It's such a ridiculous trope that it's become a meme on the Right: When there's a negative story about Democrats, the media's go-to template is to cover Republicans and conservatives 'seizing' or 'pouncing' on it. In the case of the sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden, the early coverage was nonexistent. Then it shifted to stories about Democrats "grappling" with the matter, and a handful of check-the-box news accounts -- including an article that the New York Times softened at the Biden campaign's behest. Now, with Biden still personally mum on the matter, we're finally getting treated to the 'pounce' pieces. This headline was an instant classic:
Developments in allegations against Biden amplify efforts to question his behavior wapo.st/2yLiK1k4,75310:14 PM - Apr 27, 2020
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Mary Katharine Ham's reaction: "The double standard is so egregious as to be performance art at this point." And another offering from the Post:
Trump allies highlight new claims regarding allegations against Biden wapo.st/3cVklR47797:03 AM - Apr 28, 2020
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The former tweet is a deliberately-incomprehensible word salad, seemingly designed to avoid clarity. The latter, along with the accompanying story, sends a signal to readers about who is hyping the allegation, so they can adjust their tribal partisan response to it. The framing is the pouncing on the alleged pouncing, rather than the alleged pouncing itself. May I remind you of the Washington Post's coverage of the totally unsubstantiated allegations against Brett Kavanaugh? Mollie Hemingway has been keeping score:
The Washington Post has a problem. The newspaper led the massive effort against the nomination of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh by publishing and relentlessly hyping a completely unsubstantiated allegation of sexual assault against him. Now, the paper is leading Democrats’ efforts to bury a similar, if stronger, allegation of sexual assault against Joe Biden. To accomplish this dramatic turnabout, the paper is collectively trying to rewrite history, pretending the allegation against Kavanaugh had more basis than it did while also pretending that the allegation against Biden has less basis than it does. The Post’s anti-Kavanaugh operation had powerful divisions in both the news and opinion departments...Whether it’s Joe Biden or Brett Kavanaugh, both men deserve due process. Noting that Tara Reade at least has benefit of evidence that she has met the accused and contemporaneous corroboration of her claim makes her allegation stronger, but stronger than nothing is admittedly a low bar...[The Post] may try to rewrite history to make themselves feel better. They can dig as furiously as they want, but there is no memory hole deep enough to forget their behavior.
Click through for her full, meticulously-documented argument on the subject, about which she's an expert. This exhaustive timeline of the media's treatment of these two cases is damning. As I've been writing, it all speaks for itself and delivers a very clear message. May I also remind you that the Times' silence-breaking story on Reade's allegation featured multiple paragraphs about Donald Trump, and in addition to sanitizing the original verbiage about Biden's infamous handsiness, it was presented as a comprehensive investigation of Reade's claim. As Beth noted last evening, it has turned out to be less than comprehensive, as two Democrats have emerged to strengthen Reade's account. See this:
“Reade's former neighbor Lynda LaCasse, a Biden supporter, tells Insider that Reade told her about the alleged assault in detail in 1995 or 1996: ‘This happened, and I know it did because I remember talking about it.’...” businessinsider.com/former-neighbo…1,4102:06 PM - Apr 27, 2020
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Two more sources have come forward to corroborate certain details about Reade's claims. One of them — a former neighbor of Reade's — has told Insider for the first time, on the record, that Reade disclosed details about the alleged assault to her in the mid-1990s...The other source, Lorraine Sanchez, who worked with Reade in the office of a California state senator in the mid-'90s, told Insider that she recalls Reade complaining at the time that her former boss in Washington, DC, had sexually harassed her, and that she had b
