The fight for the nomination between Biden and Kamala Harris was covered extensively. But the public deserved to know more about Biden's fitness for the presidency.
Couple of thoughts. First off, F Joe Biden and his advisors. Their selfishness got us the second Trump term. And yes that's exactly what it was. They liked the power and perks and didn't want to give it up.
But besides that, I am still hoping that these elections lead to a serious discussion of age limits for our leaders. I think we should pass this amendment:
1) President, VP, and Senators: cannot take the oath of office after their 75th birthday.
2) House: cannot take the oath of office after their 80th birthday.
3) Mandatory retirement for federal judges after their 75th birthday.
These would NOT apply to current office holders (or it would never pass). But I think it's way past time to pass this. Both sides would benefit.
Well, it will never pass either way, so why not say it will be phased in for everyone after 2 years?
I remember when they passed a reasonable age limit for judges in Pennsylvania, so then the elder judges of Pennsylvania ruled the law illegal, big surprise. (Somewhat similar to when the PA judges ruled reversing the illegal pay raise for judges to be illegal.)
Not sure why we're asking this question. I don't think it's remotely debatable. (1) EVERYONE knew, just from casually watching the news, it was patently obvious he didn't function at times and looked completely lost, (2) it's the media's job to know it, and (3) mainstream and left media were working hard to amplify the pushback and minimize/ignore what everyone was seeing elsewhere. Tapper can pretend all he wants making money on his book - he knew it too and pushed back HARD on it. The media is equally to blame with Biden insiders. I mean, c'mon, this isn't close.
I think it isn’t close that they covered it pretty extensively and harshly. I don’t blame them. We all saw it, they questioned and question the administration and Biden and company lied and lied. The media isn’t perfect (by any stretch) but we all saw them questioning the white house ad nauseam about this. They just fought it ad nauseam. It’s kind of like the press moves on past each of the horrible things Trump says and does. They basically just give up after a while except a few.
You repeatedly ask about it, people tune out while they roll their eyes because "it's been done to death."
Then when people realize how bad it was, they come back around and lump everyone together and say 'But why didn't you stop it?'
Because the first person anyone lies to is themselves.
I just find it hilarious that Trump supporters hammer on Democrats about how "Biden was obviously losing it, they deserved this for not stopping him! This will teach them a lesson in humility"
Meanwhile, they ignore the list of things wrong with Trump as he walks the Republicans to President Assisted Living 2, Electric Boogaloo.
I have a theory that might help explain what happened. The Republicans spent all of 2020 saying that Biden had dementia already. It was pretty much their primary attack against him. I heard it from many Trump supporters in my life. In 2020, concerns about the future aside, this was obviously not true. This caused Democrats (including me! Definitely including me...) to develop a reflexive response that any concerns about Biden's age were bs. That reflexive response prevented us from seeing the truth when the real situation changed. It all sounded like more bs. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing it affected the media and Democratic Party elites too, reducing anyone's willingness to talk about it.
I would be interested to hear what people think can done about that. Not just for age but for any issue where a bs attack becomes a real issue later. For me and other Democratic voters, it's really hard to avoid developing that reflexive response, since so many of the Republican attacks really are bs. I don't want to fall for that trap again.
Edit - I'm falling for the trap again even discussing Biden's state in 2020. It's not the point. The point is that almost all Democrats thought he was OK in 2020, and that the attack was more Republican bs.
He was too old in 2020. His campaign did everything they could to hide him in his basement for a reason. Plenty of non Trump people could see it, but were willing to take the risk and vote for him because of a very strong desire to be rid of Trump.
You could say he was "too old" in the sense that he was at high risk of developing problems within the four years of his term (which is also true of Trump right now). But he was clearly still capable of running and governing at that point in time. That point was made pretty clearly in Nate's article.
The last time his staff let him meet with House Democrats was in 2021 because he got confused over whether or not he was supposed to support AOC’s position. That early date is highly suggestive.
That is not "clearly" so. The beginning of what would become horrendous was already evident then. But you didn't want to accept that because you hated Trump so much.
Trump was, of course, doing his big rallies in 2020, which the Dems denounced as irresponsible because of the pandemic. Biden was able to "hide in his basement" because his base, but no Republican, believed that was the socially responsible thing to do, and that Trump's rallies were killing people. Personally, I think Biden was in rapid decline even in 2020, but the norms of the pandemic response made it impossible for voters to know for sure. It only became very obvious in 2022.
You could say those things. I’m saying that he was too old in the sense that he was too old, they hid him because they knew he would embarrass himself and possibly blow the election, Covid gave them the excuse to do that. Plenty of people could see that and voted for him because they wanted to be rid of Trump, it didn’t work out well for anyone. Except maybe Trump.
I'm falling for the trap again even discussing Biden's state in 2020. It's not the point. The point is that almost all Democrats thought he was OK in 2020, and that the attack was more Republican bs.
The problem is that the media are not supposed to be Democrats. They're supposed to be the impartial arbiters of what's going on. If the Patriots are playing the Jets and the referees show up wearing Patriots jerseys, what would you think? Well, the media showed up wearing Democratic jerseys.
Well. I’m not a Republican and I didn’t think he was anywhere close to OK and I know plenty of Democrats that agreed with me. They, like me, wanted Trump to go and we were willing to take the risk of voting for Biden.
It clearly didn’t work out. The Biden presidency was not good, at best. Now we have Trump back.
It clearly didn’t work out well for anyone but Trump.
I'm not confident enough in my theory to say we don't agree. It's definitely possible that I'm wrong. I live in a very blue area, and I have a mostly blue friend group, so my experience might be very different than yours.
It was not "obviously not true". Biden was already starting to slip, and what the Republicans said, if not true to the extent that he was completely unable to function, was true to the extent that he was no longer 100%. What would become almost gruesomely obvious four years later had already begun.
The motive for the coverup is simple: The Democratic Party is simply a career path, and media access is based on favorable reporting - like automotive journalism.
Betraying Verified(TM) democrats is the surest way to end your political or media career (apart from a political pivot). It keeps everyone in line even when walking towards a cliff. That's it.
The year is 3074. Nuclear war has ravaged the earth, as the technobyte army wages desperate war of extermination against the Evolved Cockroach Militia Union. All recognizable human landmarks have disappeared from the earth, either destroyed in the frenzy of the post Bug Revolution ferver or reduced to mere material for the constant warfare in the 31st millennium.
Somewhere, deep in the earth's crust, Nate Silver is humanity's lone survivor, rendered functionally ageless by Broan Johnson's anti aging techniques. He sits on a well worn mac book pro, fires up Word, and begins his article "14 Times the Media Didn't Say Enough About Biden's Age.
The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, says that he tried to get a one on one meeting with Biden for most of 2024. When he was finally allowed to see him nobody would allow him to speak with Biden so he asked if he could have a private conversation with the President. The aides didn't want it, but Biden told them to get out.
At that point Johnson asked Biden why he had paused LNG permitting. Biden denied ever having done so. The two went back and forth for a few minutes until Biden suddenly remembered.
"No, you're wrong. I signed something that set up a committee to study whether LNG permitting should be paused. I never signed anything that actually implemented a pause."
Obvious question: did it happen? Johnson is on the record that it did.
Even more obvious question: was that the only time it happened? How many times was Biden given a piece of paper and told "Sign this"?
Asking this question is the equivalent of asking "Is the Pope Catholic".
1. People have eyes and ears and could see that Biden was non-compos-mentis.
2. The Media didn't "blow it" - they actively participated in covering it up.
3. Mark Halperin reported on his 2-Way platform yesterday that as for back as 2017 Biden was showing signs of serious cognitive decline at a 'book signing' event.
4. The books now coming out present an even more frightening picture:
- Biden didn't recognize George Clooney at a fund-raiser HOSTED BY CLOONEY.
- Biden was attempting to speak to the late Representative Jackie Walorski AT A MEMORIAL SERVICE COMMENORATING HER DEATH.
5. Its just going to get worse with each new book that comes out.
6. Consider this: Symptoms of Lewy Body Dementia v Other types of Dementia:
- Several core features help distinguish LBD from other forms of dementia.
- Marked variations in attention, alertness, and mental function. These can occur from day to day or even hour to hour within the same day.
- Difficulty recognizing objects or faces.
- Rigid muscles, tremors, shuffling gait, and difficulty initiating movement, "freezing" lasting a few seconds to a minute or more.
It's generous to say "the media" missed this story. Look at Fox or other right media and you'll see lots of coverage, from the first stumbles. The problem might be that most media is left-biased.
The media that chose to support Biden didn't have buyers remorse, they were getting the left policy they wanted, albeit from an unelected cabal. They simply didn't care that a cabal had taken over government, because it was their cabal. Sadly, we can't be sure that the right media would have been different were roles reversed.
Mark Halperin says that he hasn't read anything in Thompson and Tapper's book that he didn't already know. Secondly they give a pass to the media while placing all the blame on the WH.
I'm not ever going to view a habitual rapist as rehabitable. But that's what is going on: somebody wants him back, and people are pretending it doesn't matter anymore.
I can't stop him from saying perceptive and intelligent stuff. His list of "10 things to know about Trump" or whatever is insightful. More importantly it's unique because he's one of the few people who are willing to take a look at Trump with the goal of analysis first and foremost.
What am I supposed to do, just repeat his observations and not give him credit? Sorry, but that would be shitty behavior on my part.
There's a long history of writers, artists, athletes, actors, etc. who are both extraordinarily gifted while at the same time being supremely flawed.
It's faint consolation I know, but I would say that human beings can change. I hope that if Halperin is guilty of what he's been accused of (haven't really looked too closely at the accusations) that he's reformed himself.
1. Everyone in media remembers that Woodward said at the 2017 WHCD the media is not fake news. No one in media heard what he said next, took it seriously, or remembers it today. Compare today's MSM on the Biden thing to this:
"reporters should display modesty and humility, bending over backwards and sincerely, not only to be fair but to demonstrate to people we cover that we intend and will be fair.
In other words, that we have an obligation to listen.
At the same time, [WaPo's] Marty [Baron] said, “when we have done our job thoroughly, we have a duty to tell people what we’ve learned, and to tell it to them forthrightly, without masking our findings or muddling them.”
Journalists should not have a dog in the political fight except to find that best obtainable version of the truth. The indispensable centrality of fact-based reporting is careful, scrupulous listening and an open mind.
President Nixon once said the problem with journalists is that they look in the mirror when they should be looking out the window. That is certainly one thing that Nixon said that Carl and I agree with.....This is no time for self-satisfaction or smugness. But as Ben Bradlee said in 1997, twenty years ago, “the most aggressive our search for truth, the more some people are offended by the press. So be it.”
2. Can't beat the Babylon Bee headline: "Jake Tapper uncovers startling evidence that Biden's decline was covered up by Jake Tapper."
Why is nobody bringing up Kamala Harris. She was VP, so what did Harris know and what was her role in the cover up ???Does Tapper even address the Harris role ???
Ten thousand words and lots of shaky "data journalism", but in the last sentence we get a note saying the media should hold the same bar for Trump. I bet Eli made Nate add that.
I wish The Village would just take Nate back so he could stop trying to pick fights in a sad attempt to remind the real elites that he still exists.
The mainstream media were NOT duped about Biden’s fitness for duty . Anybody with eyes and ears could see his impairment long before the fateful debate .Rather , the media LIED about his mental capacity in the belief that even a cognitively impaired Biden was preferable to Trump ( and this would likely have been the case whoever the Republican candidate ) .
I think this is a great post mortem, absurd that folks in the comments are still dismissing it as some vendetta on Nate's part. That said "piss within the tent" is one of the most upsetting mixed metaphors I've ever read.
I’m working my way through Fight. It’s fair to say that I hate just about everyone in that book. The people are almost to a fault, self-aggrandizing, power hungry and petty. Anyone who brings a valid concern is immediately ostracized, even when that person is trying to help the campaign win. Delusional people who do execute a hopelessly out of touch strategy and are convinced they’ve fixed the problem.
That said, while I enjoy the book it seems like a ton of axe grinding by the factional camps to try and put the blame on the people they don’t like. I can barely get through a couple of pages without thinking “success has a 1000 fathers but failure is an orphan.” Would any of this really mattered when Biden was so far in the hole and Harris was thrust into a 100 day campaign? Could have she built a campaign without co-opting Biden’s team in that limited timeframe? If she had tried to make herself a distinct candidate from the start instead of trying to ride the initial jolt, did she have the skills to effectively turn away from what was unpopular about Biden and convincingly change her positions from the 2019 primary? I kind of doubt all that. I think the democrats were toast from Biden holding onto the re-election for too long.
Agree with most of that but the Vance comment that if Biden shouldn’t run for another term, he couldn’t be president in 2024 is nonsense. Fitness for President isn’t binary, and fitness in 4 years time certainly isn’t. So if Biden was (say) 90% fit to be president in 2024 but with a likelihood that this would decrease 5-10% a year and a possibility it might decrease more, that would indicate that Biden could serve out his term, but not another one. You can argue with the percentages, and it may be that Biden wasn’t fit to be president in 2024, but it certainly doesn’t follow that because there was a risk that he wouldn’t be fit to serve until 2029, he couldn’t complete his existing term.
I'd agree with your take if I was examining Vance's comment in a vacuum; as you rightly say, one doesn't necessarily follow from the other. The issue is that - Vance's non-ideal phrasing aside - the most compelling specific reasons that were cited for why Biden ought to immediately drop out were in themselves already serious and worrying enough to constitute reasons why he was already unfit. If they'd just been arguments that Biden was getting a little bit slower, and a little bit weaker, etc., that would've been one thing. But the argument had progressed distressingly far beyond that by mid-2024.
I voted for Biden (albeit grudgingly), and again for Harris. I can't stand Vance. I also believe Harris and the Cabinet left our country in a months-long state of dire risk by neglecting to invoke the 25th amendment.
Irrespective of Biden’s age, infirmities, media negligence (or not), the fact is the Democratic Party flatly ignored supermajorities of their OWN VOTERS who did not want Biden to run for a second term. Yes it’s infuriating that Biden’s infirmities were shielded from the press and the public. But even worse is that an entire political party thought it was perfectly acceptable to flout the will of the people when choosing our presidential nominee.
There was an old saying about Watergate to the effect of, “the crime is not the crime …. The crime is the coverup.” Well, in this case, the crime is not the coverup. The crime is that the American voters were IGNORED by the people who were elected to represent us. And it happened right in front of our eyes - and not a single one of those people has yet come forward to acknowledge and admit it.
Couple of thoughts. First off, F Joe Biden and his advisors. Their selfishness got us the second Trump term. And yes that's exactly what it was. They liked the power and perks and didn't want to give it up.
But besides that, I am still hoping that these elections lead to a serious discussion of age limits for our leaders. I think we should pass this amendment:
1) President, VP, and Senators: cannot take the oath of office after their 75th birthday.
2) House: cannot take the oath of office after their 80th birthday.
3) Mandatory retirement for federal judges after their 75th birthday.
These would NOT apply to current office holders (or it would never pass). But I think it's way past time to pass this. Both sides would benefit.
The Vatican doesn't let Cardinals past the age of 80 into the Conclave.
Bunk. People who voted for Trump got us his second term.
Anyone who voted for Trump and isn't happy wasn't paying attention.
Anyone who chose not to vote was voting for Trump.
Well, it will never pass either way, so why not say it will be phased in for everyone after 2 years?
I remember when they passed a reasonable age limit for judges in Pennsylvania, so then the elder judges of Pennsylvania ruled the law illegal, big surprise. (Somewhat similar to when the PA judges ruled reversing the illegal pay raise for judges to be illegal.)
Not sure why we're asking this question. I don't think it's remotely debatable. (1) EVERYONE knew, just from casually watching the news, it was patently obvious he didn't function at times and looked completely lost, (2) it's the media's job to know it, and (3) mainstream and left media were working hard to amplify the pushback and minimize/ignore what everyone was seeing elsewhere. Tapper can pretend all he wants making money on his book - he knew it too and pushed back HARD on it. The media is equally to blame with Biden insiders. I mean, c'mon, this isn't close.
I think it isn’t close that they covered it pretty extensively and harshly. I don’t blame them. We all saw it, they questioned and question the administration and Biden and company lied and lied. The media isn’t perfect (by any stretch) but we all saw them questioning the white house ad nauseam about this. They just fought it ad nauseam. It’s kind of like the press moves on past each of the horrible things Trump says and does. They basically just give up after a while except a few.
Human nature is the enemy here.
You repeatedly ask about it, people tune out while they roll their eyes because "it's been done to death."
Then when people realize how bad it was, they come back around and lump everyone together and say 'But why didn't you stop it?'
Because the first person anyone lies to is themselves.
I just find it hilarious that Trump supporters hammer on Democrats about how "Biden was obviously losing it, they deserved this for not stopping him! This will teach them a lesson in humility"
Meanwhile, they ignore the list of things wrong with Trump as he walks the Republicans to President Assisted Living 2, Electric Boogaloo.
I have a theory that might help explain what happened. The Republicans spent all of 2020 saying that Biden had dementia already. It was pretty much their primary attack against him. I heard it from many Trump supporters in my life. In 2020, concerns about the future aside, this was obviously not true. This caused Democrats (including me! Definitely including me...) to develop a reflexive response that any concerns about Biden's age were bs. That reflexive response prevented us from seeing the truth when the real situation changed. It all sounded like more bs. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing it affected the media and Democratic Party elites too, reducing anyone's willingness to talk about it.
I would be interested to hear what people think can done about that. Not just for age but for any issue where a bs attack becomes a real issue later. For me and other Democratic voters, it's really hard to avoid developing that reflexive response, since so many of the Republican attacks really are bs. I don't want to fall for that trap again.
Edit - I'm falling for the trap again even discussing Biden's state in 2020. It's not the point. The point is that almost all Democrats thought he was OK in 2020, and that the attack was more Republican bs.
He was too old in 2020. His campaign did everything they could to hide him in his basement for a reason. Plenty of non Trump people could see it, but were willing to take the risk and vote for him because of a very strong desire to be rid of Trump.
I don’t think that has worked out well.
You could say he was "too old" in the sense that he was at high risk of developing problems within the four years of his term (which is also true of Trump right now). But he was clearly still capable of running and governing at that point in time. That point was made pretty clearly in Nate's article.
The last time his staff let him meet with House Democrats was in 2021 because he got confused over whether or not he was supposed to support AOC’s position. That early date is highly suggestive.
That is not "clearly" so. The beginning of what would become horrendous was already evident then. But you didn't want to accept that because you hated Trump so much.
Well, a person with severe dementia would be more effective than Trump, which is no longer a hypothetical.
🙄
Trump was, of course, doing his big rallies in 2020, which the Dems denounced as irresponsible because of the pandemic. Biden was able to "hide in his basement" because his base, but no Republican, believed that was the socially responsible thing to do, and that Trump's rallies were killing people. Personally, I think Biden was in rapid decline even in 2020, but the norms of the pandemic response made it impossible for voters to know for sure. It only became very obvious in 2022.
You could say those things. I’m saying that he was too old in the sense that he was too old, they hid him because they knew he would embarrass himself and possibly blow the election, Covid gave them the excuse to do that. Plenty of people could see that and voted for him because they wanted to be rid of Trump, it didn’t work out well for anyone. Except maybe Trump.
I'm falling for the trap again even discussing Biden's state in 2020. It's not the point. The point is that almost all Democrats thought he was OK in 2020, and that the attack was more Republican bs.
The problem is that the media are not supposed to be Democrats. They're supposed to be the impartial arbiters of what's going on. If the Patriots are playing the Jets and the referees show up wearing Patriots jerseys, what would you think? Well, the media showed up wearing Democratic jerseys.
Well. I’m not a Republican and I didn’t think he was anywhere close to OK and I know plenty of Democrats that agreed with me. They, like me, wanted Trump to go and we were willing to take the risk of voting for Biden.
It clearly didn’t work out. The Biden presidency was not good, at best. Now we have Trump back.
It clearly didn’t work out well for anyone but Trump.
We don’t agree, that’s OK.
I'm not confident enough in my theory to say we don't agree. It's definitely possible that I'm wrong. I live in a very blue area, and I have a mostly blue friend group, so my experience might be very different than yours.
It was not "obviously not true". Biden was already starting to slip, and what the Republicans said, if not true to the extent that he was completely unable to function, was true to the extent that he was no longer 100%. What would become almost gruesomely obvious four years later had already begun.
The motive for the coverup is simple: The Democratic Party is simply a career path, and media access is based on favorable reporting - like automotive journalism.
Betraying Verified(TM) democrats is the surest way to end your political or media career (apart from a political pivot). It keeps everyone in line even when walking towards a cliff. That's it.
Meanwhile, whatever happened to all those Republicans and Fox News people who took principled stands against Trump?
The year is 3074. Nuclear war has ravaged the earth, as the technobyte army wages desperate war of extermination against the Evolved Cockroach Militia Union. All recognizable human landmarks have disappeared from the earth, either destroyed in the frenzy of the post Bug Revolution ferver or reduced to mere material for the constant warfare in the 31st millennium.
Somewhere, deep in the earth's crust, Nate Silver is humanity's lone survivor, rendered functionally ageless by Broan Johnson's anti aging techniques. He sits on a well worn mac book pro, fires up Word, and begins his article "14 Times the Media Didn't Say Enough About Biden's Age.
The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, says that he tried to get a one on one meeting with Biden for most of 2024. When he was finally allowed to see him nobody would allow him to speak with Biden so he asked if he could have a private conversation with the President. The aides didn't want it, but Biden told them to get out.
At that point Johnson asked Biden why he had paused LNG permitting. Biden denied ever having done so. The two went back and forth for a few minutes until Biden suddenly remembered.
"No, you're wrong. I signed something that set up a committee to study whether LNG permitting should be paused. I never signed anything that actually implemented a pause."
Obvious question: did it happen? Johnson is on the record that it did.
Even more obvious question: was that the only time it happened? How many times was Biden given a piece of paper and told "Sign this"?
Is the media investigating? Of course not.
Don't trust the media. They still suck.
Biden didn’t need to have a paper put in front of him and told to sign it. They simply used the auto-pen.
Asking this question is the equivalent of asking "Is the Pope Catholic".
1. People have eyes and ears and could see that Biden was non-compos-mentis.
2. The Media didn't "blow it" - they actively participated in covering it up.
3. Mark Halperin reported on his 2-Way platform yesterday that as for back as 2017 Biden was showing signs of serious cognitive decline at a 'book signing' event.
4. The books now coming out present an even more frightening picture:
- Biden didn't recognize George Clooney at a fund-raiser HOSTED BY CLOONEY.
- Biden was attempting to speak to the late Representative Jackie Walorski AT A MEMORIAL SERVICE COMMENORATING HER DEATH.
5. Its just going to get worse with each new book that comes out.
6. Consider this: Symptoms of Lewy Body Dementia v Other types of Dementia:
- Several core features help distinguish LBD from other forms of dementia.
- Marked variations in attention, alertness, and mental function. These can occur from day to day or even hour to hour within the same day.
- Difficulty recognizing objects or faces.
- Rigid muscles, tremors, shuffling gait, and difficulty initiating movement, "freezing" lasting a few seconds to a minute or more.
It's generous to say "the media" missed this story. Look at Fox or other right media and you'll see lots of coverage, from the first stumbles. The problem might be that most media is left-biased.
The media that chose to support Biden didn't have buyers remorse, they were getting the left policy they wanted, albeit from an unelected cabal. They simply didn't care that a cabal had taken over government, because it was their cabal. Sadly, we can't be sure that the right media would have been different were roles reversed.
If Fox had done actual reporting instead of running doctored videos and Memes as News, you might have a point.
Mark Halperin says that he hasn't read anything in Thompson and Tapper's book that he didn't already know. Secondly they give a pass to the media while placing all the blame on the WH.
I don't know about this rehabilitation of Mark Halperin lately ----- his @MeToo offenses were pretty awful.
People can be both smart and perceptive and pretty terrible people all at the same time.
I'm not ever going to view a habitual rapist as rehabitable. But that's what is going on: somebody wants him back, and people are pretending it doesn't matter anymore.
I can't stop him from saying perceptive and intelligent stuff. His list of "10 things to know about Trump" or whatever is insightful. More importantly it's unique because he's one of the few people who are willing to take a look at Trump with the goal of analysis first and foremost.
What am I supposed to do, just repeat his observations and not give him credit? Sorry, but that would be shitty behavior on my part.
No, no, go ahead and reference him, of course. You are right.
He IS being publicly rehabbed, though. Grump, grump, [:-(
There's a long history of writers, artists, athletes, actors, etc. who are both extraordinarily gifted while at the same time being supremely flawed.
It's faint consolation I know, but I would say that human beings can change. I hope that if Halperin is guilty of what he's been accused of (haven't really looked too closely at the accusations) that he's reformed himself.
habitual rapist? Or a guy who got too frisky with a woman in an elevator one time and now those who hate him will blow that up into "habitual rapist"?
1. Everyone in media remembers that Woodward said at the 2017 WHCD the media is not fake news. No one in media heard what he said next, took it seriously, or remembers it today. Compare today's MSM on the Biden thing to this:
"reporters should display modesty and humility, bending over backwards and sincerely, not only to be fair but to demonstrate to people we cover that we intend and will be fair.
In other words, that we have an obligation to listen.
At the same time, [WaPo's] Marty [Baron] said, “when we have done our job thoroughly, we have a duty to tell people what we’ve learned, and to tell it to them forthrightly, without masking our findings or muddling them.”
Journalists should not have a dog in the political fight except to find that best obtainable version of the truth. The indispensable centrality of fact-based reporting is careful, scrupulous listening and an open mind.
President Nixon once said the problem with journalists is that they look in the mirror when they should be looking out the window. That is certainly one thing that Nixon said that Carl and I agree with.....This is no time for self-satisfaction or smugness. But as Ben Bradlee said in 1997, twenty years ago, “the most aggressive our search for truth, the more some people are offended by the press. So be it.”
2. Can't beat the Babylon Bee headline: "Jake Tapper uncovers startling evidence that Biden's decline was covered up by Jake Tapper."
Why is nobody bringing up Kamala Harris. She was VP, so what did Harris know and what was her role in the cover up ???Does Tapper even address the Harris role ???
Why isn't the press asking about Kamala Harris's role in the cover up ???
Ten thousand words and lots of shaky "data journalism", but in the last sentence we get a note saying the media should hold the same bar for Trump. I bet Eli made Nate add that.
I wish The Village would just take Nate back so he could stop trying to pick fights in a sad attempt to remind the real elites that he still exists.
What even is the point you are trying to make here?
The mainstream media were NOT duped about Biden’s fitness for duty . Anybody with eyes and ears could see his impairment long before the fateful debate .Rather , the media LIED about his mental capacity in the belief that even a cognitively impaired Biden was preferable to Trump ( and this would likely have been the case whoever the Republican candidate ) .
I think this is a great post mortem, absurd that folks in the comments are still dismissing it as some vendetta on Nate's part. That said "piss within the tent" is one of the most upsetting mixed metaphors I've ever read.
Mixed metaphor? It's an LBJ quote: I'd rather have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.
Maybe I misunderstood, but I read it as combining the straightforward use with the Democrats as the big tent party.
I’m working my way through Fight. It’s fair to say that I hate just about everyone in that book. The people are almost to a fault, self-aggrandizing, power hungry and petty. Anyone who brings a valid concern is immediately ostracized, even when that person is trying to help the campaign win. Delusional people who do execute a hopelessly out of touch strategy and are convinced they’ve fixed the problem.
That said, while I enjoy the book it seems like a ton of axe grinding by the factional camps to try and put the blame on the people they don’t like. I can barely get through a couple of pages without thinking “success has a 1000 fathers but failure is an orphan.” Would any of this really mattered when Biden was so far in the hole and Harris was thrust into a 100 day campaign? Could have she built a campaign without co-opting Biden’s team in that limited timeframe? If she had tried to make herself a distinct candidate from the start instead of trying to ride the initial jolt, did she have the skills to effectively turn away from what was unpopular about Biden and convincingly change her positions from the 2019 primary? I kind of doubt all that. I think the democrats were toast from Biden holding onto the re-election for too long.
Agree with most of that but the Vance comment that if Biden shouldn’t run for another term, he couldn’t be president in 2024 is nonsense. Fitness for President isn’t binary, and fitness in 4 years time certainly isn’t. So if Biden was (say) 90% fit to be president in 2024 but with a likelihood that this would decrease 5-10% a year and a possibility it might decrease more, that would indicate that Biden could serve out his term, but not another one. You can argue with the percentages, and it may be that Biden wasn’t fit to be president in 2024, but it certainly doesn’t follow that because there was a risk that he wouldn’t be fit to serve until 2029, he couldn’t complete his existing term.
Also, running for President is nearly a full time job, as is running the country.
Perfectly feasible to say he was up to one task but not both.
I'd agree with your take if I was examining Vance's comment in a vacuum; as you rightly say, one doesn't necessarily follow from the other. The issue is that - Vance's non-ideal phrasing aside - the most compelling specific reasons that were cited for why Biden ought to immediately drop out were in themselves already serious and worrying enough to constitute reasons why he was already unfit. If they'd just been arguments that Biden was getting a little bit slower, and a little bit weaker, etc., that would've been one thing. But the argument had progressed distressingly far beyond that by mid-2024.
I voted for Biden (albeit grudgingly), and again for Harris. I can't stand Vance. I also believe Harris and the Cabinet left our country in a months-long state of dire risk by neglecting to invoke the 25th amendment.
Irrespective of Biden’s age, infirmities, media negligence (or not), the fact is the Democratic Party flatly ignored supermajorities of their OWN VOTERS who did not want Biden to run for a second term. Yes it’s infuriating that Biden’s infirmities were shielded from the press and the public. But even worse is that an entire political party thought it was perfectly acceptable to flout the will of the people when choosing our presidential nominee.
There was an old saying about Watergate to the effect of, “the crime is not the crime …. The crime is the coverup.” Well, in this case, the crime is not the coverup. The crime is that the American voters were IGNORED by the people who were elected to represent us. And it happened right in front of our eyes - and not a single one of those people has yet come forward to acknowledge and admit it.