Yes, that’s right. In just another twist from the You-Can’t-Make-This-Sh*t-Up, 2020 Edition, late last night it was discovered that Tara Reade’s late father, Robert Moulton, wrote a novel in 2010 1998. Moulton’s obituary can be found here:

Robert Moulton, sports writer for the Wausau Daily Herald during the 1960s, died at his home in Newhall, California, on February 29, 2016, at age eighty after several months of declining health. He is survived by his children, Kimberly, Diane, Collin Reade and Tara.

The novel, ‘Loss’, listed on Amazon and Google Books contains a scene, which bears uncanny similarity to her allegation against Joe Biden:

“After several weeks of flirting with him she spent the night in his room on Bleeker Street next door to the Russian strip joint...” — actually I will stop there as the scene gets pretty adult and would not be appropriate for a diary IMO. You can see the highlighted text at this twitter thread for more info.

Major media has practically run away from giving these allegations air time and it’s clear why: every time someone does some digging, her story falls apart. Nevertheless toxic elements in our party have continued to try and breathe life into this disaster of a story. Following the same pattern as the ‘mental decline’ narrative which went from ‘Biden has dementia’, to ‘well maybe not dementia but he’s old/frail/something’s not right’, to ‘people are talking about it, so maybe there’s something there’, to ‘it may not be true but he should just address it’, the Reade narrative is playing out just the same way.

It’s like a 12-step program for disinformation, the goal being to keep the narrative in the ether as long as possible even if it’s just to create doubt. Even if under the guise of being pro-active.

But just like the mental decline narrative, the Reade story has failed. Instead it’s backfiring on the few who are trying to give it new life. Like a hand grenade being desperately lobbied across the field and blowing up as the needle’s pulled every time. But this isn’t backfiring on Trump and the Republicans. It’s backfiring on *us*. It’s undermining our credibility on the left since ‘the calls are coming from inside the house’. The overwhelming memes and social media posts I see are from those purporting to be left.

It’s just another message to the base of our party that the lessons of 2016 were not learned.

Reade pilfered her dead father’s work for her allegations against a presidential candidate. That’s about as low as one can get IMO. There’s nothing for Biden or anyone to address, except Reade. Her 15 minutes are done. Those of us who feel compelled to hand wring over this trainwreck should ignore the toxic, dare I say infectious, fumes on social media. Learn the lessons of 2016. The overwhelming majority of America is focused on who can best lead us to a life free of fearing our next day may be our last, not a Ryan Murphy-esque political intrigue best left for a Netflix binge with box wine.

Edit: Off to bed, so won’t reply for some time. Be safe everyone. Practice Social (Media) Distancing.

Edit Part II: So your arms are crossed and you’re looking over glasses professorially and going ‘well that’s not much to go on, hrmm’. Then feel free to check out Ian’s diary with the legal/prosecutorial takedown in USAToday. That’s the thing with this fiasco, there are so many angles you can dismantle depending on your evidence-based bias you can have a field day. There’s Russia/Putin, there’s legal/prosecutorial claim, there’s this dead father um situation, there’s the um horse vet thing… take your pick.

Edit and Edit Again: Okay. Awake now. Wow, lots of responses, lots of despair. But in the real world there’s this:

x Trump: Ã¢ÂÂI am not f*cking losing to Joe Biden!Ã¢ÂÂ https://t.co/WlkyRJE1Bu Ã¢ÂÂ Jon Cooper Ã°ÂÂÂºÃ°ÂÂÂ¸ (@joncoopertweets) April 30, 2020

Trump Erupts At Campaign Team As His Poll Numbers Slide The president erupted at his top advisers when they showed him polling data indicating eroding support in key states due to his bungled coronavirus response.

Er, if Biden is damaged goods due to this non-story why is Donald’s behavior getting *worse* every day since last week?

Look, Biden is gonna win regardless of any attacks. In the real world, people have HAD IT. His polling just keeps better, not worse. People’s fears with this story reflects the widening split between reality-based actions of the base and the social-media driven melodramas of the extremes.