Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Bark louder, little dog.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

This fight is for everything.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Second rate reporter says what?

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

If you are in line to indict donald trump, stay in line.

This really is a full service blog.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / ForPol After Dark Open Thread: NorKo Dragon Princess Yo Jong

ForPol After Dark Open Thread: NorKo Dragon Princess Yo Jong

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For those of you who don’t watch anime / read manga: That poster is hilariously, tragically on-point. BUT!…

So — this time — ‘we’ don’t have to worry about the succession. (Here’s a good BBC explainer: Kim Jong-un and the brutal North Korea rumour mill.)

And yet, some of y’all dudes be weird. The WSJ guys Foreign Policy discusses are not (just) otaku amateurs:


As soon as speculation started about the unknown fate of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the internet began heaving with a disturbing appreciation of Kim’s younger sister and possible successor, Kim Yo Jong. The idea that the 32-year-old would soon ascend to North Korea’s top spot triggered a range of fantasies. Internet users expressed their wish for Kim to torture them, choke them, or sentence them to hard labor; others were inspired to transform her into a winsome anime heroine or produce high-octane video montages in the style usually reserved for K-pop stars…

Long before any of these women were born, the West had a fascination with a woman whose image mirrors Kim Yo Jong’s more closely than anyone else: Empress Dowager Cixi, the original “dragon lady.” Cixi ruled, at least in name, over China during the dying decades of the Qing dynasty, a period during which foreigners were making inroads into the Middle Kingdom and finding themselves frequently and violently repelled, as in the Boxer Rebellion. Westerners were desperate to understand the inner workings of the Manchu court, but information was scarce, thus providing fertile ground for apocryphal tales, speculation, and outright fantasy…

… A century before Twitter memes and DeviantArt, “Cixi became one image among many that could be bought and consumed, sent in postcards around the world with captions in foreign languages.”

It’s not surprising that a similar erotic fascination has followed Kim Yo Jong, who could become the leader of the most tantalizingly mysterious nation in the world. From the time of her debut on the international scene in 2018 at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, Kim has been by turns characterized in foreign media as a harmless angel and a terrifying dragon lady. A columnist for a South Korean paper complimented Kim’s “fit and nimble” physique; international media analyzed her outfits and makeup; some even likened her to Ivanka Trump—a female presence softening the image of the authoritarian man in charge. “If Kim Jong Un had intended to deploy his baby sister as a weapon, he was gambling that the world believes in the image of young, Asian women as incontrovertibly obliging,” Jiayang Fan of the New Yorker wrote at the time.

But, as Fan noted, the media narrative about Kim flipped in less than two days, with Western press suddenly ascribing to her sinister motives. A Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “Kim Yo-Jong is a Twisted Sister” warned that Kim, “with her freckles and enigmatic smile, is a trained and trusted royal brainwasher for a family regime.”

Once again, Western anxiety about an unknown regime is being channeled into fear and fantasy about sexual manipulation by a female sovereign—compounded by internet thirstiness that puts extremely hot and extremely online women (“e-girls”) on a pedestal and fetishizes male subservience. At any rate, as long as North Korea remains a nation of danger and mystery, the internet will keep simping for Kim Yo Jong.

Reader Interactions

137Comments

  2. 2.

    ziggy

    I am completely fascinated by the story of Empress Cixi. Read Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang a few months ago, a good read. She was, by most accounts, a very smart, able leader for a very long time (about 50 years). The positioning of Kim Yo Jong, especially in the fertilizer plant pic, is striking. I’m not convinced that Kim Jong Un is completely well.

  4. 4.

    Brachiator

    Kim on a horse. Putin on a horse.

    You know Trump is going to be looking to go all cowboy as soon as he can.

  8. 8.

    Brachiator

    … A century before Twitter memes and DeviantArt, “Cixi became one image among many that could be bought and consumed, sent in postcards around the world with captions in foreign languages.”

    It’s not surprising that a similar erotic fascination has followed Kim Yo Jong, who could become the leader of the most tantalizingly mysterious nation in the world.

    Dowager Empress Cixi was in her 60s during the era of the Boxer Rebellion. I’m not seeing the connection with erotic fascination, even though this weird crap regarding Kim Yo Jong is nuts.

    And the racist concern over Yellow Peril in the 1900s had as much to do with fear of dope smoking Asian men seducing pure white women, as it deal with manipulative Asian females.

    You can still find the wild 1932 pre Code movie, The Mask of Fu Manchu on TCM, with Boris Karloff as the villain. It features the insanely racist line, “Kill the white man and take his women!”

     

    ETA: A young Myrna Loy was in danger of becoming hopelessly typecast as an Asian vamp when she played Fu Manchu’s daughter in this film.

  10. 10.

    Emma

    Good to see that Foreign Policy wrote an article about the Orientalism surrounding the creepy fascination with Kim Yo Jong. There are 2 dichotomies of Asian women in this worldview: the meek, subservient girl (i.e. the idiot in Madame Butterfly) or the dangerous, yet sexy dragon lady. KYJ is a dictator’s sister meeting foreign officials on equal terms, so it was pretty much a given that she was going to get the dragon lady treatment. There’s been lots of study in the intersection of being a woman and being Asian, and what do you know, the first article in Google Scholar when you search “dragon lady” between 2010 and 2020 is “Lotus Blossom or Dragon Lady: A Content Analysis of ‘Asian Women’ Online Pornography” (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12119-016-9375-9)

  12. 12.

    Emma

    @Brachiator: the sexualization of Cixi in contemporary Western media was definitely a thing, kind of like how Catherine the Great was also hypersexualized even as an older woman. Couple of long quotes from https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_RLC_297_0113–the-empress-dowager-cixi-in-western.htm

    “Western works of history have had a decided influence on the portrayal of Ci-Xi’s personality; some of them picture her as an oversexed tyrant and others as a highly intelligent and dedicated administrator. The first extreme is represented by two British historians, J. O. P. Bland and Edmund Backhouse, who described her in their China under the Empress Dowager, 1910, as a sexually promiscuous autocrat ruling with extreme cruelty[2]  London : William Heinemann.[2]. ”

    “Much of the aura of feminine charm and domestic virtue associated with the Empress Dowager derives from two American women and a Chinese lady of the court who eventually became an American citizen and wrote a series of books touching on Ci-Xi’s personality. The first of these, Mrs. Sarah Pike Conger, wife of the American minister, on the strength of merely two encounters with Ci-Xi at formal receptions for wives of the diplomatic corps, published an extensive book, Letters from China with Particular Reference to the Empress Dowager[7]  Chicago : A.C. McClurg, 1909.[7].”

    Edit: and now that I look at it, it’s very interesting that the men put Cixi in the “dragon lady” box while the women put her in the “subservient” category LOL.

  17. 17.

    Brachiator

    @Emma:

    Yes, Cixi was viewed from many perspectives – “as a brutal autocrat and a caring mother. ”

    People wanting to cherry pick the erotic temptress angle are reading very selectively to make a dubious connection.

    Similarly, people can deep dive into anime and hentai and come up with almost anything they wish.

    and now that I look at it, it’s very interesting that the men put Cixi in the “dragon lady” box while the women put her in the “subservient” category LOL.

    There are probably some very interesting observations to be made about how Western women viewed Asian women, especially during this era when Western women were fighting for the vote and empowerment.

  18. 18.

    Emma

    @Brachiator: oh for sure, it’s all very white savior-y, where the American women writing about her, and Chinese women in general, condescend to them because they want the heathens to convert to Christianity. So I’m sure it was easier for them to dream of success if they assumed Chinese women were meek (“teachable,” as the Jehovah’s Witnesses who used to visit me would say)

  22. 22.

    James E Powell

    This Biden stuff is such a clear repetition of every other bullshit attack on Democrats that I can’t believe how many people are going along with it. I expected better – I don’t know why, I guess I’m just stupid.

  23. 23.

    Achrachno

    I just would like to know if Kim Jong Un is still alive, or if there are serious health issues.  Too many rumors and too few hard facts, as usual.  This new report is far from convincing and I hope various intelligence agencies will try to get a rough date on the image.

    We can worry about his sister later, if she survives any change of leadership that might happen.  I hope there’s no power struggle with all the resulting problems/threats.  I don’t know if Un is the worst they have available.

  24. 24.

    joel hanes

    @Brachiator:

    Trump is going to be looking to go all cowboy

    Oh god I hope so.   They’ll need a crane to put him astride a statue of a horse, because no way he’ll ever ride a real one.   And the cowboy suit and sombrero would be …

    It’s not as if he has any dignity to lose.

  28. 28.

    Mary G

    And not-a-witch Christine O’Donnell weighs in saying Biden made a remark at the Gridiron Dinner about her niece’s boobs when she was 14. Only one problem, he had sinus surgery that week.

    And #first to @ABC we asked the campaign to ante up then-Sen. Biden’s schedule for that day. It shows “regrets in Delaware – 6p 17th annual First State Gridiron Dinner & show, cocktails on the riverfront, black tie – John to attend.” aka — an aide there, in Biden’s stead.
    — Sasha Pezenik (@SashaPezenik) May 3, 2020

    And, then-V.P. of the First State Gridiron Dinner wrote a letter today provided by the campaign, "to whom it may concern" saying, "After reviewing my files of the dinner which included attendees and the show itself, I can conclusively say, Senator Biden was not at the dinner."— Sasha Pezenik (@SashaPezenik) May 3, 2020

    My first impulse is to point and laugh, but I’ve come to see from Adam’s posts that it doesn’t really matter how silly or untrue these scams are. They provide cover for Trumpists who aren’t that eager to seem racist with a “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” rationale, and keep the media busy chasing these stories instead of talking about Twitler’s many major fuckups.

  29. 29.

    Achrachno

    @joel hanes: A work horse could carry him I bet.  One of those big breeds.  It’d be amusing, esp. if the selected horse had never been ridden before.  Ride ’em cowboy!

  31. 31.

    dmsilev

    @Achrachno: Budweiser has some Clydesdales they could make available.

    Alternatively, I’m sure the National Zoo has an elephant that is bored out of its gourd because of the lack of visitors.

  32. 32.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Mary G: Lara trump was on the Judge Jeanine show tonight, trolling Biden by asking he wouldn’t want to do anything he can to prove his innocence, including opening his UD papers. I’d like to think they’re leading with their chins

    The part of the book that caused the most controversy concerns Trump’s divorce from his first wife, Ivana. Hurt obtained a copy of her sworn divorce deposition, from 1990, in which she stated that, the previous year, her husband had raped her in a fit of rage. In Hurt’s account, Trump was furious that a “scalp reduction” operation he’d undergone to eliminate a bald spot had been unexpectedly painful. Ivana had recommended the plastic surgeon. In retaliation, Hurt wrote, Trump yanked out a handful of his wife’s hair, and then forced himself on her sexually. Afterward, according to the book, she spent the night locked in a bedroom, crying; in the morning, Trump asked her, “with menacing casualness, ‘Does it hurt?’” Trump has denied both the rape allegation and the suggestion that he had a scalp-reduction procedure. Hurt said that the incident, which is detailed in Ivana’s deposition, was confirmed by two of her friends.

  34. 34.

    ruemara

    @Mary G: And way too many people who are Sanders or Warren supporters want this to be true, so they’re sticking with condemning. And I was surprised to hear these progressive people are saying Dr. Ford’s statement during Kavanaugh’s hearing was unsubstantiated had less evidence. I’ve had a long day of being attacked on Facebook for posting about my anger at her changing statements muddying the waters. I’m supposed to just believe her, hate Biden and want him charged with rape or at least removed so another (Sanders) candidate can be appointed, undermining the votes of people who didn’t know who they should be voting for.

  35. 35.

    HumboldtBlue

    Ain’t Stillwater a college town?

    The red states sure are special.

    City Manager Norman McNickle said, “In the short time beginning on May 1, 2020, that face coverings have been required for entry into stores/restaurants, store employees have been threatened with physical violence and showered with verbal abuse.  In addition, there has been one threat of violence using a firearm.  This has occurred in three short hours and in the face of clear medical evidence that face coverings helps contain the spread of COVID-19.

    “Many of those with objections cite the mistaken belief the requirement is unconstitutional, and under their theory, one cannot be forced to wear a mask. No law or court supports this view. In fact, a recent Federal lawsuit against Guthrie’s face covering order was fully dismissed by the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma.

  36. 36.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    and now for an uplifting post: looks like Obama made a zoom with volunteers from the Chicago Food Depository

    Barack Obama @BarackObama · May 1
    The folks of the Chicago @fooddepository —and food banks in communities like yours—are working overtime to feed the vulnerable and families who’ve fallen on hard times. But even as demand has spiked, donations have slowed. Their incredible efforts are worth supporting if you can.

  37. 37.

    rikyrah

    This thread is very powerful and moving:

    This is going to be an ugly, angry thread. It's going to be about rape, written by someone who was violently raped in the early 1980s.Tara Reade is a liar. Im now certain of that beyond a reasonable doubt. Her attention seeking or corrupt performance has demeaned people who../1— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) May 2, 2020

  39. 39.

    rikyrah

    @ruemara:

    I am not you, but, to be honest, as a Black woman,

    You only need to write the following:

     

    Believe all women?

    I think not.

     

    the pages of history of THIS COUNTRY are littered with the blood of Black men at the end of some White woman’s FALSE ACCUSATION.

     

    Believe all women?

    Are you kidding me?

  41. 41.

    Mary G

    Oh, joy:

    (CNBC) The United States just had its deadliest day on record due to the coronavirus as states across the country begin to ease restrictions meant to curb the spread of the virus, according to data published by the World Health Organization.

    The U.S. saw 2,909 people die of Covid-19 in 24 hours, according to the data, which was collected as of 4 a.m. ET on Friday. That’s the highest daily Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. yet, based on a CNBC analysis of the WHO’s daily Covid-19 situation reports.

    Before May 1, the next highest U.S. daily death toll was 2,471 reported on April 23, according to the WHO.

    Dog only knows what the real number is, as the CDC cops to not really knowing:

    The WHO data differs from data collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which does not report historical daily Covid-19 deaths. The CDC’s site says that 2,349 people died in the U.S. of Covid-19 on May 1.

    However, the agency warns that its data might not be complete. CDC spokeswoman Kate Grusich told CNBC that the agency’s data is “validated through a confirmation process with jurisdictions.”

    “CDC does not know the exact number of COVID-19 illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths for a variety of reasons,” the agency says, adding that asymptomatic patients, delays in reporting and limited testing make it difficult to accurately track the data.

    That’s a lot of words to say “Republican governors are suppressing the numbers because the president doesn’t want to look bad.”

  42. 42.

    Mnemosyne

    I mean, I see no reason to think that Kim Yo Jong would be any less of an asshole than the rest of her family, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t leaning on “dragon lady” stereotypes. Just assuming that the sister of a dude who executed his former advisors in disgusting ways probably is just as bad as he is.

    But, yeah, the online anime worship has gotten very creepy.

  43. 43.

    ruemara

    @rikyrah: I had to stop. So painful. Watching something as vital as making it safe to report be weaponized. It’s anguish.

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    @Mary G:

    The Berners have already been pushing that story hard on Twitter.

    The young woman’s story was very convincing and had a fair amount of contemporary backup. I wonder which asshole at that dinner she mistook for Biden, or if her aunt was the one who told her it was Biden.

  45. 45.

    Morzer

    On Ci Xi, it’s worth remembering that pretty much the entire tradition of Western writing on her until rather recently derives from Edmund Backhouse, largely because he was supposedly an insider at the Qing court with a fluent knowledge of Chinese. It’s true that his Chinese was rather good, but he was never an insider and seems to have had very few, if any connections, to the Qing court. He misled a number of Western journalists and China ‘experts’ at the time and some of them realized it late in the day – but didn’t dare to expose him, because that meant admitting that their supposed expertise was entirely dependent on a fraudster. He was demonstrably a forger, a pathological liar, a sexual obsessive, a starfucker wannabe, a writer of third-rate pornography disguised as memoirs and a serial fraudster. If you want to verify all of this, you can read Hugh Trevor-Roper’s book on him “Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhouse”, which dismantles the various claims and outright lies that Backhouse put forward about himself, his friendships and his activities.

  48. 48.

    James E Powell

    @Mnemosyne:

    I mean, I see no reason to think that Kim Yo Jong would be any less of an asshole than the rest of her family, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t leaning on “dragon lady” stereotypes.

    Same here. I was leaning on the “educated at a private school in Switzerland” stereotype. Isn’t that where every brutal dictator’s child goes to school?

  49. 49.

    Mary G

    @ruemara: Yep. I’m a survivor and I wanted to believe and support her, but I couldn’t. I wrote a Twitter thread about why, but it’s painful. I will never forget my mother telling my father that I was “lying for attention.” Before all of this I thought I could never have said that about another woman. I hate how Biden handled Anita Hill. I hate seeing him walk up to a little girl, touch her shoulders and kiss the back of her head. It triggers me. But I believe he just didn’t do this.

  51. 51.

    lamh36

    @Mnemosyne: The reporter who tweeted about it in a twitter thread lead with true accusation as fact and then get to the actual truth that Biden wasn’t even there until 3 tweets in and then goes on to mask the fact that he wasn’t physical possible by saying the young lady had no political agenda ?

     

    If you didn’t read past the first tweet you would never even see they it couldn’t be true

     

    that reporter needs to either be fired or reprimanded for that bullshit

  52. 52.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @lamh36:

    Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom ·1

    WTH, @SashaPezenik. Leading off a series of tweets this way, with the real story – that Biden was not at the event and the charge is false – buried further down? This isn’t journalism, this is trolling. Actual story: “Christine O’Donnell’s niece makes false charge.”

  53. 53.

    Mary G

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Journalists and others are hammering her on Twitter:

    An entire thread about how Biden allegedly sexually harassed a 14 year-old girl… Except it ends by proving Biden was not at the event at which that gruesome incident was said to have taken place. https://t.co/Ixiode1U3o— Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) May 3, 2020

    This statement that you put several tweets down in this thread should have been included in your first tweet. Something about the confirmation of Biden not attending the event in question needed to be right at the top. https://t.co/P3FSADzsiM pic.twitter.com/3usYtQduqs— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) May 3, 2020

  54. 54.

    rikyrah

    I miss swimming.

    Just a random thought as ads for swimsuits on sale pop up on this site for me.

    I miss the peace and  calm  of the water.

    I miss the 20-25 minute shower that I take afterwards.

    I don’t miss a lot, being inside. But, I do miss ???

  56. 56.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    Yeah, that thread was bullshit. That reporter made things worse by trying to be clever and save her big reveal to the end. ?

    I read the original story and I do still think that the young woman was telling the truth as she knew it. I think some old white asshole dude did say that to her at that dinner. I just don’t know if someone told her it was Biden or if she misremembered or later changed the name or what.

  57. 57.

    James E Powell

    @lamh36:

    that reporter needs to either be fired or reprimanded for that bullshit

    If it feeds the frenzy, the reporter will get praise and raise. When was the last time a reporter’s career suffered for making bullshit claims against a Democrat?

  58. 58.

    lamh36

    @Mnemosyne: is this coming from O’Donnell or the niece, cause the tweet make it seem like it’s O’Donnell who’s telling the tale?

    Either way it wasn’t Biden so even if the story sounds believable it could just as well be a lie made up for the moment ??‍♀️

     

    2008 as a Presidential candidate and in Delaware I’d figure she’s know damn well who Joe Biden was she what he looked like ??‍♀️

     

    This is the problem with the weaponization of the MeToo movement but some,  shit like this make is even more difficult for real victims

  61. 61.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    The original story was told to the reporter by the niece, but it looks like ABC has been talking to the aunt. It was a VERY plausible story, with multiple people that she told at the time, several of whom talked to the reporter and verified their identities.

    That’s why I’m thinking/hoping it was a case of mistaken identity on her part. Since she was 14 when it happened, I wouldn’t necessarily expect her to recognize Biden on sight. Old gray-haired white guys are pretty interchangeable at that age.  And we know that eyewitness identifications are not very reliable unless the people already know each other.

  63. 63.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    It was a very strangely arranged thread. It almost felt like she had written it and scheduled it to post, but then had to scramble to add the “whoops, turns out it wasn’t him” part after the rest had already started posting.

    I think she was going for stupid drama, but that’s always a REALLY BAD IDEA on Twitter.

  67. 67.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    Also, the original story came from some online news source run by Berners, so this seems like more confirmation that the far left and far right are working together to try and take down Biden. Yay. ?

  69. 69.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    ABC’s lawyers probably said, Holy shit, do you want to get us sued for libel?!? This isn’t a personal essay on Medium, FFS!

    I’m assuming it will be re-posted in the correct order, and the Berners will still squeal.

  70. 70.

    lamh36

    @Mnemosyne: I don’t believe anything those folks say or repost at this point.  Heck if she doesn’t know him at 14, she now what 26 now and for sure know knows it was Biden?

     

    Im calling it. bullshit ??‍♀️

  73. 73.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    Found it!

    I will just say, as someone who “developed” fairly early, her story of feeling humiliated when an older man commented on her breasts rang very true to me. I do think that some man somewhere did say that to her and humiliated her. But we know for sure that it wasn’t Biden, so now the question is whether it was a case of mistaken identity / being told by her “helpful” aunt that the man who said it was Biden, or her consciously using a memory of someone else saying that to try and embarrass Biden. I honestly don’t know.

    https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/woman-claims-biden-sexually-harassed-her-when-she-was-14-years-old-by-complimenting-her-breasts/

     

    ETA: This “Law and Crime” site is apparently a Bernie-supporting news site so, again, we see possible evidence that they’re coordinating with the right wing since the Examiner picked it up quickly.

  74. 74.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @lamh36: You’re very well endowed for 14!

    No one talks like that.

    Years ago, as a part of some litigation, I went through the emails of some execs from a major corporation.  One of them had some emails that supposedly had stories about John Kerry from someone who had met him.  The person said that he met Kerry at a yacht club and told him about his 35′ sailboat and Kerry supposedly said “I don’t sail on anything less than 90′.”  Again, nothing a person would ever say, but it was meant to fit into a narrative that the right was telling about Kerry.  This is the same thing.

  75. 75.

    lamh36

    @Mnemosyne: Ugh that Dan Abrams blog.  Dude got fired from MSNBC and is no better than David Shuster in my book.  Both bitter and agenda driven.

     

    As for the being a overdeveloped teen myself sure I guess if I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt…but Im not in the mood to.

     

    Here is what gonna happen,  she’ll say she got the dates wrong, especially since she claims she met him 3 more. tunes afterward…??‍♀️

  76. 76.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I’m sorry to have to tell you that, yes, grown men do say shit like that to busty 14-year-old girls. It’s humiliating and disgusting, but they do. That’s why I found it plausible.

  77. 77.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    Yeah, probably. There are some really interesting studies about false memories and how easy it is to create them, especially if it’s something that gets hashed over with someone you trust who “corrects” your version.

    IOW, my opinion is that it was helpful Aunt Christine who told her it was Biden until that was how she remembered it. It’s especially likely if that was the first time she ever “met” Biden, because her brain would smooth over any differences as long as the two guys looked somewhat alike.

    Human memory is much less reliable than we like to think, especially when it comes to people we’ve never met before.

  78. 78.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne: I stand corrected.  That’s fucked up.  I cannot imagine making sexualized comments to a fourteen year old.  To be fair, I can’t imagine making that kind of comment to any woman.

  79. 79.

    eclare

    @Mnemosyne: It sounds exactly like something Trump would say.  And in some interview for a Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous type show, he was asked who his two year old daughter Tiffany favored, and he said “we don’t know if she’ll get these”, and he made a hand signal indicating breasts.  About a two year old.

  80. 80.

    lamh36

    @Mnemosyne: i’ve never had someone say “you’re well endowed”. to my face when I was a busty teen.  something along that line sure but that sentence structure seems too pristine for the usual more common drunken language I do remember.

     

    but that is the lie I think.  No one would believe Biden would say “nice tits” something like that?.  Add to that Biden is not a drinker I just cannot imagine even with his gaffe potential that he’s tell some 14 year old what she claimed he did??‍♀️

    Someone else ok, but even in the article she was adamant it was Biden…which is why I think in this case,  it’s a lie.. even if we didn’t already establish he wasn’t  there

  83. 83.

    Mary G

    @Omnes Omnibus: I hate to tell you, but I have giant boobs and got comments like that on the regular starting when they blew up in 1968  and men didn’t stop until I turned 50 or so. Women still come up to me telling me I should get breast reduction surgery. There still a shocking number of clueless people roaming around.

  84. 84.

    Anya

    @Mnemosyne: OMG! I just came here after I’ve read on twitter that the organizer of the event confirmed that Biden wasn’t even there when the alleged incident took place. I am so relieved.

    I think the girl (now a woman) is telling the truth but she somehow mixed up the creepy old man with Biden. I don’t know why, but  I don’t think she made it up. I’ve had a similar experience when I was 15. A creepy business associate of my grandpa somehow ended up in the wrong part of the house and cornered me to tell me how sexy I looked. That kind of icky feeling never leaves you. I swear, I can still remember every aspect of that encounter but I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup.

  86. 86.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    This is actually pretty creepy. I’d like to think some of this is being tongue-in-cheek, but I don’t think it is. A lot of this is probably driven by a bunch of white men’s fetish for Asian women.

    I’ve seen pictures of Kim’s sister, and honestly? I don’t see the appeal. She looks gaunt in the face, which I don’t find attractive in the least.

    Oh, and she’s most likely a terrible person, anyway.

    Fun fact: that top poster is definitely paying homage to manga with little sister characters. The “schoolgirl running late to school with toast hanging out of her mouth” (to highlight her “quirkiness” by eating her breakfast on the go) is a dead trope now. It became a big cliche at one point.

  89. 89.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Mnemosyne: from the link:

    Murry, who is 26 now and engaged with a son and daughter, was in middle school at the time Biden allegedly made the comments about her breasts. She said that she attended a few additional campaign events with her aunt after Biden made the alleged remarks and she described being anxious and feeling sick to her stomach around him or upon learning that he would also be attending any such future events.  […]

    Murry said that she was personally motivated to speak out because she began seeing Biden’s name and face appearing all over Facebook in early April after Bernie Sanders dropped out of the Democratic primary. She said that many of her friends started posting about voting for Biden. So, Murry started off by telling each of those friends her story. She says she did this over and over.

    she told half a dozen people in real time, and it never came up when Biden was named Obama’s running mate a couple months later? Through the campaign, for the eight flipping years he was VP? She remembers this all so vividly, but it just came back to her in April?

    She told her mom and her sister but nobody told Aunt Christine? who definitely would not have kept it to herself. This is another story that just doesn’t make sense.

  90. 90.

    Mary G

    Betcha Twitler is in the WH complaining to one of the flunkies about “Why can’t I do this?”

    The third Russian doctor in a week to decide to defenestrate in the middle of work after criticizing the government. https://t.co/9RJeiV1rxe— toomas hendrik ilves (@IlvesToomas) May 3, 2020

  91. 91.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    As I’ve had to tell my husband sometimes, he doesn’t know that this shit happens because he’s not friends with the kinds of guys who do this shit and never has been. It speaks well to both of your characters.

  92. 92.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Steeplejack: oh for fuck’s sake, it’s right fucking there, it’s fucking Tom Nichols fucking twitter feed. IS that really too fucking  hard for you to fucking figure out?

  95. 95.

    Mnemosyne

    @Anya:

    Yes! I’m glad you saw that, because I know you were really grossed out about it.

    I’m suspicious that Aunt Christine was the one who told her niece that the creepy guy was Biden and reinforced it until the kid believed it. Her, I would assign bad motives to in a heartbeat.

    But that may be because I would rather think that a 14-year-old wouldn’t know who the creepy old guy was than think that she’d come up with this very elaborate lie that she either told multiple people over the course of 12 years or orchestrated multiple people to lie on her behalf and tell the same story. I know that women can and do lie, but they usually can’t enlist a bunch of people to tell the same story. 

  96. 96.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Mary G:

    Putin is a fucking thug. Every time I think there’s no way he could go lower, he does. There are no lines he apparently won’t fucking cross.

    Do they honestly think murdering doctors during a deadly pandemic that is killing a lot of people is going to end well? This is how governments are overthrown

  97. 97.

    Mnemosyne

    @ruemara:

    The horseshoe is now a circle with Bernie dead-enders and Trumpers working hand in hand to try and defeat Biden. Christ on a cracker.

  98. 98.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    You have to go to Tom Nichols’s goddamn Twitter feed and then scroll down who knows how far to find the goddamn specific tweet because, no, it’s not just “right there.” Should every potentially interested reader have to do that just because you’re too fucking lazy to provide a link?

  99. 99.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I just re-read it and it hangs together for me. She says that she told two friends, her mother, and her sister soon after it happened, then told other friends 2 or 3 years later and has told the story multiple times over the years. The statements from her friends sound pretty plausible, too, which is what makes me think it was mistaken identity rather than a complete fabrication.

  100. 100.

    Ruckus

    @joel hanes:

    It’s not as if he has any dignity to lose.

    Yeah, I’m not sure he’s ever had any dignity whatsoever in his entire life. Fred didn’t give him any, and if he had, shit for brains would have sold it at a loss, like he’s done everything else in his life.

  102. 102.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Anya:

    I’m a guy, so I can’t fully relate, but when I worked at a banquet center, there was a (probably drunk) woman in her 30s who squeezed my ass as she was leaving when I was bussing an empty table while a party was winding down. Can’t say I was creeped out or that I ever felt like I was in danger, like you were. It was more funny than anything to me. I suppose as a man I have that luxury.

    However, I was 18-19 at the time, and a lot of people who worked there were minors. For all she knew, I could’ve been under 18! Of course, groping anybody is wrong tbh, no matter the sex or age of a person…

    Which is why I really hope she was drunk.

  103. 103.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Aunt Christine ran against Biden for the Senate in 2008.  Biden was on the ballot in 08 for both VP and Senate.   Yet her niece didn’t remember.  yeah right.

  105. 105.

    Mary G

    He’s growing on me:

    What Biden said tonight at a fundraiser with Obama alumni about the Reade allegations: “my knowledge that it isn't true does nothing to shake my belief that women have to be able to be heard and that all the claims be taken seriously.” pic.twitter.com/Im5M7LD6LO— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) May 2, 2020

  106. 106.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, too, for people who are interested in the problems with eyewitness testimony, there’s a really interesting “Frontline” episode from the early 2000s called “What Jennifer Saw” that explains a lot of this stuff really well. It’s built around a stranger rape case where the victim misidentified her attacker and the wrong man went to prison until they finally did a post-conviction DNA test that cleared him.

    I particularly remember the episode because they interviewed the wrongly accused man and he was way more angry at the police than he was at the victim. He said something like, They dragged me up to this poor lady’s hospital room and were like, ‘Is this the guy who attacked you?’ What did they think she was going to say when the police brought me in like that, ‘no’?

  107. 107.

    Anya

    @Mnemosyne: They didn’t even update the storyline with the Gridiron Dinner organizer saying that Biden wasn’t at the event. There are also news paper articles about his activities. This was easy to verify.

    A lot of ‘reporters’ like Ryan Grimm still have the accusation without any update. In Grimm’s case, everyone replying to his thread is linking to the ABC reporter’s thread to debunk the claim but she’s deleted her thread without an explanation.

  108. 108.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Mnemosyne:

    Eyewitness testimony is widely regarded as unreliable and can’t really convict on it’s own I believe.

    Did the episode mention other evidence the prosecution used? Also, were members of the prosecution team/lead detectives interviewed? What always burns me up about a lot of those guys is that they almost never admit when they made a mistake when interviewed by these Frontline/Dateline type shows. The prosecutor will insist they got it right when the wrongfully convicted person is let out of prison

  109. 109.

    Mnemosyne

    @David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:

    Like I said, I’m willing to believe that a 14-year-old could be confused about which old male politician with gray hair was which and that she misidentified him at the time.

    I will find her story far less plausible if she suddenly changes the time frame to one of the other events where she met him.

  110. 110.

    Anya

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think it’s creepy af when adult women creep on teenage boys. Our society makes it okay which means a lot of teenage boys who feel creeped out or uncomfortable don’t say anything and just go with it. But as you’ve said, this is more prevalent for young women. That shit stays with you.

  111. 111.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Mnemosyne: I dunno, still feels like it doesn’t add up

    When it was Biden and my aunt’s turn to say hello he quickly turned to me and asked how old I was. I replied with my age and he replied with the comment ‘Fourteen? You’re very well endowed for 14!’ I

    This makes it sound like O’Donnell was standing right there, and she’s not the type to let a bit of mud go unslung. And it was just a couple of months later that Biden would’ve been everywhere, especially in Delaware.

  112. 112.

    Mnemosyne

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    IIRC, the original case happened in the 1980s when we knew a lot less about memory and eyewitness testimony. I can’t remember if they interviewed the detectives or prosecutors. They had a DNA match to a serial rapist who may already have been in jail for a different  rape, so there wasn’t a huge problem getting the innocent guy freed. The victim obviously felt terrible that she had inadvertently ruined this guy’s life by misidentifying him.

  113. 113.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    That’s part of what makes me wonder if Aunt Christine has been “helpfully” gaslighting her by telling her that they met Biden that night when it was actually someone else.

  114. 114.

    Anya

    @Mnemosyne: I agree. I can even believe that she never connected Biden with the incident until recently. Maybe the TR accusations or some of the stories about Joe Biden’s handsyness might’ve triggered her memory. And maybe her aunt put the name in her head. Until I am proven wrong, I tend to believe her. The only thing that will change my mind is if she all of a sudden say: “oops, did I say 2008? I misspoke, I meant 2009.”

  115. 115.

    Mnemosyne

    @Anya:

    The ABC reporter deleting her entire tweet chain is awfully shady. I’m going to check her page tomorrow and see if a new, corrected version is up.

    If she put ABC in danger of a libel or defamation suit for the way she broke the story, she should probably pack her desk up now, because Mickey’s lawyers won’t like that one bit.

  116. 116.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Anya:

    Definitely. I wonder how common it actually is for women to sexually men? I’d imagine not very, simply because most men could simply fight off any woman, barring date rape or something else. I wonder why it doesn’t happen more than it does?

     

    @Mnemosyne:

    Oh okay. That’s weird, I thought it was known for decades that EWT was unreliable.

    BTW, sort of related: so toxic masculinity is a big deal and is talked a lot about these days for good reason. However, I’ve always wondered if it’s hypothetical opposite “toxic femininity” exists, exemplified by women who seem to take advantage of the patriarchy and expect everything to be handed to them by men, and will gladly tear down other women for personal gain. Or is that just an after affect of toxic masculinity/patriarchy?

  117. 117.

    Emma

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): maybe “toxic femininity” would be a thing in matriarchal societies, but I think what you describe would be learned helplessness taught by the patriarchy and forms of coping/survival mechanisms women employ in a patriarchy. You basically just described a typical Chinese historical TV drama, but I don’t think anyone would describe the empresses and ladies-in-waiting in those dramas as displaying “toxic femininity.”

  118. 118.

    TS (the original)

    @lamh36:

    even in the article she was adamant it was Biden…which is why I think in this case,  it’s a lie.. even if we didn’t already establish he wasn’t  there

    Yep – the trump minions are out there looking for people to add to the tara story – I hope he sues the reporter on this one – because its all over the place & the deplorables will never be convinced he wasn’t at the event – or else they will say – must have been a different event.

    Also another way to demand his private papers to prove he wasn’t there.

  119. 119.

    trollhattan

    Oh hai, Korean Peninsula. Did somebody miss the world’s attention? I’m positive Donny would like something to yell about instead of the virus.

    North and South Korea have exchanged gunfire in the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) which divides the two countries.
    Gunshots fired by North Korea at 07:41 (23:41 BST) hit a South Korean guard post in the central border town of Cheorwon, Seoul’s military said.

    No casualties were reported on the South Korean side.

    In response, South Korea fired “two rounds of gunfire and a warning announcement according to our manual”, the military statement said.

    It is not clear what provoked the initial gunshots. The joint chiefs of staff (JCS) said that they were trying to contact North Korea through their military hotline to determine the cause of the incident.

    There’s a “low possibility” that the shots fired by North Korea were intentional, according to the South Korean military. But at this stage is unclear how they’ve made that assessment.

    Even if was an accident or a miscalculation, it shows just how important it is for troops to keep level heads in the heavily fortified DMZ to ensure the situation isn’t made much worse.

    If it was a more tactical decision by North Korea then that’s a very different matter.

    –BBC

  120. 120.

    JPL

    The president of the United States spent his day rage tweeting and calling a female reporter a dog, and the media is focused on what Biden did at an event he wasn’t at.

    MSM at it’s finest.

  122. 122.

    Anne Laurie

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Fun fact: that top poster is definitely paying homage to manga with little sister characters. The “schoolgirl running late to school with toast hanging out of her mouth” (to highlight her “quirkiness” by eating her breakfast on the go) is a dead trope now. It became a big cliche at one point.

    Yeah, the official subtext is that the kid dawdles in bed late, so she has to grab a crappy Western breakfast-on-the-go rather than sit down for a proper Japanese rice bowl + fish / veggie sides, tsk tsk.  The sub-subtext is ‘sexy chick displaying her overbite holding something in her mouth’, because pervs need their fanservice, and if they can deny it’s pervy, that’s an extra little tingle.

  125. 125.

    Anne Laurie

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): From what I’ve heard / read, lots of teenage boys are grossed out when older women harass them, but they don’t complain because it’s supposed to be a compliment.  (Same thing ‘everybody knew’ about teenage girls getting harassed, which was the general rule even when I was a teenager.)

    As for ‘toxic femininity’… there isn’t really a good term to describe it, but yeah there are certainly women who use men’s susceptibility to get what they want.   Problem is, until very recently — hell, *still*, in many places — that kind of behavior was the only way women could grab a little autonomy.  (Think of Scarlett O’Hara, for instance.  Or Margaret Thatcher.)   It’s generally assumed — not least by their ‘supporters’ — that a lot of the right-wing women in media got where they are playing the ‘cute chick’ routine, from Laura Ingraham to KellyAnne Conway to the newest WH ‘press secretary.   But — think of the women who ‘crossed’ Harvey Weinstein or Roger Ailes — it’s a very dangerous tactic for women, because they have to be lucky enough to thread the needle between ‘alluring enough to draw favorable attention’ and ‘asking for it, what did they expect when they paraded around like that?’

    So… IMO, sticking to ‘neutral’ statements for women’s behavior in such circumstances is probably one’s best course.   ‘It’s amazing how all the women on Fox News are the same type’ is less liable to be unintentionally hurtful to other women than ‘One look at her mouth, you know how she got that job’, if you understand me.  Despite what the pick-up artists like to believe, acting like a gentleman is a much better way of getting positive attention from (sane) women than ‘negging’.

  126. 126.

    J R in WV

    @Anya: 

    Until I am proven wrong, I tend to believe her.

    Up earlier in this very thread we are told that the date when this young woman alleges Joe Biden said a tasteless thing to her, he was actually recovering from sinus surgery. How much proof do you want, for dog’s sake?!?!?!

  129. 129.

    JPL

    @rikyrah: It linked to another tweet and I didn’t follow through.   Nicole should wear that tweet as a badge of honor.

  130. 130.

    PJ

    @Mnemosyne:

     

    @Anya:

     

    @J R in WV: For what it’s worth, the friend of the niece who started pushing the story in her twitter earlier this week, Nicole Alexander Fisher, identifies herself as “Former Deputy Policy Coordinator for Tulsi Gabbard.”

    I don’t understand why people just uncritically accept all these stories, when, as here, there is immediate reason to be skeptical, and even when, as here, they have already been debunked.  How many times do we have to go through this?  Because every week from here until November, there will be bullshit claims made against Biden that need to be debunked.

  131. 131.

    Baud

    @PJ:

    How many times do we have to go through this?

    Every time and every day, until and past the November election.  There is no end date to this fight.

  132. 132.

    JPL

    @JPL: Mediaite has more information..

    Trump responded to a tweet from Fox News host Mark Levin, who bashed Wallace for alleging that “The right is running a smear campaign against Joe Biden.”

  133. 133.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Anne Laurie:   But — think of the women who ‘crossed’ Harvey Weinstein or Roger Ailes — it’s a very dangerous tactic for women, because they have to be lucky enough to thread the needle between ‘alluring enough to draw favorable attention’ and ‘asking for it, what did they expect when they paraded around like that?’

    My impression was in REAL America she’s excepted to accept it and then she holds it over the guy’s head to get what she wants. Think Trump and his hush money with NDAs.

    My problem with that Conservatard thinking is these women are still traumatized and they take it out on any subordinates they have and it can turn the whole harassment issue into a bad joke.  Or they accuse some random guy, usually, black of being the one who attacked them.

  134. 134.

    PJ

    @Baud: Oh, I get it.  It’s just that “liberals will gladly eat their own” is still such a consistently reliable button to push for the Russians, the GOP, and the Bernie Bros., and the media loves it, because no matter how obvious the bullshit, they can write about how “it clouds the campaign” and churn out another op-ed about how embarrassing the candidate is to the Democrats, and how the Democrats can get politician X to take his place.   These pieces were largely absent during the primaries, I think mostly because these journalists were completely blind-sided by the idea that Biden could actually be the nominee, because who would vote for such an obvious old joke?  And they still think of him as an obvious old joke, so they themselves (e.g., Chris Hayes this week) readily buy into the bullshit stories they are peddling, just as they did with Hillary four years ago.

    So, yeah, a constant diarrhea stream of these stories will keep flowing down the hill into our newsfeeds, and a significant portion of the people who consider themselves savvy and conscientious citizens will keep lapping it up.

    A couple of things are working in our favor:

    1) Voters seem to generally like Biden, and the BS being flung at him is not sticking like “but her emails.”

    2) Bodies are still stacking up like cordwood and we will still be in a massive public health and economic crisis come November, and people have more important stuff on their minds.

  135. 135.

    Tokyokie

    Same here. I was leaning on the “educated at a private school in Switzerland” stereotype. Isn’t that where every brutal dictator’s child goes to school?

    I graduated from a private school in Switzerland, and we didn’t have any dictatorship elites while I was there. I understand that since then, it’s become a favorite among Kazakh elites. We did, however, have a kid who was said to be the son of one of Hong Kong’s big real-estate tycoons, who has seemed to have scrubbed his name from the school’s  alumni lists.

  136. 136.

    Anya

    @J R in WV:  It was proven that Biden was not the guy who harassed her but what I was talking about was whether she made the whole thing up or whether some random old creep did what she is alleging. I just don’t know why would a 14-year old make up this whole thing (it was reported she told people back then about the incident), unless they are all lying right now.

  137. 137.

    PJ

    @Anya: People have been known to lie from time to time.  There’s a reason this claim didn’t emerge until now, when Christine O’Donnell was supposedly right there when it happened and she was Biden’s opponent in the Senate race in 2008.

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