Lucy Flores’ essay in The Cut (3/29/19) reopened a conversation about Joe Biden’s interactions with women.
As women come forward to accuse former Vice President Joe Biden of inappropriate touching, some media have responded by scrutinizing their political motives.
Former Nevada Assemblymember Lucy Flores described in an essay for New York magazine’s The Cut (3/29/19) how in 2014 Biden put his hands on her shoulders, smelled her hair and slowly kissed the back of her head. Since Flores spoke out, six other women have come forward to say that Biden touched them in ways that made them feel uncomfortable.
Shortly after Flores explained to CNN’s Jake Tapper (3/31/19) that Biden made her feel “shocked” and “powerless,” Tapper questioned her politics. He asked Flores to explain her political motivations, mentioning that she supported Bernie Sanders for president in 2016, and recently attended a Beto O’Rourke rally.
“I would say politics was definitely the impetus,” Flores answered. “The reason why we’re having these conversations about Vice President Joe Biden is because he’s considering running for president.”
“Did you have any conversations about what happened with any presidential campaign before you wrote that piece for The Cut?” Tapper followed up.
“No,” she answered.
Biden’s creepy behavior has been written about for years, but apparently video evidence, combined with his poor record on abortion and his 1991 interrogation of Clarence Thomas accuser Anita Hill, is not enough information for pundits to determine whether Biden could in fact have some issues with accepting women as actual people with bodily autonomy.
On ABC’s The View (4/1/19), Whoopi Goldberg said that she doubted Flores for not immediately saying something to Biden, dismissing the idea that the power dynamic between a vice president and a state lawmaker could discourage someone from speaking up:
It would have been nice if she would have turned to him and said, “You know what, J, I don’t really like this.”… Something, cause he’s standing right there.
Goldberg engaged in classic victim-blaming logic: “If someone makes you uncomfortable, tell them.” She added: “Don’t sit and wait and say ‘I’m uncomfortable’ on national television, because it makes us suspect of your thoughts.”
Jonathan Capehart, an opinion writer at the Washington Post (4/2/19) who wrote that Biden had touched him and it was OK, cast doubt on Flores on MSNBC’s AM Joy (3/31/19). Capehart said that he “was wondering, you know, people were talking about Vice President Biden going for the Democratic nomination in 2016, so why not come out then?”
There is a very simple answer to Capehart’s disingenuous question, which is that the last time Biden was considering running for president, the #metoo movement had not started yet. This context does not diminish what Flores is saying; rather, it makes her point stronger, because it’s clear that this more nuanced conversation would not be happening without all the other people who have already come forward to demand accountability from politicians, celebrities and CEOs for the way their actions have caused harm.
Lucy Flores to Jake Tapper on CNN (3/31/19): “This really is about women feeling like we have agency.”
Flores told Tapper:
Frankly, on a much larger scale, we also need to have a conversation about powerful men feeling that they have the right to invade a woman’s space whenever they’d like. This really is about women feeling like we have agency.
Analysts have been clear to point out that no one has accused Biden of sexual harassment, but what’s missing is an understanding of the way that inappropriate behavior toward women can impact women’s political advancement or even exclude them from a career.
Like Flores, the woman who came forward to say that Biden touched her inappropriately when she worked in his Senate office in 1993 (Nevada County Union, 4/3/19) has experienced media scrutiny for her political opinions. Alexandra Tara Reade explained that when she spoke up to Senate personnel about her concerns, Biden retaliated. She was unable to get another job on the Hill, changing the trajectory of her career. “My life was hell,” she said.
Edward-Isaac Dovere, a staff writer at The Atlantic, tweeted that Reade had previously written about her love of Russia and, given this, questioned whether her account of the blacklisting was accurate. The implication of Dovere’s line of thinking is that certain people are only entitled to personal space or careers if they have the correct opinion on Vladimir Putin:
latest woman to accuse Biden of touching her inappropriately – https://t.co/GY8BNSsOtI – wrote in December: “I love Russia with all my heart … President Putin scares the power elite in America because he is a compassionate, caring, visionary leader.” https://t.co/gzbhSRps43
— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) April 4, 2019
Some of those given space in corporate media to defend Biden have taken it upon themselves to do so on their children’s behalf. The Washington Post (3/31/19) asked Sen. Chris Coons (D.-Delaware) to speak for his daughter Maggie about a 2015 incident in which Biden was filmed kissing the then-13-year-old’s forehead and whispering in her ear.
“She did not think of it as anything,” Coons said. “All three of my kids have known Joe their whole lives.”
Although it seems journalistically irresponsible—not to mention paternalistic—to assume that Coons would accurately represent his daughter’s opinion, it’s clear from the video, where Maggie grimaces and moves away from Biden, that she isn’t having a good time.
Eve Gerber (Atlantic, 4/4/19) lamented that “avuncular attention” is “now interpreted as at best pernicious paternalism and at worst septuagenarian sexual harassment.”
A main defense of Biden is that there have been occasions where he did not cross a line, as if that invalidates the times when he did. Eve Gerber, whose husband, economist Jason Furman, was a top Obama administration appointee, wrote an essay for The Atlantic (4/4/19) to say that, actually, Biden is an “unusually good” man. Alongside photos of her young son and daughter with Biden, Gerber argued that he was “touchy-feely with everyone,” and her kids loved it.
At Vox, Matt Yglesias (4/2/19) asked
whether the real problem is “millennial snowflakes,” out-of-control political correctness, and a zealous neo-Puritanism that can’t even take a joke or see an affectionate gesture for what it is.
Calling Biden “old-school,” Yglesias builds on the false idea that Biden’s line-crossing has some kind of legitimacy as a vestige of an earlier time. The common narrative that the #metoo movement is generational is inaccurate. It erases older feminists like Biden accuser D.J. Hill, while also suggesting that some people should be allowed to behave inappropriately because of their age.
Defenses for Biden don’t necessarily follow a logical path. In addition to questioning the motives of the accusers and victim blaming, media analysts have invented reasons to excuse his behavior. At CNN (4/3/19), historian Douglas Brinkley brought up Biden’s cancer advocacy work.
“He’s been doing a cancer moonshot, and he’s talking to people that are afflicted with cancer a lot, and he grabs them a lot,” he said.
None of the accusers met Biden under these circumstances. And if they did? Cancer patients have boundaries, too.
For the corpress, nothing short of rape on streaming video qualifies as unalloyed depravity
Even “pussy grabbing”, judging by Killer Clown’s pass.
WTH are you babbling about?!? The press didn’t give Trump a pass, some 40% of the electorate did. The press hounded him for over a year about it.
Biden displays the kind of 1950s style patronizing behavior that he should have outgrown at least thirty years ago…
Here’s a little thought experiment, boys.
How would you feel if Diane Feinstein, Betsy DeVos or Nancy Pelosi came up behind you, put their hands on your shoulders, nuzzled your hair and gave you a lingering kiss on the back of the head, hmm??
Yeah thats just creepy..i cant get away from that word..if someone did that to me i would reflexively jerk away from them..of course, do that to the vice president on stage and your going to be fired..thats what makes Bidens creepy touchy-feely totally unacceptable..Because if its just the over demonstrative but “sincere affection” of a ” genuinely warm” man , then no one should have to worry about BEING FUCKING FIRED for not wanting to be pawed and sniffed by him (or ones children) …retaliating against someone is not a “warm” or “sincerely affectionate” response
I’d feel fine about it. What’s your point?
There are many other reasons Joe Biden should be opposed.
See these:
Joe Biden Isn’t the Answer
https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/55808-joe-biden-isnt-the-answer
Joe Biden Is a Link to the Past—and Not In a Good Way
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/04/01/joe-biden-link-past-and-not-good-way
When Joe Biden Voted to Let States Overturn Roe v. Wade
https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/55782-when-joe-biden-voted-to-let-states-overturn-roe-v-wade
Biden and Beto’s Aid to GOP Candidates Is Disqualifying
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/2020-primary-biden-and-betos-aid-to-gop-candidates-in-2018-is-disqualifying.html
Joe Biden Has a History of Racist Comments
https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/55404-joe-biden-has-a-history-of-racist-comments
No Joe! Joe Biden’s Disastrous Legislative Legacy
https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/55221-no-joe-joe-bidens-disastrous-legislative-legacy
Has Biden hailed Trump’s attack on Venezuela yet? Back in the 80’s he backed the Contras, saying he wouldn’t stand by as the Sandinista “tyrants imposed their will” on Nicaragua, which prompted Alexander Cockburn to call Biden “another Cold War Democrat trying to prove he’s got hair on his chest and sawdust in his brain.
”QuickLink: Biden Took $200K Speaking Fee to Help Re-elect a Republican Candidate | OpEdNewshttps://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Biden-Took-200K-Speaking-by-Stephen-Fox-David-Leonhardt_Michigan_Presidential-Campaign_Presidential-Campaign-Democratic-190124-681.html
Joe Biden, Crime Fighter from Hell
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/16/joe-biden-crime-fighter-from-hell/
January, 2019 quote from Biden:Joe Biden: “I read in the New York Times that one of the problems I’d have if I ran for president is I like Republicans. Bless me father for I have sinned.”
So, learning NOTHING from the eight years the two Obama-Biden administrations spent struggling against intransigent Congressional ideologues in the RethugliKKKan Party led by Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and filled with crazies such as Steve King, Louie Gohmert, Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Rick Scott, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and others, Joe Biden still thinks he can work with a political party which is racist, misogynistic, white-supremacist, extremely right wing, and hates government when it does things to help the common people (of course, they LOVE IT when the government helps corporations, the rich, and the Military-Media-Intelligence-Corporate-Congressional Complex).
They are ALL part of the same corrupt corporate club, isolated from the real-life everyday concerns of most Americans, not giving a damn about what we want and need.
The Other Reason Biden Shouldn’t Run – Progressive.org
https://progressive.org/dispatches/the-other-reason-biden-shouldnt-run-Zunes-190402/?utm_source=THE+PROGRESSIVE+UPDATED+LIST&utm_campaign=b373506e11-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_03_21_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_194f0c7083-b373506e11-186688709&mc_cid=b373506e11&mc_eid=6530ae83a5
Good to know as we head into the 2020 elections.
Will Joe Biden run on his record or from it?
Joe Biden:
1991: Attacked Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.
1994: Wrote the disastrous Clinton Crime Bill
1995: Voted against gay marriage
1996: Voted to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act
2001: Voted for the Patriot Act
2002: Voted for the disastrous, illegal Iraq War
2005: Voted to end bankruptcy protections for students
2018: Presented George W. Bush with the Liberty Medal
Joe Biden: Another Disastrous Democrat.
And, of course, none of Biden’s defenders’ political motives are questioned, are they just?
As a women who faced losing a job if I didn’t perform a sexual act, these kinds of accusations are offensive. A kiss on the head? A hug? A sniff? This is NOT sexual harassment. Someone threatening your job, promotion, reputation are serious issues which need to be addressed. This is just to gain attention. Lucy Flores needs grow up and stop whining. There are real problems in the world.
Hi tracie—a kiss on the head , a pat on the rear, a hug—that’s how it starts—that’s when you stop it. I think you are confused, as Lucy Flores was about to enter the stage and speak—what Joe Biden did is a controlling act. That’s when Lucy should have had an issue, but she had to go out in stage and speak——– Don’t forget, Joe Biden left Anita Hill twisting in the wind, He could have called the other women who had similar Clarence issues and INVESTIGATED what she said. Maybe Joe is slow on the uptake, or maybe he does not see the value of women’s brains——–too bad. I wonder how he missed #MeToo and Harvey in Hollywood. Sorry Joe, no vote ever for you, ——–in case you’re wondering.
If that’s “how it starts”, then you can present evidence that it went further. But you can’t.
Way to miss Tracie’s point.
The reason I would hesitate to vote for Biden has to do with his stance on war. I received an email from
Stephen Zunes that discussed Biden’s position on war.
The Progressive magazine has just posted my latest article, which examines the critical role played by Joe Biden, as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in getting the Democratic-controlled Senate to authorize Bush’s illegal, unnecessary, and predictably disastrous invasion, occupation, and counter-insurgency war in Iraq.
https://progressive.org/
The email contains several links to other articles and debates.
Please feel free to circulate these and invite people to contact me to be on my email list. Also, please let me know if you no longer want to be on my email list.
Stephen Zunes
Professor of Politics
University of San Francisco
w: 415-422-6981
c: 831-234-9468
@szunes
Thanks, Professor!
Must be that Trump only violated women who either expected it, were not offended by it, or hoped to gain from it.
Good article!
But you also wrote, of your own device: “nuanced conversation”, combining two of the worst recent, over-used, centrist nothing-words in politics and social matters. UGH!!
Elephant: “oh hi rhino, there’s like only five of you left, right?”
Rhino: “yeah. We’ll be extinct soon while centrists have conversations.”
Tiger: “Hi, me too! All my body parts are going to be used by backwards jackasses to try to heal their ailments and make their penises super-hard.”
Elephant: “Sorry to hear that tiger. That sucks. But–the humans, some tried to save you right?”
Tiger: “Yeah. Whether all tigers should go extinct needed to be discussed with nuance. So now we’re dead.”
Elephant: “Jesus. What a bunch of assholes. Some things are just rather obviously wrong.”
Rhino: “Maybe, maybe not. That’s something the humans will have to have healthy debates and nuanced conversations about. Open up the forum of ideas and e, e –EERRK.”
The last of the rhinos then died!!!
Sorry you need complex issues dumbed down for you.