The Media Research Center’s gloating over President Biden’s classified document kerfuffle — and complaining about people continually pointing out that it’s nothing like Donald Trump’s document hoarding — continued from where we left off, even though it labored mightily to work the deflect-and-defend angle when the FBI raided Donald Trump’s estate last year to retrieve classified documents he refused to return.
Jeffrey Lord gleefully declared that it was a “media misfire” that Biden got a special counsel to look into his document situation the way Trump got one for his in his Jan. 14 column:
Joe Biden’s Trump-hating liberal media allies can take a bow. By their insistence that a Special Counsel be appointed to investigate Trump because he had classified documents at Mar a Lago, the revelations that Biden did exactly the same thing – three times over! – has now won their hero a Special Counsel of his own, plus a congressional investigation. All this along with the revelation that his Penn Biden Center has been financed by millions in Chinese dark money. And also raising the question, of course, of how much of that Chinese money was laundered through the Biden Center before going in the Big Guy’s pocket.
The MRC played up a couple more instances of non-right-wing media criticizing Biden over this (oblivious to the fact that it discredits its narrative that these outlets are hopelessly biased):
- EVEN Far-Left Weekend MSNBC Warns Docs Could Be Big 2024 Problem for Biden
- SHOCK: ABC’s Karl Calls Out Biden’s Hypocrisy on Mishandling Docs
- Nets Note Bipartisan Criticism of Biden, Lack of Transparency on Docs
Then it was back to whining that people keep pointing out the difference between the Biden and Trump situations. Bill D’Agostino huffed in a Jan. 16 post:
The rapidly unfolding nightmare of President Biden’s document scandal prompted desperate talking points from Democrat-friendly cable networks last week, the most prominent of which was the claim that Biden’s classified document issues bore “night and day” differences to those of former President Trump.
Pundits were clearly rankled that Republicans were drawing comparisons between Biden and Trump, and they endeavored at every turn to point out the differences between the two cases.
D’Agostino didn’t dispute that there is a difference; instead he parroted Lord by noting that “despite the corporate media’s protests, a Special Counsel has been appointed. One suspects he will not receive the same high praise with which the media routinely showered Robert Mueller.”
Clay Waters similarly whined later that day:
Public television’s idea of a balanced political debate: Friday’s PBS NewsHour punditry found little daylight between “conservative” New York Times columnist David Brooks and liberal Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart, nodding in agreement that the new Biden classified document controversy had no comparison to Trump’s.
[…]The Post’s Jonathan Capehart pretended the relative raw number of top secret documents found in the possession of Biden as compared with Trump was a significant comparison, though we don’t yet know what was in the Biden documents, calling the comparison “apples and basketballs.”
[…]Capehart tried to compare Biden’s woes favorably to Trump, saying the Biden team “have been cooperating. They have been transparent….The former president [Trump] stands accused basically of obstruction of justice. That is not what is happening with President Biden.”
Despite complaining that it was said, Waters also didn’t dispute the accuracy of the assessment.
Curtis Houck repeated the MRC’s sub-complaint, that it’s being pointed out how Republicans are hypocritically using the discovery to attack Biden:
The Biden documents scandal entered its second week Monday and, on the flagship broadcast network morning news shows, ABC’s Good Morning America remained in a defensive mode for Team Biden by repeatedly insisting the White House will be cooperative and transparent with the special counsel, fretting “Republicans…are now pouncing,” and boasting Republicans will never be able to find out who’s been visiting Biden at his Wilmington, Delaware home.
Senior White House correspondent Mary Bruce may have tried to seem tough, but she was her usual self in falling on the grenades. She noted that “the White House is hardly being forthcoming,” but then said in the next sentence that “[t]hey are being extremely cautious” and fretting a “sense of drip, drip, drip” has set in.
After passing along the weekend’s developments with more documents found last week at Biden’s personal residence having triggered “more questions,” Bruce went into attack mode: “Republicans, who have shown little interest in investigating Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents, are now pouncing on the President.”
It’s “attack mode” to point out Republican hypocrisy?
Alex Christy sounded like a PR flack for a Republican congressman in a Jan. 17 post: “It is still unknown what exactly was in the documents, how they ended up at the Penn Biden Center and his Delaware home, and why it took months for the public to be made aware of the documents’ discovery. Those are real questions that have nothing to do with the Trump case that deserve answers.” Yet we do’t recall Christy demanding similar answers from Trump.
Houck returned to repeat his narrative: “ABC’s Good Morning America fought a surprisingly lonely battle Tuesday in carrying water for President Biden and the White House amid their classified documents scandal, repeatedly touting the administration as ‘firing back’ at Republicans wanting to learn more and making requests of the regime because…Donald Trump.” Again, despite the complaints, Houck made no attempt to argue that there wasn’t hypocrisy. More complaints followed:
- PBS White House Reporter Spews DNC Talking Points, Ripping Comer on Classified Documents
- Lemire Declares Biden Document Scandal to Be ‘A Partisan Story’
- Whoopi, Swalwell Agree Biden Docs Not Classified, Just Cooking ‘Recipes’
- CBS Waves Goodbye to Biden Docs Scandal to Screech Gosar, MTG Are Back on Committees
- In The Shredder: ABC Moves on From Biden Docs, Cries About GOP Committee Appointments
- Oopsies! CNN Excuses Biden Docs Scandal, Happens ‘Literally Every Day’
While most normal people had moved on by this point, the MRC wasn’t going to yet, as evidence by Brent Bozell rushing to Fox Business for a softball interview to desperately keep the story alive:
Media Research Center Founder and President Brent Bozell joined the Wednesday edition of the Fox Business Network’s Varney & Co. to sound off on the liberal media’s coverage of President Biden’s classified documents scandal and, for Bozell, it boiled down to six stages of behavior.
Host Stuart Varney began with highlights from Tuesday’s firecracker of a White House press briefing before asking Bozell: “[H]as the media finally turned against the White House, in your judgment?”
[…]The scandal only grew, meaning a stage three with the press “turning reluctantly against Biden after the first — after the second group of — of — of boxes were found.”
Bozell added stage four had the liberal media becoming “even more skeptical of Biden” last Thursday when Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel ahead of five and six: “Stage five is the interesting — this is where there are right now. They’ve grown frustrated with the White House. They know the White House is stonewalling. They know the White House is not forthcoming. Stage six is what’s going to happen next.”
If there was any mention of Trump’s document scandal, it was not deemed important enough to be referenced in the item.
But even that last-ditch effort didn’t help, and the MRC got bored with it too, as the posts on it slowed to a trickle over the next few days:
- ABC’s Raddatz Slams Biden on Docs, ‘Dramatically Escalates Political Fallout’
- Whoopi Claims Biden Declassified All the Documents in His House
- Scarborough PRAISES Biden Spokesman for Stonewalling Mika on Classified Documents!
Perhaps even the MRC realizes there was nothing there in the first place.