There’s a new story at Bloomberg today headlined, “Democratic Women Urge Stronger Biden Response in Tara Reade Case.” Here’s how it opens:

Democratic activists and women’s groups say they saw a familiar and distressing playbook unfolding when Joe Biden addressed the sexual assault allegation against him by denying them and largely moving on.

Now, they’re trying to convince Biden that if he doesn’t continue to address the issue head on, he risks depressing turnout of women voters, potentially giving a boost to President Donald Trump.

Wow! Does this mean that Democratic activists and women’s groups who previously went silent about the allegations are finally stepping up? Well, not really. In fact, if you keep reading what you find is that “Democratic activists and women’s groups” seems to refer to just two women. The first is Lucy Flores:

“The fact that he has to be pressured every single time something in his past is brought up, a mistake that he’s made, a position that he’s taken, etcetera, is just a complete failure as it relates to leadership,” said Lucy Flores, a former Democratic state assemblywoman in Nevada who has accused Biden of touching her inappropriately.

“This isn’t to discount some of the good things that Joe Biden has done, and that’s part of his problem is that he tries to constantly use some of the good things that he has done as if it settles all of his debts in some way and it doesn’t,” she added, pointing out that she will still vote for him, but knows a number of women who say they do not think they can stomach it.

Those other women who can’t stomach voting for Biden aren’t identified. The other person who does speak openly is Shaunna Thomas of UltraViolet:

“Anybody on the Democratic side who doesn’t think that Republicans who want to destroy Biden aren’t going to raise this repeatedly and leverage the channels that they’ve built to spread disinformation, misinformation, and voter suppression content — people that think they aren’t going to use this issue to depress votes particularly among women in swing states — they are mistaken,” said Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of UltraViolet, a women’s rights advocacy group. “The idea that if you stop talking it goes away has already been disproven.”

So, credit to those two ladies I guess, but that’s really the extent of the push back at this point, i.e. one Biden accuser who plans to support him anyway and one women’s group co-founder who seems mostly worried about Republicans seizing (as they are wont to do) on the allegation.

The only other person quoted in the story is Christine Pelosi. She thinks the DC police should investigate Reade’s claim. That sounds good but she’s pretending the incident isn’t already well beyond the statute of limitations and she’s ignoring the fact that the DC police have already put Reade’s case on “inactive” status because of that.

This rather pathetic level of support for Reade had me wondering what happened to all the other activists, Democrats and women’s group leaders who were so vocally supportive of Christine Blasey Ford. And that’s when it hit me.

Christine Blasey Ford doesn’t support Tara Reade.

Okay, I don’t actually know that’s true. But Christine Blasey Ford wasn’t whisked away from earth in 2018. She’s still out there somewhere reading the news. She knows about Tara Reade and, so far, she hasn’t offered a word of public support about her allegation. That’s true even though Tara Reade made a point of saying she believed Christine Blasey Ford in her interview with Megyn Kelly.

Isn’t it pretty remarkable that Ford has remained silent? Has anyone in the media even tried to ask Blasey Ford if she believes Reade? Did reporters at every news outlet suddenly lose her number after the confirmation? Given the media comparisons between the two women over the past several weeks, it really does seem like an obvious avenue to pursue. So why hasn’t the media pursued it?

Maybe they have but we certainly haven’t heard about it in public. Maybe that’s because either way Ford answers the questions creates a problem for Democrats. If she doesn’t believe Reade, that really would be a blow to #BelieveWomen and the people who rallied to believe Ford. If Ford does believe Reade, that makes it a lot more uncomfortable for Biden supporters and feminists to downplay or ignore Reade’s allegations. I suspect the media aren’t asking Dr. Ford what she thinks because there’s no upside to Democrats in doing so.