Late last week, Politico published an
article that in the headline alone referred to Tara Reade as a
“manipulative, deceitful, user” who “left a trail of aggrieved
acquaintances.” It had all the framing of a bombshell report, and the
dramatic intensity of an old-school TV detective slamming shut a case
file. Yet the piece itself failed to deliver any evidence around
Reade’s allegation of sexual assault against Joe Biden. Instead, it put
another subject under the magnifying glass: Reade’s economic stability.
The “aggrieved acquaintances” were but a handful of former landlords.
The damning behavior behind the trumpeted claim of dishonesty and
wrongdoing? Reade allegedly struggled to pay her rent, and sometimes she
pleaded for her landlords’ sympathy.
This is not a bombshell report. Instead, the article
is a smear job that digs up details from Reade’s personal life that are
unrelated to her sexual assault allegations. This may not be so
egregious as the defense attorney who puts an accuser’s sexual history
or style of dress on trial, but it engages in the same kind of character
assassination supported by the myth of the “perfect victim.” In this
case, Reade’s economic class is Exhibit A.
Reporters have doggedly tried to corroborate Reade’s allegation
that Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993 when she was a staff
assistant in his Senate office. This is the critical task facing
journalists reporting on sexual assault: knocking on doors, digging up
documents, corroborating accounts, and asking oftentimes painful
questions, all in service of responsibly detailing a sexual assault
allegation. Reporters have, reasonably, approached this task from
different angles: For example, PBS News Hour recently interviewed
74 former Biden staffers, finding that none reported personally
experiencing sexual harassment or assault. However, the coverage also
noted that these staffers’ “experiences do not disprove” Reade’s
accusation.
The PBS News Hour article
was centered around Reade’s allegation, though. The Politico report is
not. It digs up a few landlords from Reade’s past, all but one of whom
have bad things to say about their prior tenant. (The one landlord who
calls Reade “a wonderful person” does not get prime placement in the
piece.) There are allegations of missed rent payments, requests to
borrow money, and pleas for sympathy. Around those concrete allegations
of financial trouble—which are unrelated to one’s capacity to credibly
make an allegation of sexual assault—are subjective character
assessments from prior landlords, all of which relate to their financial
interests.
-- Tracy Clark-Flory, "Tara Reade's Landlords Are Irrelevant" (JEZEBEL).