[Q]I want to ask about some edits that were made after publication, the deletion of the second half of the sentence: “The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable.” Why did you do that?
Even though a lot of us, including me, had looked at it before the story went into the paper, I think that the campaign thought that the phrasing was awkward and made it look like there were other instances in which he had been accused of sexual misconduct. And that’s not what the sentence was intended to say.
Apparently either Dean thinks that it's ok that the NYT changes content because Joe Biden's campaign doesn't like the truth or he accidentally let it slip that the change was made not because the NYT reconsidered the point but because the Biden campaign raised a ruckus.
The change was huge. You'll be hard pressed to find any woman in America who says that if a man comes up and kisses her without her permission that it's not sexual misconduct.
True it's not as bad as rape. But when a pro-abortion person pushes a peaceful pro-lifer and takes their sign that's assault even though the pro-abortion person didn't punch, shoot, or stab the pro-lifer.
That there are worse forms of sexual misconduct than kissing, hugging, and touching doesn't mean that unwanted kissing, hugging, and touching can't be sexual misconduct.
Joe Bide is a powerful man. He's effectively the boss in the room with these women. Can you imagine anyone defending a boss who goes up and kisses, hugs, or touches subordinates?
Yet the NYT desperately wanted to correct the mistake of pointing out that yes in fact Joe has been accused of sexual misconduct by not one but many women.
That's critical because as we just saw in the Cardinal Pell case it's rare for someone to sexually harass/assault another person just once. That was a key point for Pell's innocence; even after he was falsely convicted no one else stepped forward to accuse him of ever doing anything inappropriate over decades of time.
Similarly only one vaguely credible accusation was leveled at Kavanaugh, the subsequent ones required us to believe things like that the "victim" had attended multiple gang rape parties with high school kids when she was in college and never warned any of her female friends. That was a strong argument in his defense.
So if only one woman says that Joe Biden has a propensity for sexual misconduct the story is not compelling. But if many women say that Biden has acted in inappropriate ways then the possibility that he went further with at least one woman is much higher.
Oddly in the same interview Banquet sort of denied any political bias:
[Q] Do you think that, in your heart, you’re reluctant to promote a story that would hurt Joe Biden and get Donald Trump re-elected?
I can’t make that calculation. I won’t. I won’t let my head or my heart go there. I think once you start making those kinds of calculations, you are not a journalist anymore. You’re some sort of political actor.
Note he doesn't actually say that he's not reluctant. Rather he says he never thinks about who a story hurts or helps. Now that means either he's brain dead or that he's probably lying. Who doesn't instantly recognize that a story about sexual impropriety will hurt the person who is accused whether it's Trump or Biden?
So it's pretty clear that Banquet does do the calculation to determine if a story will hurt Joe Biden.
Banquet could have said that he would publish any story no matter who it hurts if it's true but he didn't say that.
The reality of course is that we know that the NYT is a purely political actor. They ran an editorial telling reporters to stop being objective about Trump because he's such a threat to the country for example. One of their editors was caught on hidden camera admitting that it's hard for them to be objective on their news stories.
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