When they come forward about sexual assault, most women are absolutely truthful.

The key word, however, is “most”.

Some lie. Think back to the lynchings in the Deep South —some of those were because of false accusations of sexual assault.

I know from personal experience that it sucks to investigate and try a he-said/she-said case. The victim feels like she’s all alone, being betrayed, violated all over again by the investigators. It’s a long story, we got the scumbag — my co-worker — convicted (thanks to our having found two other victims and correlating their testimonies with the first victim’s). But it was still a long, too-painful process for the victim.

As terrible as that was for her, some women do lie, and some men have spend decades — or even the rest of their lives — in jail after being falsely accused.

So that leaves us with a choice: do we automatically believe all women even when there are abundant contradictions in the accuser’s story, thus ensuring that some men will be wrongly accused and punished, or do we demand more evidence than just a claim? That’s the question that those pushing Ms. Reade’s claims — which, unfortunately, seem to be mostly “Bernie Bros” — need to ask themselves.