February 16, 2024

THE PARTY TOLD YOU TO REJECT THE EVIDENCE OF YOUR EYES AND EARS. IT WAS THEIR FINAL, MOST ESSENTIAL COMMAND:

The administration, with journalists in tow, is playing the Looney Tunes dancing frog act — that to them and only them, behind closed doors, away from cameras and the voting public, Biden is not the president we see regularly confuse world leaders, forget where to walk off a stage, lose concentration mid-sentence and refuse to hold live interviews or unscripted press conferences. They are telling 86 percent of the country (according to a recent ABC News poll on Biden’s fitness for a second term) not to believe their eyes and ears.

When Biden’s White House attorneys were asked if they would demand a transcript release to refute the special counsel’s generalizations, they were non-committal. The White House has not pledged to support the release of audio recordings of the sessions, which could go a long way in refuting the final report’s assessment of Biden. At every step, this administration and a lockstep media pushing its message has refused any access to the president himself, so Biden can make the case for his own mental and cognitive fitness.

If Joe Biden cannot make his own case to the American people that he will serve a second term to its fulfillment and not resign halfway due to his advanced age and health, thrusting an unpopular President Kamala Harris onto the country, then we should not allow anyone in our media or this White House to make the case for him.

Related: Puck’s Dylan Byers: White House Reporters Knew About Biden All Along.

Of late, we hear plenty from the news industry about a “crisis” for democracy as their platforms downsize or fail. They are a necessity for a well-informed republic, media professionals insist, But how can they make that argument while at the same time refusing to actually inform the public, especially about a critical failure at the head of government and state? I don’t doubt for a moment what Byers reports as the excuses from the White House press cohort, but excuses are precisely what they are.

What is “sensitive and unseemly” about reporting a cognitive incapacitation of a sitting US president? This isn’t about an affair; it’s not a private issue in any way under these circumstances. The incapacitation of a president or governor is not a matter of “delicacy,” either.

Byers lands on one of the real issues in this passage. The reporters knew that to inform the public that Biden had begun sliding into senility would mean that the White House wouldn’t treat them favorably. And that’s what they really value — not protecting democracy and “speaking truth to power,” but pandering to it for the perqs. This is a real-life recreation of the fable of The Emperor’s New Clothes, with the White House press corps playing the role of the obsequious courtiers.

The old joke that DC is Hollywood for Ugly People descends all the way down to both cities’ chattering classes. For decades, Hollywood knew that even its worst big-budget films would be propped by good reviews from local city film “critics.” They were desperate not to be tossed off the gravy train where they got to interview the stars and receive screeners, press kits, and other baubles from Tinseltown, no matter how badly executives such as Harvey Weinstein and their entourage treated them.

Political “reporters,” having clawed their up the greasy pole to make it to covering the White House, are similarly afraid of losing their status as insiders – no matter how badly Joe Biden and his handlers treat them.

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Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll