Cancel culture comes for Daily Beast, as site rips late night hosts' silence on Tara Reade claim

The partisan left isn’t pleased with The Daily Beast. 

The news outlet leans to the left, as does its senior entertainment editor, Marlow Stern.

Still, the veteran reporter pulled few punches in a May 8 essay entitled, “Why Have Late-Night TV Hosts Gone Silent on Tara Reade?”

The column critiques politically minded hosts like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel for ignoring Reade, who claims presidential candidate Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993. Reade’s charge has received at best a grudging modicum of skeptical attention in mainstream press outlets, in stark contrast to the credulous saturation coverage lavished on Christine Blasey-Ford’s unsupported allegations against future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh two years ago.

“If these late-night hosts intend to use their millions-strong platforms to censure the Trumps and O’Reillys of the world, and cast themselves as outspoken allies of the #MeToo movement, then they shouldn’t hold back from holding their fellow lefties’ feet to the fire,” wrote Stern

The Daily Beast’s progressive readers weren’t keen on the commentary.

“How the daily beast loses all credibility in 1 tweet. Done,” one reader Tweeted.

Another complained, “I didn't know that the Daily Beast was transitioning into fiction.”

Stern’s piece pointed to a new reality in late night television. Hosts thrive on political scandals in the Age of Trump … even if they have to make some of them up.

The host of “Late Night with Seth Meyers” savaged President Trump for taking the knees out from under Meals on Wheels three years ago. Reality didn’t so much as resemble the comic’s tirade, though.

More recently, Jimmy Kimmel forced out a non-apology apology after selectively editing Vice President Mike Pence to make it seem like he was delivering empty PPE boxes.

Meanwhile, Kimmel, Colbert and co. have been mostly sitting out Joe Biden’s Tara Reade scandal — despite a steady drip of new evidence over the last few weeks, including: 

• A video surfaced of Reade’s mother calling in to “Larry King Live” in the '90s to discuss an incident similar to what her daughter has described.
• A (pro-Biden) friend and former neighbor of Reade’s recalled in detail Reade confiding her story of the alleged 1993 assault and unequivocally vouched for Reade’s credibility.
• In court testimony, the accuser’s ex-husband recalled her allegations and lingering emotional scars from the alleged incident.

“Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver paid the scandal lip service recently before switching topics:

“[Joe Biden] has denied that claim, but there are clearly big questions still to be answered here, and Tara Reade obviously deserves to be heard the way that anyone does when they make the difficult choice to come forward with allegations of this kind — allegations which should, of course, be fully investigated. And I am sure that we will talk more about this as the story unfolds.”

Oliver, by contrast, called Kavanaugh’s possible ascent to the Supreme Court a “f*** you” to both Democrats and women:

Colbert name-checked it once and then, much like Oliver, changed the subject to President Trump.

Bill Maher essentially said, “so what” from his HBO perch, proclaiming Biden’s possible actions shouldn’t stop us from removing President Trump from the White House.

And Jimmy Kimmel, who has had little if anything to say about the sexual assault allegation against Biden? He had this to say at the time of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings:

"Hear me out on this: So Kavanaugh gets confirmed to the Supreme Court, OK? Well, in return, we get to cut that pesky penis of his off in front of everyone."