Yesterday actress Rose McGowan published a tweet with screenshots of the questions NY Times’ journalists sent to Tara Reade. McGowan has been in contact with Reade for several weeks so apparently Reade sent her the list of questions. The questions cover a lot of territory and seem to suggest the Times is investigating Reade’s connections to Russia.

BREAKING NEWS: New York Times ‘journalist’ sent these questions to Joe Biden’s accuser, Tara Reade. The public needs to see how @llerer and the #NYT plan on twisting their minds. Now you can all see their tactics & how far they will go. pic.twitter.com/wZMnHtWGW5

— Rose McGowan (@rosemcgowan) May 24, 2020

I’m not going to highlight all of these but the general idea is that the Times is looking to pin down every bit of Reade’s life back to her childhood: “You and your brother have both described your mother as an activist — can you tell us what sort of issues she advocated for?”

There are lots of questions about Reade’s life, nearly all of which seem to be intended to embarrass her. For instance: “Various landlords said you left them owing money and property in disarray – can you respond to that?”

Another one: “We heard that after your car was repossessed friends sold you their vehicle and let you pay it with a no interest loan but that you struggled to make those payments and they took it back. Is that true?”

Near the end the questions suggest the Times is looking into Reade’s connections to Russia: “Several people told me you were dating a Russian man online in the spring of 2019. Is that true? How did you meet and can you tell me about the relationship?”

And what is this about? “On Quora you followed three Russian individuals… How was it that you came to know of them and follow them?”

Is the NY Times taking seriously the claims that Reade is some kind of Russian plant? What are they basing that line of questioning on?

This whole thing from the @NYTimes is disgusting but the last questions – involving interrogating Tara Reade about whether she committed the crime of "following three Russian individuals on Quora" and demanding an explanation – is just deranged. 🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺 https://t.co/1hL3UQbVaQ

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 24, 2020

The final question was clearly submitted by a third party. It reads, “We understand that she filed a complaint against supervisors at the census bureau last fall. Can she tell us about that?”

I’m not sure what the old photo of Reade was about. There doesn’t seem to be a question about the photo. In any case, the NY Times’ approach is making for some strange bedfellows:

WOW! Look at these questions that a NY Times reporter sent Tara Reade.
From what I can discern, they are working to portray her as a russian asset that doesn’t pay her rent.

Women that are sexually assaulted by Democrats have their lives destroyed by the left wing media machine https://t.co/02bzc5Ugha

— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) May 24, 2020

The big picture here is that every aspect of Reade’s life is now being scrutinized. And to be fair, she is making some pretty significant claims so some scrutiny seems appropriate. But this is a long way from the #BelieveWomen mantra we saw during the Kavanaugh confirmation. Did anyone ever investigate Christine Blasey Ford’s life with this level of detail and skepticism? The few things we did hear from her (two front doors, doesn’t like to fly) both turned out to be very misleading. And yet, I don’t remember much concern about how that might relate to the veracity of her allegations.

The contrast in how these cases were handled is pretty striking to me but not to the progressives who supported Dr. Ford. In their view, there were no negative stories about Ford’s life because there was nothing to tell.

I think understanding it requires letting go of your iron assumption the two cases are the same. Politico's story reports Reade is a habitual liar who habitually preys upon sympathy at her mistreatment.

There's no equivalent Ford story because Ford is not like that

— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) May 16, 2020

This next guy referred to Ford’s character as “pure.” What is he basing that on? Again, the fact that no one in the media published anything detrimental about Ford. He has total confidence in the media. Lack of negative material on Ford can only mean complete and utter innocence. The fact that the media probably never sent a list of questions like this to Dr. Ford doesn’t even occur to these people.

I didn’t tell you questioning Ford’s character was wrong. Though I don’t think her character was proven to be anything but pure. And it was never Believe All Women. It was Believe Women. But it should’ve been Hear Women.

— Ed Greenberger (@EdGreenberger) May 24, 2020

The truth is that no one really knows if Ford led a perfect life because, outside of the claims she made about Kavanaugh, we never heard any real scrutiny of her history. That didn’t fit with the #BelieveWomen mantra being pushed at the time.

Personally, I’m okay with investigating the accuser. It never made sense to assume any accuser was telling the truth, especially when you’re talking about ending someone’s entire career and making it so they can never show their face in public. The problem is that the left turns their skepticism of accusers on and off depending who is being accused. In Kavanaugh’s case, their skepticism was nearly zero, even if they don’t want to admit it now.