Thread by @Tennesseine

@morningmika @JoeBiden So there’s a lot to unpack here.

Thread.

First of all, if #BelieveWomen isn’t tempered with basic common sense, then it’s simply blind dogma, and thus quite dangerous and subject to horrible abuses, as I’ve said long before I ever heard the name Tara Reade.

Let’s compare the

@morningmika @JoeBiden cases of Biden and Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh: despite being an only marginally well known public figure prior to his nomination, he had not one but multiple accusers. His known, documented behavior, not to mention his judicial actions, all point to a distinct lack of respect for

@morningmika @JoeBiden women in general. Every chance he’s given to rule on women’s rights and their fundamental freedoms and right to bodily autonomy, he’s proven that he believes they deserve none of those.

We must also consider the consistency of the narrative around his behavior. Very different

@morningmika @JoeBiden people all painted a strikingly similar pattern of behavior on his part.

Let’s also look at his choice in partners: abusers of women HATE strong women because they fear them. Look at pictures of Kavanaugh with his wife. Throughout the confirmation process, every time we saw

@morningmika @JoeBiden her, she seemed cowed, scared, as many body language experts observed.

metro.co.uk/2018/10/11/bod…

@morningmika @JoeBiden The takeaway: Kavanaugh has exhibited abusive behavior towards women (both in the abstract and the specific) his whole life.

Biden: Joe Biden has been a powerful man and a public figure almost his entire adult life, having become a senator at as young an age as the Constitution

@morningmika @JoeBiden allows. He was a senator for 36 years and Vice President for eight. In all those years, with all those young interns and pages and staffers he could have easily taken advantage of, no one ever accused him of sexual assault or abuse or harassment to my knowledge. When @BarackObama

@morningmika @JoeBiden @BarackObama picked him to be his vice president, Biden was subjected to a vetting process the likes of which few people will ever experience. His life was picked apart & examined, his finances scrutinized, his background studied, his friends, contacts, colleagues, & even enemies consulted.

@morningmika @JoeBiden @BarackObama Nothing was found to discredit him.

Joe Biden is far from perfect. We all know he’s far too handsy with everyone by modern standards. But that in itself is an indicator of just how unbelievable these allegations are: with all the people he’s made uncomfortable with his “too

@morningmika @JoeBiden @BarackObama close for comfort” approach, how could there not be dozens of women accusing him if he had even occasionally taken that too far and crossed over from “inappropriate” to “harassing”?!

Let’s also look at his legislative record. While his Catholic upbringing initially led him to be

@morningmika @JoeBiden @BarackObama against women’s reproductive rights, like many Americans, he grew and evolved on the subject. He’s now an ardent defender of both women’s reproductive rights and their overall rights and their demands for equality. He was a prime mover behind #VAWA.

Finally, let’s look at his

@morningmika @JoeBiden @BarackObama personal relationships. As I said, abusers hate strong women. Nothing scares them more than that. They therefore tend to choose partners they can easily dominate and control. (Like, say, former porn models with a questionable immigration status.)

Whom did Biden marry after his

@morningmika @JoeBiden @BarackObama first wife died in a tragic car accident? @drbiden, a strong, independent, highly educated woman. I dare anybody who’s watched so much as 10 minutes of an interview with her to tell me she’s meek, cowed, and afraid. I think she’d take Joe to the proverbial woodshed if she thought

@morningmika @JoeBiden @BarackObama @DrBiden he had behaved abusively towards any woman.

Now let’s look at Reade. Her behavior is NOTHING like the behavior we see in Trump’s or Kavanaugh’s accusers. She’s been wildly inconsistent. And until she fell in love first with Putin and then with Sanders, she was an ardent and very

@morningmika @JoeBiden @BarackObama @DrBiden public supporter of her former boss. How many of Trump’s and Kavanaugh’s accusers have gone on record often and publicly to praise and support them? None, to my knowledge.

And now we discover that her story of harassment has evolved into one of outright assault, only to find it

@morningmika @JoeBiden @BarackObama @DrBiden eerily and creepily mirrors a fictional sexual encounter in a novel written by her late father.

So in summary: Biden is no Kavanaugh and Reade is no Blasey Ford.

So where does that leave us with #BelieveAllWomen? With an admonition to apply a bit of logic and common sense

@morningmika @JoeBiden @BarackObama @DrBiden to avoid falling into the trap of blindly accepting all stories without using our brains. And having applied that lesson here, my conclusion is that #IDontBelieveTaraReade.

@morningmika @JoeBiden @BarackObama @DrBiden Let me add as a post script here: when I say #IDontBelieveTaraReade, I mean I don’t believe @JoeBiden sexually assaulted her. But I do believe that, by modern 2020 standards, he most likely crossed a line and at a minimum made her feel uncomfortable. We all know Joe has been too

@morningmika @JoeBiden @BarackObama @DrBiden “handsy” with everyone over the years (all people, not just women). I’m not excusing that. I personally think he’s finally learned his lesson and he seems more respectful of personal boundaries and space now.

But Reade has taken a long-ago, forgiveable transgression and,

@morningmika @JoeBiden @BarackObama @DrBiden for her own and possibly others’) agenda, spun it into a tale of unforgivable assault.

Whose agenda? Given her adoration of Putin, one must wonder. Her recent claims that she never loved Putin, that it was all just part of a writing project, simply do not pass the smell test,

@morningmika @JoeBiden @BarackObama @DrBiden given her many, MANY publicly available pro-Putin declarations.