Joe Biden

Context Matters

How many times have you told someone you would attend gathering A, or accomodate request B, then been unable to follow through? Perhaps it was due to an illness or family emergency or simply because you’d forgotten about a pre-existing obligation. It’s not uncommon–compliance with previous promises is, unfortunately, contingent upon the continued reasonableness/ability to perform.

When the news broke about President Biden’s pardon of his son, despite earlier statements that no such pardon would be forthcoming, I didn’t realize that the context had changed–dramatically. And even then, to be honest, it didn’t bother me; anyone familiar with the laws governing Hunter Biden’s prosecution can attest to the fact that he faced penalties far more severe than those sought against others in the same circumstances– only because his name was Biden. (As former U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance made clear in her Civil Discourse, Hunter Biden wouldn’t even have been criminally charged if he had been anyone other than the president’s son). The relentless effort to use him politically to hurt his father was obvious and unfair. So–while a pardon did violate the President’s prior promise not to issue one– I really thought it was appropriate.

And that was before I realized how dramatically the context had changed. As Heather Cox Richardson has explained,

The pardon’s sweeping scope offers an explanation for why Biden issued it after saying he would not.

Ron Filipkowski of MeidasTouch notes that Biden’s pardon came after Trump’s announcement that he wants to place conspiracy theorist Kash Patel at the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Filipkowski studies right-wing media and points out that Patel’s many appearances there suggest he is obsessed with Hunter Biden, especially the story of his laptop, which Patel insists shows that Hunter and Joe Biden engaged in crimes with Ukraine and China.

House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) spent two years investigating these allegations and turned up nothing—although Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia used the opportunity to display pictures of Hunter Biden naked on national media—yet Patel insists that the Department of Justice should focus on Hunter Biden as soon as a Trump loyalist is back in charge.

Notably, Trump’s people, including former lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his ally Lev Parnas, spent more than a year trying to promote false testimony against Hunter Biden by their Ukrainian allies. Earlier this year, in the documentary From Russia with Lev, produced by Rachel Maddow, Parnas publicly apologized to Hunter Biden for his role in the scheme.

The victory of Donald Trump and his subsequent unqualified and inappropriate choices for important government positions raised the very real prospect that the FBI and Justice Department might literally fabricate evidence, or collaborate with a foreign government to ‘find’ evidence of a ‘crime,’ with zero accountability–that going forward, those agencies would be used as political weapons rather than legitimate law enforcement mechanisms, and would focus on Hunter Biden, among others.

Richardson pointed out that most media outlets had failed to tell the full story–to provide the context within which a prior promise could not–should not–be kept. Several pundits have asserted that Biden has given Trump license to pardon anyone he wants, evidently forgetting that in his first term, “Trump pardoned his daughter Ivanka’s father-in-law, Charles Kushner, who pleaded guilty to federal charges of tax evasion, campaign finance offenses, and witness tampering and whom Trump has now tapped to become the U.S. ambassador to France.”

Trump also pardoned for various crimes men who were associated with the ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russian operatives working to elect Trump. Those included his former national security advisor Michael Flynn, former campaign manager Paul Manafort, and former allies Roger Stone and Steve Bannon. Those pardons, which suggested Trump was rewarding henchmen, received a fraction of the attention lavished on Biden’s pardon of his son.

In today’s news coverage, the exercise of the presidential pardon—which traditionally gets very little attention—has entirely outweighed the dangerous nominations of an incoming president, which will have profound influence on the American people. This imbalance reflects a longstanding and classic power dynamic in which Republicans set the terms of public debate, excusing their own objectionable behavior while constantly attacking Democrats in a fiery display that attracts media attention but distorts reality.

As Richardson notes, this lack of balance and context do not bode well for journalism during the upcoming administration. The likelihood is that the media will continue to leave the public badly informed–or completely uninformed– about matters that are important for truly understanding modern politics.

Matters like context.

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Age And Skill

I am so sick of the focus on Joe Biden’s age. In the interests of transparency, I will admit to being two years older than the President. I do forget names and dates more frequently than I used to (although I never had much of a memory), but then, like Biden, I have a lot more material to remember and a lot more experience to draw on than younger folks do.

Some people are senile at 50. Some never are. My grandmother, who died just two months before her 100th birthday, was mentally coherent to the end. My husband is 91 and still sharp (so is Willy Nelson, who’s also 91 and still performing). Donald Trump, who is a mere four years younger than Biden, seems to have been born with dementia. (Trump has always been incoherent, so his followers evidently haven’t noticed the extent to which he is visibly continuing to decline.)

The people trying to defeat Biden by claiming he is age-impaired are people who have no persuasive argument with his performance and are desperate to find something–anything–they think will work. The Democrats who are publicly panicking over the issue–or worse, insisting he should allow someone else to run– are providing them aid and comfort. The truth is, Joe Biden has been a great President. (My middle son says Biden is the first person he’s voted for who has exceeded his expectations.)

I thought about the issue of performance when I viewed a powerful ad run by a candidate for U.S. Senate in North Dakota, of all places, sent to me by a (formerly Republican) friend who pointed out that the picture painted by this particular candidate is applicable everywhere, not just in the state of North Dakota. I am going to shorten this post in an effort to encourage you to click through and watch it, because it is a powerful indictment of the “wolves” who have hollowed out America’s middle class and who are attacking Biden because, under Trump, they will be able to continue preying on America.

Joe Biden has done more than any President since FDR to combat the wolves and shore up the middle class, to grow America “from the middle out,” as he likes to say. If the linked video speaks to you, you are a Biden voter! (If, on the other hand, you are throwing your lot in with the wolves, you are clearly a MAGA person…)

Let me be clear (as if I haven’t been!). Given the choice Americans will in all probability face at the ballot box, I will vote for Joe Biden. I would vote for him even if he was in a coma. The only genuine issue with his age isn’t senility–he is clearly in possession of his faculties, and his superior performance as President has been enhanced by the depth of his knowledge and experience and the connections he’s developed over the years that have allowed him to surround himself with highly competent people. The only downside of his age is an actuarially increased possibility of death sometime during the next four years– and a Kamala Harris Presidency would still be infinitely preferable to the disaster–for America, for democracy, for world peace–that Trump represents.

Watch the video.

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Let me begin this post with an admission: I am older than Joe Biden, so I know a little something about the diminishing energy levels that accompany aging. I sometimes (okay, often) blank on words. On the other hand, I have a significant well of life experience to draw on, and so far, at least, I’m reasonably confident that the lessons of that lifetime have more than compensated for the relatively minor deficits of aging.

And I am over the constant media handwringing about Biden’s age.

Sure, given the challenges of aging, I wish Biden was younger–but after looking at what he has accomplished over the past three years by drawing on his lifetime of political and governmental experience, I realize that significant trade-offs would be involved. (Unlike Trump–who is only 4 years younger– Biden spent his time acquiring the knowledge and skills that have made him a very consequential President.)

In the last three years, America’s economy has added more than 13 million jobs—including nearly 800,000 manufacturing jobs. We’ve unleashed a manufacturing and clean energy boom. In 2021 and 2022, more than 10 million applications were filed for new small businesses—the strongest two years ever recorded. Since the pandemic, America has had the strongest growth of any leading economy in the world. Inflation has fallen for 11 straight months.

As my middle son observed, “Biden is the first President I’ve voted for who has exceeded my expectations.”

And as an article in the New Republic argues, there needs to be more recognition of the skills Biden brought to the job.

Nobody seems to have noticed this, but over the course of the spring, the country’s four leading freight rail carriers agreed to grant the vast majority of their workers paid sick days.

Everybody remembers what happened last December. The workers threatened to strike over such days, among other issues. President Biden, generally very friendly toward labor, made it illegal for the workers to strike. He was criticized by unions and workers and fellow Democrats and liberal media outlets, this one included….

When the workers prevailed, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers explicitly acknowledged that the Biden administration had

played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement. Without making a big show of it, Joe Biden and members of his administration in the Transportation and Labor departments have been working continuously to get guaranteed paid sick days for all railroad workers.

As the article argued, the administration needs to start “making big show” of such accomplishments.

Biden has been a terrific president. The big legislation. The way he played Kevin McCarthy on the debt deal. The global leadership against Putin. The plain human decency restored to the White House after four years of self-obsessed thuggery. Oh—the 13 million jobs created since he took office, which is more jobs in 28 months than created under any other president, in all of our history, in a full four-year term.

As Jennifer Rubin recently wrote in the Washington Post, Biden has an economic record that has been working far better than most people anticipated but that the electorate doesn’t yet recognize.

The economy has created 13 million jobs, inflation has been more than cut in half, huge investments are being made in infrastructure and green energy, wage growth has begun to outpace inflation, the first drug price controls are going into effect and the biggest corporations will finally be forced to pay something in federal taxes. Yet polls show voters incorrectly think we are in a recession and remain negative about the economy.

As Robert Hubbell recently reminded us, “The constant hum of investigations into Trump’s many crimes is obscuring one of the great modern presidencies.”

Historians will look back in wonder at what Biden achieved in a presidency that began mid-pandemic before the smoke of a failed coup and insurrection had cleared. Despite those obstacles, his legislative record rivals or exceeds that of every president since FDR—a president who was mired in controversy throughout his tenure.

The Biden Administration has a three-part vision: targeting investment, empowering workers, and promoting competition. That vision includes enforcing antitrust rules and allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. (Recent results: cheaper insulin and real wage growth.)

As the New Republic reminds us,

Liberals have a list of 50 things they want government to do, and they want those things done fast and to completion. Conservatives have a list of about two things they want government to do: Cut taxes, and punish people they disapprove of morally. For a presidential administration, satisfying that first group is a lot harder than satisfying the second

As someone has pointed out, It’s not how old you are. It’s how you are old.

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Hypocrisy? Look Who’s Talking

I really didn’t want to revisit this issue. But…

I keep seeing headlines like this one from 538.com–“Believe Women or Back the Nominee?” That is an offensive, intellectually dishonest formulation.

It isn’t just 538.com. Pundits on the Left and Right are accusing liberal women who are skeptical of Tara Reade’s accusations against Joe Biden of hypocritical disloyalty to women. Evidently, if you believe the highly credible accusations against Donald Trump, who has been the target of at least 17 complaints of sexual misconduct, but you find the single charge lodged against Biden to be dubious at best, it constitutes prima facia evidence of hypocrisy.

That–to use an inelegant word–is bullshit.

Along with the other inconsistencies and questionable elements of the Tara Reade accusations, there is the undeniable fact that Joe Biden has been repeatedly vetted; most recently when he was under consideration by Obama for Vice President. No investigation has uncovered the slightest hint–let alone an accusation– of sexually inappropriate behavior. (Yes, he’s “handsy”–he likes to hug and touch, and that has made some women uncomfortable, but that is a very different thing.)

In Washington, where there is gossip about everyone, there has never even been any gossip about Biden engaging in inappropriate behavior with women.

Then there is this observation from a commenter to this blog who spent many years in Washington:

I worked in the U.S. Senate in the 60s, and even then, U.S. Senate office building hallways where the abuse was supposed to have happened, are VERY public, well traveled thoroughfares. They have become ever more public over the years. Numerous Senate offices open onto those hallways which are traveled by Capitol Hill police, Senators and staffers, the media, lobbyists, tourists and tour groups, constituents, mail carriers, vendor deliveries, custodians, facilities maintenance personnel, and more. Any Senator wanting to sexually assault someone would do so in their own office (and lock the doors), or a vacant committee room, a storage closet, or a hideaway office to do the deed. The last place they’d pick would be a Senate hallway. This accusation does not have the ring of truth.

Biden has categorically denied the incident ever occurred and has called for a thorough search of Senate archives for the complaint that Reade says she filed. (Her descriptions of the contents of that purported complaint have now changed, too. In contrast to her earlier descriptions of the complaint, she now says it didn’t include any reference to sexual assault.)To date, reporters have been unable to find any record of any complaint.

Given the timing, the multiple inconsistencies– not just in Reade’s account but in the accounts of friends she presumably told (not contemporaneously but a few years after the supposed incident)–and the absence of any remotely similar accusation, it is hardly unreasonable that many women find Reade’s charges unconvincing.

In her daily Letter, Heather Cox Richardson observes that the Trump campaign is using Reade’s story to regain control of the political narrative.

The attempt to get Biden to jump through hoops Trump ignores is classic gaslighting. It keeps Biden on the defensive and makes sure he is reinforcing Trump’s narrative, thus strengthening Trump even as Biden tries to carve out his own campaign. It is precisely what the Trump campaign, abetted by the media, did in 2016.

The pundits and media outlets that are feeding on what several reporters had previously investigated and concluded was a “non-story” are once again allowing themselves to be used. In 2016, it was “her emails.” In 2020 it’s “all women must be uncritically believed.”

Not simply taken seriously, or given the benefit of the doubt, but believed.

Apparently, in order to be “real” feminists, “real” advocates for women, “real” supporters of #MeToo, we must uncritically accept any and all claims made against politicians we admire or support, no matter how dubious. Otherwise, we’re hypocrites.

If I am to be classified as a hypocrite, let me share some admissions-against-interest: I did believe several of the accusations against Bill Clinton but voted for him anyway, because I agreed with most of his policies–just as all those pious “Christians” continue to support Trump despite the porn stars, pussy-grabbing and very credible allegations of rape, because he is “Christianizing” our courts.

I also was–and remain– absolutely enraged by the hubris of the self-appointed, self-aggrandizing “defenders of women” who hounded Al Franken from the Senate. Franken was a longtime, highly effective advocate for women and the behavior he was accused of fell far short of assault.

Bottom line: I simply do not believe that drawing critical distinctions between boorishness and assault, or coming to a negative conclusion about the merits of a suspicious claim makes feminists hypocrites.

Speaking of pots and kettles, real hypocrisy is handing over control of the narrative to a man who lies constantly, refuses to release his tax returns, fires Inspectors General in order to thwart oversight, and makes everyone who works for him sign a non-disclosure-agreement.

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The #MeToo Dilemma

This is a hard post to write, because I want to be clear about what I am–and am not–saying.

When the #MeToo movement emerged, I applauded. Like most women, I’d encountered unwanted “approaches” from men ranging from boorish to significantly worse; like most of the women I know, I get livid when complaints about sexual assaults are dismissed with “well, what was she wearing?” or other responses blaming the victim or suggesting that the woman was somehow “asking for it.”

When #MeToo accountability began, I was saddened to learn about Bill Cosby, but the number of accusations made it plain that he wasn’t the person he portrayed on TV. And while it doesn’t speak well for my surrender to schadenfreude, I was actually thrilled with the verdict against Harvey Weinstein.

Holding predators–not their victims– responsible is long overdue.

But. (You knew there was a “but” coming…)

Taking women seriously is not the same thing as uncritically believing anything and everything any woman says. An accusation of impropriety or assault should be considered a rebuttable presumption–true, until and unless there is probative evidence to the contrary.

In criminal law class in law school, we learn that rape is both the most under-reported and most over-reported crime. Under-reported because victims were reluctant to come forward for all of the reasons that have been highlighted by the #MeToo movement–over-reported because there were also unfair and untrue accusations leveled, sometimes intentionally, sometimes by emotionally unwell persons.

The biggest problem is determining the facts in these situations, because that they are inevitably “he said/she said.”

Lawyers who specialize in prosecuting sexual assault charges must evaluate whether evidence and testimony are consistent with the accuracy of an accusation. And that brings me to a comprehensive review of the complaint lodged against Joe Biden by Tara Reade, a former staffer, recently written by one such prosecutor.

I really urge you to click through and read the entire column.

The alleged assault occurred in 1993. As the prosecutor notes, the 27-year delay itself is not reason to disbelieve her. But the story she tells has changed significantly since she first came forward.

As a lawyer and victims’ rights advocate, Reade was better equipped than most to appreciate that dramatic changes in sexual assault allegations severely undercut an accuser’s credibility — especially when the change is from an uncomfortable shoulder touch to vaginal penetration.

Reade said she complained at the time to Biden’s executive assistant, and to two top aides– all three adamantly deny that she ever approached them. (They didn’t simply have “no recollection.” They strongly refuted the claim). She also says she filed a written complaint with the Senate personnel office, but reporters could not find any record of such a complaint there, and when the Times asked her for a copy, she said she didn’t have it. Yet she had kept and provided a copy of her 1993 Senate employment records.

She has told wildly inconsistent stories about why she left Biden’s employ, and in the years following her stint on his staff, she has been highly complimentary of him. Evidently, it wasn’t until she had become a fervid Sanders supporter that the accusation of assault changed from “rubbed her shoulders” to digital penetration.

There’s much, much more detail in the linked article, and most of it suggests someone emotionally unstable rather than intentionally vindictive–but none of it enhances her credibility. Quite the contrary.

And as the writer notes, most men who assault women are serial abusers.

Last year, several women claimed that Biden made them uncomfortable with things like a shoulder touch or a hug… The Times and Post found no allegation of sexual assault against Biden except Reade’s.

It is possible that in his 77 years, Biden committed one sexual assault and it was against Reade. But in my experience, men who commit a sexual assault are accused more than once … like Donald Trump, who has had more than a dozen allegations of sexual assault leveled against him and who was recorded bragging about grabbing women’s genitalia.

I particularly agree with the final paragraph.

We can support the #MeToo movement and not support allegations of sexual assault that do not ring true. If these two positions cannot coexist, the movement is no more than a hit squad. That’s not how I see the #MeToo movement. It’s too important, for too many victims of sexual assault and their allies, to be no more than that.

Agreed.

The #MeToo movement was a major step forward for all women, especially but not exclusively those who have been victims of sexual assaults. If it is perceived as an indiscriminate anti-male crusade rather than a pro-justice remedial effort– if it is bullied into becoming a chorus that will automatically defend all accusations irrespective of their credibility– it will lose the hard-won and very important legitimacy that makes it effective.

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