Rich Lowry of National Review Online targets President Biden’s legacy media enablers.
A couple of months ago, Joe Scarborough warned his viewers, and especially his critics, that he was about to unleash a truth bomb.
The former Republican congressman wanted everyone to know not that Joe Biden had lost a step but was still okay, not that Biden was better than Trump regardless of his physical and mental state, and certainly not that he had heard some concerning things about Biden but he didn’t want anyone to draw premature conclusions.
No, no — he wanted everyone to know that Joe Biden was more impressive than ever.
This was ludicrous at the time but has been exposed as propagandistic dreck in light of Biden’s debate debacle that appalled even Scarborough himself. …
… There are journalistic failures, and then there’s creating an alternate reality in the apparent hope that if it is declaimed confidently enough that it will prevail over the truth.
We know now that Biden’s alarming decline was one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington (how could it have been well kept given that the evidence was before our eyes?). Democratic senators knew. Democratic donors knew. Journalists knew. But what is supposed to be one of the most plugged-in political programs on television had no idea? Not one panelist ever got a whiff of it or was a touch worried about the stiff gait, blank looks, confusion about where to go, flagrant verbal miscues, or mumbly incoherence?
Even if we chalk it up to being in an information bubble, there’s no excusing the vicious and self-righteous attacks on anyone who dared tell the truth, even in relatively mild terms, about Joe Biden.
When Robert Hur described Biden — charitably, as it turned out — as an “elderly man with poor memory,” Morning Joe couldn’t handle it.
Scarborough led the way, calling that line “garbage.” He hit Hur for his “politically charged, Trump-like ramblings.” In the midst of his angry denunciations of Hur for saying something that was true and relevant to his decision not to charge Biden, Scarborough referred to “liars” on other news networks and in other parties, and accused Hur of “bad faith.“
