Rex Murphy: What's with the media's disinterest in assault allegations against Biden?
REX MURPHY
MAY 1, 2020
I like to label this aria the story of J and K.
It might seem a long while back, but most people will still have vivid recall of the Justice Brett Kavanaugh hearing. Kavanaugh’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee was the most explosive since the doomed effort to install Robert Bork on the U.S. Supreme Court, and the tumultuous yet successful elevation of Justice Clarence Thomas.
I can’t say with certainty (because I’m not Conrad Black; he would know) that Justice Thomas’s nomination was the first time hearings were overshadowed by allegations of sexual harassment against the nominee. Anita Hill’s charges certainly changed the temperature of those hearings, and for good. Then Senators Ted Kennedy, a stalwart feminist, and Joseph Biden, made sure that they did.
They evolved — or devolved, your choice — from deep and dull drillings into a judge’s trial decisions and legal background, into full-on pryings into a candidate’s “private” history, and highly politicized, brutal partisan warfare.
They evolved … into full-on pryings into a candidate's ‘private’ history, and highly politicized, brutal partisan warfare
Now in Kavanaugh’s case, bearing the brand of being a Trump nominee (think blood-red flags and a whole herd of angry bulls), everything was tautened to a ferocity of partisan war the likes of which, even in the U.S., had hardly been seen before.
Kavanaugh’s first challenge came from university professor Christine Blasey Ford, who alleged that, 36 years before, he had sexually assaulted her in the summer of 1982. She was 15 and he was 17. I won’t rehash the details but her charges were swiftly joined by allegations from other women, and even eclipsed when then-lawyer, now fraudulent felon, Michael Avenatti, alleged that Kavanaugh had organized and participated in gang or “train rapes” while in high school contemporaneous with his “assault” on Blasey Ford.
The really dynamic element of that drama was that it was all being conducted within the supercharged ethos of the #MeToo movement. #MeToo electrified the news media following the mass revelations relating to Hollywood bossman Harvey Weinstein. It swiftly grew to hurricane force and veered to other high-profile males in the media and Hollywood, ending careers of the prestigious and illustrious alike — Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer can stand as prime examples.
 
Demonstrators protest U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh near the U.S. Capitol on October 4, 2018, in Washington, D.C.Jim Watson/AFP/Getty ImagesAs the charges and the “victims” multiplied, coverage of Kavanaugh’s hearing went wild and beyond America. So newsworthy was it in Canada that CBC sent one of its quartet of anchors from the National to California for a one-on-one interview with the “presidential contender” and “just the guy to take down Trump” (as he was then being billed).
In such a moment, and for a time, the allegations against Kavanaugh were red-hot news. The aforesaid Avenatti racked up more time peddling his charges than most of the hosts on CNN, CNBC and the other cable shows. CNN alone did, by actual count, 705 Kavanaugh stories. The big newspapers, from the esteemed New York Times to other main outlets all over the world, debated Kavanaugh’s character, ransacked his high school days, and made him and his family the butt of the late-night funny shows.
The big names chimed in. Nancy Pelosi: “I’m proud to stand with my Democratic colleagues in support of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.” Sen. Mark Warner: “For too long, our political system has shut out the voices of women & silenced the stories behind the #MeToo movement.” There are dozens more from the Democratic big league. Naturally the Hollywood crowd jammed the scene. Ellen DeGeneres praised Blasey Ford; Seth MacFarlane said Kavanaugh was “unfit for this job;” Jim Carrey lauded Blasey Ford as a “true American heroine;” Alyssa Milano … but the list is too long.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh shakes hands with President Donald Trump during Kavanaugh’s swearing in at the White House on Oct. 8, 2018, in Washington, D.C. Kavanaugh was confirmed in the Senate 50-48 after a contentious process that included several women accusing him of sexual assault.Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesBut now, the same people, the same feminists, the same journalists and movie stars, the same newspapers and networks who were explosively up in arms and endlessly ran stories and interviews on the Kavanaugh allegations, and pushed the slogan “believe all women” with a frenzy, have been totally mute for five weeks.
And it is only this morning (Friday) as I write, that Joe Biden has made his first direct comment on the matter. He “vehemently” denies the charges.
Before this morning, interview after interview with Biden have been conducted without the subject of “sexual assault” even being put to him. And in particular, the #MeToo movement, whose clamour reached the heavens for Kavanaugh, has been as quiet as a mouse all this time.
How can this be? How can one story which is the twin of another be dynamite for the news media one day, and the other story a total dud the next? Call out the army for the Kavanaugh tale, and send the troops home for Biden. Frenzy when a story works against Donald Trump; narcolepsy when it might hurt Joe Biden, his presumed opponent in the upcoming election.
Former U.S. vice-president Joe Biden, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is joined by Hillary Clinton, former U.S. secretary of state, during a virtual event on April 28, 2020. Clinton has endorsed Biden, who has been accused of assault by former Senate aide Tara Reade.Andrew Harrer/BloombergThis cannot be accepted as common practice. It will kill news if it becomes so. Partisan reportage is a poison to the whole news media. It doesn’t erode trust. It eliminates trust altogether. The U.S. media have gone very far along this road, but our press has sipped from the same chalice.
Let me bring it home. How many in the Canadian media have given as much coverage to former Senate aide Tara Reade’s allegations against Biden as they did to the allegations against Kavanaugh? I would hate to think the standard for news coverage is — hurts Trump, lead item; might help Trump, doesn’t exist.
How blatant and frequent must these inconsistencies become, before it becomes clear that the celebrated “moral urgency” of the #MeToo movement was driven by ruthless political partisanship? That it had political motivations equally blended with the more laudable ones of proper treatment for women?
The chief sorrow for anyone in journalism must be that the campaign against Kavanaugh by the #MeToo movement had an obliging ally with mainstream news. And that, by contrast, Tara Reade’s story, under the same partisan compulsions, has been, at least until this Friday, comfortably ignored.
If journalism is in a hard time, it’s not just the internet or the plague that’s the cause. |
