had, which to me sound completely nonsense. Like, I just it's very difficult for me to believe that they're real.

0:30:20 Thomas: Uh, like, for example, she says, "After my story was published in the Union" - again, this is about when she said Joe Biden inappropriately touched her, this is before she talked about digital penetration, this is the first time she came out with this - "the internet troll started, and within 24 hours there's a conspiracy blaming the Russians. Again, a distant cousin called me and said, stuttering, 'I just finished watching The Americans.' The tweets say you're an illegal, a Russian agent. Head slams on keyboard. 'Um, what is that show?' I ask. 'And I am related to you.'"

She is laughing now and said, "I know, but you're writing those blogs, I'm gonna create..." You know, and that's talking about when she wrote all this weird stuff about Russia, and then she said, you know, her excuse is essentially that Gnome she was reading Gnome Chomsky and that, like, which actually doesn't make sense because Gnome Chomsky isn't pro-Putin, so that's another weird thing about it. Here, I'll just read, I don't want to misrepresent it. So then it continues, and again, this is all from Tara Reed's Medium post, quote, "I am in a creative writing group and writing a novel.

The poetry is part of the novel and the blogs, because I watch and read a lot of Noam Chomsky. I dislike xenophobia. I will not be told by the power elite what country to like. I love many cultures, Russian, Italian, and the food. I mean, I speak some Spanish, Italian too, and I like to explore, to learn about other people. Since when did exploring our world and views become so wrong? I am upset now and feel defensive. Again, somehow, me, me talking about what happened. What Joe Biden did to me is my fault. And I did not even tell the whole story."

0:31:52 Thomas: The small portion that did come out of what Joe Biden did to result in me being bullied and threatened to silence. She ponders and replies, hmm, well, this Norm Chomsky is a dissident, right? I sighed. It's gnome. Quote, yeah, right.

0:32:07 Thomas: So that's the end of that conversation. That strains credulity to me. I have a very hard hard time believing that that conversation took place. Like someone called and was like, I just watched the Americans. Are you one of those? And it's like, I'm related to you. What? Okay. So either she has the weirdest, dumbest cousin I've ever heard of, or that's kind of a fake conversation. But here's the thing though. None of this means that what she said about Joe Biden in 1993 is wrong. Ultimately, I've kind of tried to summarize a few of the reasons why people are finding her hard to believe. And I think they're not terrible reasons. There are some decent reasons to find her somewhat questionable.

0:32:58 Thomas: But the thing is, somewhat questionable people get sexually assaulted all the time. People who, I don't, for whatever reason, seem not entirely credible can still get sexually assaulted. And as I've gone through this, I have really gone every different direction for a while. I thought like, Oh, maybe this is fake. Cause it really does seem like, you know, as it seemed like this is a, someone who really supports Bernie, who then like has changed your story, dah, dah. And I was thinking maybe, maybe, this isn't, maybe maybe this is one of the few fake accusations.

0:33:37 Thomas: And then I've read, and honestly, you guys know, I think, how I feel about Current Affairs and Nathan J. Robinson. And I can't remember if I've talked about it on the show, but I think the way he talked about the Elizabeth Warren-Bernie Sanders conversation was a disgrace. I think that was a farce. I completely disagree with what he said on that. And I'm still mad about that.

I'm still mad about all of the Bernie supporters who a few months ago were telling you for 100% certain that Elizabeth Warren was a lying snake for her version of a conversation, which she said Bernie suggested a woman might not be able to win. And, by the way, three of her staffers corroborated this, whom she told after the fact, right after the meeting is what they said. It. And Nathan J. Robinson and that component of the Bernie Brigade is happily calling her a liar for that. 100% she's a lying snake, 100 million percent true to that. And then now, all of a sudden, they believe all women. And I think it's valid to be a little frustrated about that.

Having said all that, if you read Nathan J. Robinson's piece evaluating Tara Reid's allegation against Joe Biden, which, again, I've pointed out that I'm not a huge fan of his or Current Affairs, but I read that and I cannot help but say that I think he's more right about this than people like Amanda Marcotti are, which is hard, because I initially thought that Marcotti article was good. But he points out there are many ways that Amanda Marcotte kind of undermines Tara Reid subtly with a language, um, and he also says, and this is the thing, unless Nathan J. Robinson is just a total liar, which, I is possible, but I don't really think is true, he is saying that he has talked to Tara Reid extensively, who also, by the way, Salon did as well, um, has talked to, uh, Tara. He also said that he talked to her friend Sarah, which is probably not her real name, I'm guessing.

Uh, and the brother and the brother even says, um, woefully, "I did not" this is a quote "Woefully, I did not encourage her to follow it up. I wasn't one of her better advocates. I said, let it go, move on, guys are idiots." Uh, when I actually end quote. But I'm going to, I'm gonna read more from the Current Affairs article.

0:36:16 Thomas: When I asked Sarah, if the account Tara had given to the press is consistent with what she said in 1993, Sarah said that it was, she confirmed that Sarah had had called her on the phone shortly after the incident happened and was very distraught about it. Sarah says the news left her in absolute shock at the time.

0:36:33 Thomas: I, I find that incredibly convincing, I'll be honest. That's, that's what I'm looking for, as just a dude. I'm looking for, did you tell someone at the time, and are they willing to corroborate it?

And if you told a couple of people at the Times, by the way, and, and again, this isn't to to say that it's false if you didn't like, of course, there are many instances of sexual assault where the victim didn't tell anybody and probably has absolutely no way to corroborate it, and if they tried to tell you the story, it would be, it would b you would put, I don't know, the media would put them in a tough position, because they probably wouldn't be able to publish it even if it was 100% true, but they they aren't.

So it isn't to say if you don't, if you didn't tell somebody that it didn't happen. I don't, by any means, want to suggest that it's just, when you're, when I'm trying to evaluate somebody who I don't even get to talk to, and, you know, there are a lot of people out there, you know, it's, there are plenty of bad people out there, and who knows, if in a very heated political moment a bad person would want to make up a thing, that's possible.

But when I see even somebody who I don't really trust a whole lot, Nathan J. Robinson, so I disagree with him on a lot, but I also agree with him a lot, by the way, uh, but I'm still just so mad over that article about, uh, about that Bernie and Warren conversation, that really pissed me off, um, but anyway, when I seen him say, I have talked to these people, and here's the quote from the brother and the sister and all that, or sorry, the brother in the friend, that's compelling to me. And honestly, that, that

0:38:12 Thomas: That's enough for me to say, like, this, this probably happened, you know, because in general, I believe women, and I believe in evaluating these things properly. Now, unless Nathan J. Robinson is just completely full of shit, and I don't really think he is, it would be incredibly irresponsible of him to fabricate any of this. I - this, this seems plausible to me, and it's hard to deal with, you know, but but like in the end, is it that hard to imagine that Joe Biden in 1993, who we already know is handsy and inappropriate all the time, that he might have tried to come on to this woman in a totally inappropriate way? Is it that hard to believe? I mean, in a vacuum, as I already kind of outlined from the beginning, in a vacuum it's not hard to believe at all. I could totally see it being, okay, the case, in a vacuum, just without looking at the story or the accuser. So I don't know, you know, I, I don't think this is like as certain as the Christine Blasey Ford accusation.

That one is, so I would bet my entire fortune of, of my house and my cats and follow, that I would bet all everything I own on that one because she was incredibly, incredibly believable and credible and told her therapist and had those corroborating things. Like, that's, I think that one is farm, it's, I'm far more certain about that one than this one. Like, I'm not a hundred percent, I'm very certain about Christine Blase Ford. I'm less certain about this. And so to say that if you are treating, if you were not treating this one exactly like that one, that you're, you know, somehow, I

0:40:01 Thomas: Don't know, completely a hypocrite, I don't think that's quite right. I think this is a harder story to vet than that one, but ultimately I think this is true unless somebody posed, you know, unless this person Tara is so devious that she hired someone to, or got her brother and her friend to say that this happened. It didn't, I, you You know, like, do you find that more likely? I don't know. I don't. Now, so here's the other thing, Amanda Marcotti in Salon said that they weren't able to talk to the brother and the friend. And that bothered me a lot. And there's a lot in the Current Affairs piece about how it's so wrong that Amanda Marcotti said that the mainstream media isn't covering this because of the credibility issues.

0:40:54 Thomas: And Nathan J. Robinson really disagrees with that. That part, I don't agree with him as much on. I think both things can be true. So Nathan J. Robinson's theory on this is that he already told Tara Reid that Amanda Marcotti was not acting in good faith. And so that's why the brother and the friend wouldn't talk to Amanda Marcotti, which I think is pretty bogus in and of itself. I mean, if your whole thing is, no, Amanda Marcotte is not going to be objective.

So, don't give her the corroborating evidence she needs to tell your story. And then, lo and behold, in her piece, she says, they wouldn't talk to me. So, that may be why other media sources aren't going with this. Can you blame her? What was she supposed to do? If you poisoned the well for Tara Reid and said, don's talk to her.

Her and so oh by the way Tara Reid did talk to Amanda Marcotti, but so, which, which makes it even more confusing, it makes me believe Nathan J. Robinson's theory on this point less, you know, if Tara Reid talked to her but then the brother and the friend wouldn't, that's what's weird to me, that's still bothers me, I still don't get it, that's why I've gone every direction on this, you know, like before I go back, I'm gonna, I'm gonna read from the article a little bit to highlight what I'm talking about, but I do want to, I'm to switch back on you, this is why this has been so hard, I'm, I'm of a million minds on this, but I just, I want to do my best to find the truth, I want to do my best, and one place where I think Nathan J. Robinson is absolutely right, and Amanda Marcotti, I think did a bad thing a little bit, even though again I, I previously praised that article, I think I was maybe wrong, is that she kept saying, she says that, uh, her story changed.

So Amanda says that Tara's story changed, but that's not really true. I think Robinson is more correct on this. Her story was incomplete and then was more complete, but she never said like, well, Joe Biden only did this to me. She said that here's what Joe Biden did. I actually just read it in the Medium piece and I hadn't noticed it until I read it to you guys. In that Medium piece from a year ago, she even says that there's more to this story, so that's not changing your story, and to represent it as changing your story is pretty inaccurate. And you know, here's the thing, it is very hard and

0:43:29 Thomas: Maybe impossible to know for sure how victims will react to stuff, and a lot, I think I've talked about on this show and there's been good, uh, work done on this, um, in psychology, college, you know, that kind of stuff. Like, it's hard to know how people will respond to being victimized. And it's important, I think, to educate yourself, especially if you're just a dude like me, about the range of responses that can happen. You know, and because people might think that, oh, but she praised Joe Biden in 2017, like, how could you possibly have been a victim, or you know, and that kind of stuff.

Like, why did it take so long? But that kind of thing. And honestly, like, it's entirely possible that for whatever reason, maybe, maybe could have been political too, but because, by the way, she's still a lefty, like she's, she presents herself, Tara does, as left of Warren and Bernie. So for a while, it might have been for any number of reasons that she might have not told her story and, and maybe even downplayed in her mind. Who knows? Maybe for all the, all the Obama years or whatever, you know, maybe it was like, well, who knows? Like, maybe she told herself some story.

Yeah, maybe I, uh, maybe I flirted with him. Who knows? Who knows, that we know that happens? We know that sometimes victims blame themselves for a while. Um, sometimes maybe forever. Sometimes they, they downplay what happened, sometimes they feel a weird loyalty toward their abusers, so they don't want to say, like, all of, there are examples of all of these ranges of behavior and then sometimes they

0:45:18 Thomas: Change their mind. Sometimes they realize, like, you know, I've been defending this person or I've been not speaking the truth or I'd been downplaying it in my own mind. Like, the, I know people who have done this, so you can't sit here and say that because she praised Joe Biden two years ago or whatever, that that means this didn't happen, because we just know that things are more complicated than that, especially when it was a different time.

You know, it might have taken Tara a while to really feel comfortable sharing her story because we're in a different time now. Maybe in 1993 no one would, would have listened to her, you know, maybe no one did or no one would have, and so it wasn't worth it, so she downplayed it, downplay to downplay it and you know, I'm sure she didn't forget about it, but downplay, downplay, and then all of a sudden things are kind of different and she wants to share it and she's come to terms with what happened to her. That's entirely possible. This is, I, I want to emphasize this is all me speculating, but I am saying that I know people, not, not just of people.

Like, I know people personally who have had these ranges of responses, and I'm sure you probably do too, or maybe you are that person, who have had, you know, people respond in weird ways to being victims of things like this, in ways that, and I say weird ways that we wouldn't really expect if, if we didn't, if you didn't know better, you know, ways that seem, seem odd to people without that experience.

0:46:50 Thomas: So it's hard to, you know, you can't just use what you expect her to do and then say, well, she didn't do what I expected her to do. So she must be lying. That's just not how it works. So, uh, I I'm, I'm going to go back to that thing I was talking about. Uh, but after having just said that, I think Nathan J. Robinson's is absolutely right on, on that previous point on this point, I, going back to the fact that the brother and the friend would not talk to him in a Marcotti. I find this part a little weird. Here, I will read from the article just to give you more clarity on this. So, it starts, this paragraph starts with, and this is again from Nathan J. Robinson, current affairs article, will be linked. Feminist writer Katha Pollitt also said it was not a good sign that the brother and friend aren't responding to reporters' queries.

0:47:40 Thomas: But the truth is they didn't respond to Marcotti's queries. They have spoken to multiple other reporters. Back before the story came out, I actually warned Tara myself during our conversation that it didn't sound from Marcotti's inquiries that she was interested in being fair and recommended being cautious about her. I think that concern was vindicated. Marcotti used the fact that she couldn't get a comment from Tara's brother and friend as one of the red flags that justified the media's silence on Tara's accusation.

She did not present readers with an alternate possibility that they didn't want to speak to a writer who seemed as if she was preparing to publicly smear Tara. I think this shows how accusers simply can't win when it comes to dealing with the press. If they talk to all reporters, some will inevitably twist their words and take them out of context, while if they are more guarded and selective, their caution will be seen as a sign that they're suspicious and have something to hide.

So I don't really buy this, to be honest with you, because again, we know that Tara did talk to Amanda Marcotti. So from Nathan J. Robinson's version, it's that when Amanda was putting out feelers, God, is it Marcotte? It's probably Marcotte. I've probably been doing it the wrong way with it. When Amanda Marcotte has been so stupid, I so bad with this stuff. Sorry, names. I, I, I get the information and I instantly forget it. My strength is not in pronunciations of names and remembering names.

That's not my strength as a person, and I recognize that, and I apologize. But anyway, Marcotte's, uh, I'll go back, I would do both so that I was both right and wrong at the whole time. Anyway, so his version is Marcotte, uh, put out some feelers and inquiries, uh, to talk to them, and that then Nathan J. Robinson warned Tara, like, oh, I don't know if she's, you know, uh, I don't think she's interested in being fair, but then what are we to believe, that then Tara talked to her, but then the

0:49:34 Thomas: Brother and the friend wouldn't. So, like, your solution to Amanda maybe not being fair, in your opinion, is, "I'll talk to her, BUT DON'T GET A QUOTE FROM MY," my corroborating sources. That is, that is hard for me to believe. I mean, if that's what happened, that's the, that's an incredibly bad way to do things. Like, it, it would be one thing if nobody talked to Marcotte. If Tara didn't talk to Marcott, if Tara's brother and friend didn't talk to Marcotte, then you could say, well, they just didn't want to cooperate because they didn't think they would get a fair treatment. And honestly, maybe that's true. I wouldn't find, I, that that hard to believe, you know, but the fact that they talked to Tara at length, like all of Salon, they interviewed her for this and they talked to her at length.

0:50:20 Thomas: But then they decided not to have the corroborating sources. Just give them like one quote. Like, "Yes, she told me this at the time." That still bothers me. So I don't find this reasoning from Robinson compelling, unless I'm missing something, and feel free to tell me if I am, that that it's why I still have a smidge of doubt. It's still, I have a smidge of doubt about this whole thing that I don't know how to deal with exactly, but all in all, I still find it more probable that Tara is telling the truth, slightly more probable than not that this happened. I, you know, I'm probably, well, maybe even more than that. Maybe I'm even, maybe I'm even 80/20 at this point, you know, if I'm, if I'm about 99.5 to 0.5 for Dr.

0:51:07 Thomas: Ford, uh, if not a hundred to nothing, by the way, but I'm like 99 percent to one percent for Dr. Ford, I'm like 80/20 for this one, I think, because I just, that this still is kind of bothering me, um, and Nathan Robinson says, oh, she talked to plenty of reporters. Well, where, where, I mean, we haven't really seen that. Um, and one, one final thing I want to say, I can't believe I'm already pretty much out of time, and I really hope this has been useful, but I don't, I fear that it's been too meandering, you know, it's just hard, that's the thing about this, is you read all the stuff, you spiral, you go through all these different things, it's, it's hard, um, but anyway, the theory that all of the mainstream media is protecting Joe Biden does not hold any water to me, not even a little bit. And I know I'm gonna have a bunch of probably hard lefties, they're like, "What? How, Thomas, how could you say," because 10 minutes ago the theory was that the media wanted Trump to win.

0:52:04 Thomas: So decide on your conspiracy, everybody, is your conspiracy, because for a while, while it was all, yeah, the mainstream media, they want Trump to win, but he's good for business. And honestly, he is. That's not that outlandish of a theory that CNN, for example, wants Trump to win in some ways, or maybe the, I don't know, the leadership of CNN. Like, that's not that outlandish for me to believe, because if Joe Biden wins, in all likelihood, politics goes back, back to being really boring, and people, you know, don't buy as many newspapers, or whatever, click on as many CNN links. Are you really telling me that CNN, for example, or other major media, don't want this story?

0:52:51 Thomas: I think you're out of your mind. I just do not think that's true. And so for that reason, I think it's likely is true that the reason the mainstream media hasn't reported this out as much is that there are a few credibility issues. And by that, I just mean legally. I still think, for me, just believing her, I do find it credible, actually. I do believe the accusation now. But that's a different story, as I highlighted with the fact that I couldn't publish a few episodes that I was trying to do. It wasn't because I didn't believe it. It was because of the legal problems. And I think that it's likely Amanda Marcotte is more correct than Robinson on that point.

0:53:36 Thomas: I think there are some issues and people are worried about, you know, because they don't just publish these things willy-nilly, as I said at the beginning. They don't. They have to feel like they've done their due diligence, and I think this story has been difficult to confirm. So that's what I think about that. But you're not going to tell me for a second that if this was like an easily vettable accusation, that this wouldn't be in the mainstream media. I think it would be.

Now, that's not to say that there could be individual sources of media, maybe smaller ones or whatever, um that would be hesitant because of loyalty to Joe Biden. I'm not leaving the door closed to that. In fact, I, another thing I grappled with I haven't even talked about, was the Time's Up portion of this, because um, yeah, all right, sorry, this is going on long enough, but I'm gonna try to address this. I went back and forth on this Time's Up accusation. So the, the initially the charge was, it was the news was broken, that Time's Up didn't work with Tara Reid, and initially this was reported by, again, one of the kind of Current Affairs-y, hardcore Bernie left people, that, and I say that merely as a descriptor, I don't mean to poison the well, but it, but it does come with certain caveats in my mind. Anyway, it was reported that Time's Up wouldn't work with her because of the conflict of interest with Joe Biden, and that the reason they gave was, well,

0:55:11 Thomas: It threatens our 501c3 status if we go after a candidate for federal election.

0:55:19 Thomas: And Amanda Marcotti's reasoning for this, or kind of the excuse she gave, was, well, that wasn't actually true. It was that Tara Reid wasn't trying to do the thing that Time's Up does, which is sue for employer-based discrimination. She wasn't trying to do that. She just wanted like publicity. And then it, it, uh, went back and forth to, like "But they do also provide like," Time's Up also does provide publicity. And at first I found Amanda's explanation plausible, um, that that especially because she said that in talking with Tara, she, it seemed like she wasn't seeking, like, what Time's Up up does is it hooks you up with a lawyer. They, they refer you. And once you, uh, so that's like the first step they do.

0:56:07 Thomas: And they give you a number of lawyers to consult with. And then when you pick a lawyer, then they help you further with the process of what you're trying to do, who you're trying to sue, what you're doing. Yeah. And Time's Up says they did that first part. They referred her to lawyers. And then Amanda says that she didn't want to work with any of those lawyers. So that's where it ended. But the problem is that that's not really consistent with what Time's Up said. You know, Time's Up gave the excuse that the 501c3 thing, and that seems wrong, like, because that would mean you can't have anyone accuse even Trump or any other, like, congressman or anything. You know, like, that doesn't seem correct. I, I have a hard time believing that, uh, and you come to find out that the PR firm that usually works with Time's Up has a direct tie to the Joe Biden campaign. And so it's like, I don't know.

0:56:54 Thomas: I'm actually, I think I'm more on the current affairs side of this now. Like, I Think maybe that is what happened. Maybe times up was like, we're not going to do, we're going to find a reason to not do this. And so they didn't do it. You know, I, so that part, I kind of, again, I I'm, I am very surprised. I did not expect at the, at the outset, you know, after all is said and done, I did not expect to be more on The Current Affairs side on this. Um, and I don't know why I'm even going to say this, but not to say that I always disagree with current affairs or anything. It's just, you know, there are ways, there Are ways that I disagree with people on that side from time to time and going into this first and foremost, I was kind of annoyed at the double standard about how they dealt with Elizabeth Warren versus how they're dealing with this accusation, which has some credibility problems.

0:57:46 Thomas: It felt hypocritical to me and it might be hypocritical. It probably is, to be honest with you, but it doesn't matter. Like, I mean, it matters in that I'm more pissed off, but it doesn't affect the truth of the claim. Like whether or not the Bernie left is hypocritical on this issue doesn't affect whether or not it's true, which is hard to deal with because I know there are bad faith people. I see them like, well, I know, I know your full crap. You know, you're full of crap. Like there are people who are in my mentions tweeting snake emojis about Elizabeth Warren and how she's a lying snake. And then now all of a sudden they're 1000% convinced that, by the way, they're calling Biden a rapist. He's not even accused of rape.

0:58:32 Thomas: Of course, sexual assault is really horrible and he's accused of that. But like they're going 100% the other way and calling him definitely a rapist. Like I know you're being bad faith. You know, you're doing bad faith, but the fact is it doesn't matter. You know, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter that some people are acting in bad faith and being hypocrites. What matters is whether or not these claims are credible. And God damn it, I think they are. And I believe them now, after all that. So that was my grappling with this. And I think I will have to leave for another episode what this means for anything.

0:59:14 Thomas: I'll have to lead that for later. I don't know. Maybe I don't know if Jamie will be involved or not. I'm not sure. Again, scheduling plus I'm not sure what she wants to talk about with regard to this. But there you have it, folks. I want to thank you for listening. Please support the show if you can. If you like what I'm doing here and what we're doing here, please support, especially at a time like this, if you can. I totally understand.

0:59:44 Thomas: But it's because a lot of people can't right now that if you can, please pledge. I would appreciate it. But if not, regardless, share this out if you found it valuable. I really hope that at the very least, this was an honest attempt. I, in my mind, it was, I don't know how people are going to, you know, receive it, but the very list, I hope this felt better than what I've been seeing, which is felt dishonest to me in a lot of ways. A lot of it is felt more politically convenient than anything else. And this is not politically convenient for for me, by any means. But then again, none of it is because I don't like Joe Biden anyway. But still, still, even in the position of not liking Joe Biden, it would be better as a Democrat to not have him also be a sex offender, you know, or whatever, whatever you whatever he would technically be if you know if he was convicted of this. So that's where I am. Please feel free to share your thoughts.

1:00:54 Thomas: I'm, you know, I'm still grappling with this. But all in all, I, I believe Tara Reid. So thanks for listening. Stay safe out there. See you next time.

1:01:16 Clip: Thank you so much for listening to Serious Inquiries Only. If you like the show, the absolute best thing you can do is support us at patreon.com/seriouspod. The second best thing you can do is please share it on social media or by word of mouth. Speaking of social media, if you'd like to follow Jamie on Twitter, she's at Euthyphro. And follow me at SeriousPod. If you'd like to be Facebook friends, send me a request at facebook.com Thomas podcast. If you're not up for that level of intimacy, that's fine. Maybe you want to join the discussion at facebook.com/groups/SIO members. Thank you again for listening. We'll see you next time.