The Media Research Center continued to exploit Robert Hur’s report on the classified documents President Biden possessed while out of office to push the right-wing narrative that Biden is senile. Jeffrey Lord’s Feb. 10 column complained that non-right-wing media didn’t repeat that right-wing narrative:
Ya can’t make it up.
The New York Post takes the bull by the horns, headlining its editorial this way:
[…]Jill Biden and Dems committed elder abuse on Joe — now they must force him to step aside
Hmm.
Here’s one media guy who has decided there is no problem here. That would be lefty New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. In his own column on this, Krugman headlines:
[…]The Disgusting Furor Over Biden’s Age
Krugman is looking at millions of Americans see the curtain surrounding Joe Biden being pulled back – revealing a man with serious mental competency issues who also is the sitting President of the United States. And they are not happy.
Note that Lord identified the TImes as “lefty” but refused to hang a political descriptor on the Post; it’s not until later in his column that he mentioned the Post among “conservative media.”
The MRC, of course, continued to chortle over non-right-wing media discussing the controversy:
- NYT Laments Biden Document-Fostered Political Woes: ‘Worst of All Worlds’
- PBS NewsHour: Biden Special Counsel Was Performing for ‘MAGA Republicans’
- NBC Probes Biden Officials on Efforts to Remove Him from Office/Ticket
- Psaki Lectures The Media Over Coverage of Biden’s Cognitive Decline
- PBS Mounts ‘Gratuitous’ Defense of Biden From Hur’s Hurtful Special Counsel Report
- Meyers Labels Hur Report ‘Very Gratuitous’ And ‘A [Bleep] Hit Job’
- Politico Presents Wishful Thinking ‘Plan B’ to Ditch Biden
- Bozell on DC Radio: Media Spin Can’t Fix ‘Absolutely Disastrous’ Biden Press Event
- CBS: It’s Janet Yellen’s Turn To Ritually And Organically Affirm Biden’s Impressive Mental Acumen
Tim Graham loved it in a Feb. 12 post that a Republican got to spout her anti-Biden talking points — then complained that her Republican credentials were brought up:
It’s always amazing when liberal Democrats who pride themselves on their scintillating intellect act so uneducated when it’s time to rally around the Democrat in trouble.
On Sunday’s This Week, ABC host Jonathan Karl and his Democrat legal expert Preet Bharara needed Republican legal expert Sarah Isgur to explain the obvious about why special counsel Robert Hur would suggest President Biden was too mentally challenged to stand trial for improperly taking classified documents before he was president.
First, Karl repeated ABC’s slimy habit in the introductions: “Sarah Isgur is the former spokesperson for the Justice Department during the Trump administration and is now a senior editor at The Dispatch. Preet Bharara is the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.”
A fair and balanced journalist would note Isgur’s Trump link…and Bharara being appointed U.S. Attorney by President Obama in 2009, where he served for eight years. Karl could have noted Preetinder’s a campaign donor of John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. Instead, they subtly hint the panel is Republican vs. Nonpartisan.
Noting Isgur’s at The Dispatch – formed in opposition to Trump – implies she’s not a MAGA pundit. But no one thinks ABC would routinely turn to a pro-Trump contributor.
Still, Graham praised her advancement of the the narrative:
Isgur then calmly explained to the apparent dummies that Hur cited Biden’s mental capacity to suggest he wouldn’t prosecute because a jury wouldn’t convict someone of “willfully detaining” classified material if he wasn’t, er, sharp:
[…]Karl then asked Isgur if she thinks the transcripts of Biden’s interviews with Hur will be made public. She said chances are “pretty high.” Karl asked Bharara if Kamala Harris should have criticized Hur for being political. Bharara, like a good Democrat, said “I’m not going to judge her.” Their talking points align.
Jorge Bonilla cheered a non-right-wing outlet reporting something negative about Biden from the investigation in a Feb. 14 post, that Hur reportedly never asked Biden about the death of his son Beau, as he had claimed:
A major media narrative to emerge from President Joe Biden’s fiery press conference decrying the special counsel’s report on the classified documents investigation was “gratuitous”, in reference to Robert Hur’s line citing the president’s inability to recall the date of his son Beau’s death. But, as NBC News reports, it turns out that the narrative is fake because Hur wasn’t the one to raise that issue.
If true, this means that President Biden lied to the nation when he angrily denounced Hur’s alleged question during last week’s fiery press conference which, apparently, was convened at Biden’s direction.
[…]Reasonable people with access to Biden’s speeches and appearances can reasonably expect him to talk about Beau’s passing often, sometimes at odd times- and no reasonable person would begrudge a grieving parent for doing so.
And herein lies the pickle: those same reasonable people are now asking whether Biden knowingly lied to the American people when he flamed Hur for allegedly asking the Beau question, or whether this now-disproven recollection is yet another instance of Biden’s fading cognition.
Clay Waters spent a Feb. 15 post whining that the New York Times brought up Trump’s apparent cognitive decline:
A gross double standard was on display in the New York Times regarding two presidents, Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump, each facing accusations of being too old and having memory lapses.
Times reporter Gina Kolata recently defended President Biden, “Memory Loss Requires Careful Diagnosis, Scientists Say.” The subhead continued: “A federal investigator said that President Biden had “poor memory” and “diminished faculties.” But such a diagnosis would require close medical assessment, experts said.” Expert Shopping is in!
[…]Such concern and sensitivity were not, to put it mildly, the hallmark of how Donald Trump’s mental state was covered within the pages of the Times. A long, spicy, highly irresponsible run of letters to the editor from Ivy League psychiatrists (hat tip the invaluable account Defiant L’s) included this astonishing headline on the “letter to the editor” page of October 11, 2019: “Trump Is Mentally Unfit, No Exam Needed.”)
The letter page’s subhead: “Three mental health professionals who contributed to ‘The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump’ cite recent actions that confirm their worries.”
[…]Apparently the “close medical assessment” required of Biden wasn’t needed when it came to diagnosing President Donald Trump as mentally unfit. A nytimes.com search unearthed no less than nine published letters to the editor over a period of several years from contributors to that 2017 book (full title: The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President) and its 2019 sequel, many of which led that particular day’s letter section.
Never mind, of course, that the MRC had been spending the past several days hyping claims about Biden’s mental health made by a political operative who’s not a medical professional.