I feel old for saying this, but I've been following Joe Biden's political career for over 30 years.
Once, unbelievably, almost 20 years ago, I had a front row seat to Joe Biden's show. The year was 2007, and I was working for former Kansas state senator (and later governor) Sam Brownback during his unsuccessful bid for the 2008 Republican nomination. I was at the Des Moines airport in what I think was probably the only bar in the place, waiting to catch a late flight back to Tennessee.
The media channeled their inner Chico Marx and asked, “Who are you going to believe, us or your lying eyes?”
I was in a bad mood because my boss had done poorly in the Ames straw poll the previous day. As I looked up to drown my sadness, I suddenly found myself staring at a familiar face. Joe Biden, who was also running for president, was cruising along with four other people who were locked up in the bar that day. And then he came to my table.
Even though Biden's politics have always been anathema to me, I'm watching him run around the election with clearly disinterested voters, most of whom don't even know who he is. I felt a little sorry for him. So I apologized and told him I wasn't even a resident of Iowa and that I had actually only come to Iowa to work on the Republican presidential campaign. Certainly, I thought, Biden must have better things to do than talk to unconvincing people who aren't even voters in Iowa.
As it turns out, he wasn't. “Well, really?” Mr. Biden exclaimed. “Which one?” When I told him I worked for Senator Brownback, to my horror he pulled up a chair and said he wanted to chat. Finally.
“As you know, I'm working with Sam Brownback on the Iraq partition plan,” he began. Thus began a conversation that lasted well over an hour, which I didn't want at the time. I would like to say this to Biden, whom I met unwillingly in 2007. He was a world champion speaker. His instincts about politics and foreign policy have always been bad and not honest in the slightest sense, but he's the type of person most politicians can instantly come up with plausible-sounding justifications for literally just about anything. He definitely had intelligence. they are saying.
When Biden re-emerged from de facto retirement in 2020 to run for president again, I was shocked by the withered image of him I saw on my TV screen. This person was not exactly the same person who bent my ear 13 years ago. The coronavirus pandemic has given Democrats the perfect excuse they need to do exactly what they need to do with Biden to preserve his chances of winning. They locked him up (figuratively, I guess) in the basement and hid him. The masses. At the time, Biden still had plenty of “good” days, so this was a viable approach with careful planning. I don't begrudge the Democrats this tactic, and it was ultimately successful.
I feel sorry for the media, many of whom have had far more extensive personal interactions with Biden than I have, and many of whom also have very limited knowledge of what's going on with Biden's mental state. should have been made clearer. And anyone who has seen a family member experiencing age-related cognitive decline knows that while those suffering from cognitive decline have periodic good days, the condition You should know that it gets relentlessly worse over time. And they said nothing.
As literally anyone could have predicted, Biden deteriorated visibly with each passing month of his first term. White House staff began hiding Biden even more thoroughly, but the press said nothing. In what became a meme in right-wing circles, White House reporters dutifully reported that Biden had “put the lid on” every day before noon. They never reported that there should be any level of concern about the President of the United States apparently adopting a two-hour workday, and certainly they did not report that there should be any level of concern about the president of the United States apparently adopting a two-hour work day, and certainly they There was no investigative reporting at all.
In fact, when his condition worsened, their coverage of it was, without exaggeration, the worst example of misconduct in media history. On the few occasions that Biden appeared in public in 2024, he froze, got disoriented, stared silently for an awkward amount of time, or limped away without being physically induced to do so. The patient showed alarming and unavoidable signs of very severe cognitive decline. Where he should be.
It's not that the media has forgotten what these signs mean. Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has also begun publicizing them, and the media dutifully reported them as fact. But when it came to Biden, the reaction was completely different. they lied. There is no other way to put it. They did not cover up the truth. They didn't spin it. They just put their heads down and announced things that everyone should know to be untrue.
By June, just weeks before Biden embarrassed the entire nation, this was happening virtually every time Biden appeared in public. At a star-studded fundraiser in Los Angeles with former President Barack Obama, Mr. Biden froze on stage for 10 seconds before being physically removed by Mr. Obama. A few days later, he did the same thing again at the G7 summit in Italy, this time being rescued by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The media, led by so-called “fact checkers,” the only people in America with less credibility than reporters these days, are channeling their inner Chico Marx and saying, “Us or your lying eyes? Do you believe it?” he asked. ? ”
This was followed by literally dozens of “fact checks” as responsible guardians of the media investigated these videos and reassured people that the problem turned out to be deceptive editing. . None of these organizations have recovered enough shame to be removed from wherever they still exist on the internet. Associated Press, Reutersa cheerful name Politifact, snoop, NBCand dozens more.
If anything, the White House press corps was more embarrassed by its lack of active interest in the truth than by asking the White House questions about Biden's mental state, which any responsible journalist would have done. . Ten days before Biden's fateful debate, a “reporter” actually asked Karine Jean-Pierre: “To make the president appear publicly frail or mentally disturbed? “There seems to be a proliferation of videos that have been edited into. I think the White House is particularly concerned about the fact that this appears to be a pattern.” replied:
The once storied Poynter Institute, which considers itself the arbiter of superior reporting, deserves special mention here. In an article dated June 24, just three days before Biden mentally undressed on national television, he said: pointer published an article with the subtitle, “'Cheap fake' videos of Biden, selectively edited and taken out of context, are flooding social media and subject to political spin.” The article, which has not been corrected or deleted, states with a straight face that “cheap fakes” have become “a common tactic to undermine the 81-year-old Biden's suitability as president as he seeks re-election.” insisted.
Three days later, Biden appeared on television and said:
After the debate disaster, the media was furious and slammed Biden. They effectively kicked him out of the race. But don't get me wrong. If Biden had simply refused to debate Trump and retreated to his basement for the rest of 2024, the world's “fact checkers” would still be saying that Biden's suggestion of cognitive decline is correct. Sho. Wings of disinformation. And that's a problem for the media, but it's also a problem for Democrats.
If you're a Democrat and you're reading this today and you're looking for someone to hold accountable, put these so-called “fact checkers” high on your list. I don't think any of them had the actual impression that Biden was really doing well. Anyone with decent eyes who had seen Biden on TV before 2020 (and I'm sure everyone) could see what was happening to him. If he had told the truth in 2021 or 2022, when it was already clear, Democrats might have had a chance to have a completely different outcome in the 2024 campaign. Biden could have resigned (as he should have) and Harris could have actually served as president and had a chance to improve her own record, or the Democrats could have had an actual nomination battle for another candidate. could have been done too.
This second course of action may have saved the Democratic Party a dime. I have to say that Harris was a bad candidate. And I'm not telling Democrats anything they don't already know. That's why in 2019, despite having the support of the entire Clinton campaign and a huge military budget, she ignominiously withdrew before a single vote was cast. In my view, Harris had little chance of winning no matter what, but even those who disagree with that have to admit that her chances would have been vastly improved had she actually had the chance. You won't get it. Get used to it The incumbent president wants to continue implementing his own policies rather than being tied down by a highly unpopular and shaky president.
But for that to happen, the media needed to tell the truth about what was going on. They had to put aside their own personal partisan beliefs, which are overwhelmingly left-leaning, and muster up the courage to tell the audience what they didn't want to hear. And they just didn't have the ability to do it.
As President Trump begins his second term, I am confident that the media will miraculously rediscover the ability to conduct an aggressive and thorough investigation into the mental health and well-being of an aging president. I also have no doubt that the Democratic Party will support this media effort. Are you okay. I don't begrudge people who support their team.
But remember that when Democrats return to power, as they inevitably will, they will also need to demand more from the media in terms of telling the truth about them. It would be better to leave it there. Otherwise, you may end up going blind again.
