Jennie Bond: "there are usually two sides to a conversation and a story"

On whether Spencer's account of Charles's words and demeanour is accurate, Bond holds two materially different positions at once. She credits the account's sincerity ("no reason to disbelieve this is his memory of what happened"), which withholds any suggestion that Spencer is inventing it, and in the same breath withholds endorsement of it as an accurate record of the exchange ("there are usually two sides to a conversation and a story"). She also characterizes the account as "vindictive" and "extraordinary," a judgment about how Spencer has told it rather than about whether it is true. “Challenged the characterization” loses because she expressly does not dispute Spencer's rendering -- she declines to treat his memory as the whole of it, which is a weaker and genuinely two-sided position. “Condemned” loses because her criticism is of the memoir's tone and motive, not of the case's underlying matter.