Question: Do you remember the one before her?"
There was no one that came before her.

Answer: no

Question: This excuse usually appears in the form of a corporate press release, because nobody can keep a straight face when it's spoken out loud.
The excuse never appears in a corporate press release.

Answer: no

Question: This parallel obsession elicited the interesting suggestion, from the critic Maurice Tuchman, that both animals (especially sacrificed animals) and uniformed domestics were scapegoats of sorts.
Tuchman equated animals and uniformed domestics to scapegoats.

Answer:
yes