Last year, this board advocated strongly for a vigorous inquiry into accusations of sexual misconduct raised against Brett Kavanaugh when he was nominated to a seat on the Supreme Court. Mr. Biden’s pursuit of the presidency requires no less. His campaign, and his party, have a duty to assure the public that the accusations are being taken seriously. The Democratic National Committee should move to investigate the matter swiftly and thoroughly, with the full cooperation of the Biden campaign....There's no mention in the editorial of the way the NYT was used by so many Biden supporters, who claimed that the NYT had done an investigation and absolved Biden.
In his statement, Mr. Biden said that if such a document existed, there would be a copy of it in the National Archives, which retains records from what was then the Office of Fair Employment Practices... Later on Friday, after the National Archives said it did not have personnel documents....
Any serious inquiry must include the trove of records from Mr. Biden’s Senate career that he donated to the University of Delaware in 2012..... Any inventory should be strictly limited to information about Ms. Reade and conducted by an unbiased, apolitical panel, put together by the D.N.C. and chosen to foster as much trust in its findings as possible.... No relevant memo should be left unexamined....
IN THE COMMENTS: The Editorial Board speaks of "an unbiased, apolitical panel, put together by the D.N.C. and chosen to foster as much trust in its findings as possible," which prompted Roger Sweeny to say: "'Unbiased, apolitical panel' and put together by a political party do not go together."
But, you know, it makes sense to me. Who can believe in such a thing as "an unbiased, apolitical panel" in the first place? They don't arrive from Planet Neutralia. Are you going to find a neutral panel to appoint the neutral panel? Where do you start?! The Editorial Board puts the burden to pick the panel on a political entity with a huge political stake, and sets it up for our political judgement by announcing the standard that must be met: It's supposed to be "an unbiased, apolitical panel... chosen to foster as much trust in its findings as possible." Why would the DNC meet that standard? The reason is stated right there, and it's a political reason: the interest in getting us to trust the outcome.
Now, I wonder who could be chosen who could perform the task. We're told that the Biden archive at the University of Delaware arrived in the form of "nearly 2,000 boxes and more than 400 gigabytes of data" and that "most of it has not been cataloged." The Reade incident is alleged to have occurred in 1993: Was that the gigabytes era or the paper-in-boxes era? Who are the hyper-trustworthy, unbiased and apolitical investigators who can and will handle a project like that and do it quickly enough to work on the election time line? That's the problem I see. How is the DNC supposed to find people like that?!
ADDED: To state the problem is to see the real solution. This "unbiased, apolitical panel" — if anything like it could be convened — cannot get a creditable search done within a satisfying time line. Therefore: Biden needs to withdraw.