NYT Reports That Biden Is Considering Dropping Out of the Race

Biden is attempting multiple gambits to convince people he's Still Got It. He'll be giving a heavily-edited, scripted "interview" to former Clinton war-room second-in-command George Stephanopolous, and he is planning a press conference where he'll "answer questions."

I assume most of these questions will be, as usual, previewed for the "president" and he'll have note-cards about how to answer them.

However, the press might not be willing to play this game with him any longer -- the Media-Democrat Borg Hivemind has decided to drive Biden out of the hive. Maybe many of them will refuse to "share their questions" with the White House staff beforehand.

And maybe, if the White House insists on only reading canned, "previewed" questions, the rest of the media might actually report on the falsity of the event.

However that plays out, Biden has told an "ally" that he will withdraw from the race if he's not able to reassure Democrats that he is capable of fooling the public into thinking he's not demented.

The White House denied this story -- as usual.

But even CNN has turned on Biden, confirming the NYT story. Although they didn't use these words, this means they're calling the White House denial a lie.

Who is this "ally"? It could be Obama. Who knows.

But Obama is a mendacious, slimy son-of-a-b.

Note that the media now understands this is not just a crisis for Biden or their precious Democrat Party, but for themselves as well. In the most spectacular exposure of their lies so far, the entire public saw and heard with their own eyes and ears that they've been lying, constantly, about Biden's mental acuity.

So now they're all scrambling to regain credibility by finally reporting on Biden's dementia.

But just reporting on it now isn't enough -- the public knows the media has gaslit them for years and years.

So now they're putting out explanations for why they lied. Wait, they're not admitting they lied -- they're explaining why they did not "devote sufficient resources to reporting this story."

As David Strom says, CNN is now saying, basically, "Don't blame us -- we were just following [White House] orders."

Their explanation is a simple one: We lied because the Bad Orange Man lies.

Biden's mental fitness could have been better covered leading up to the debate, some White House reporters acknowledge

By Hadas Gold, CNN

We could have "better covered" the story we were lying about and calling nothing but "cheap fakes" for years.

Strom comments on the new CNN gaslighting op.

Last Thursday's debate exposed the hoax. What to do?

The "modified limited hangout" is their current answer: admit to a small offense to hide the fact that they committed a much larger one.

I've mentioned before, Nixon proposed a "modified limited hangout" to admit some mistakes were made in Watergate, while denying the Plumbers were actually undertaking a White House mission.

The term "modified hangout" is borrowed from CIA tradecraft -- a modified hangout is the story you tell foreign police and intelligence officials who arrest you for espionage. You don't admit you're a CIA spy. But, when they start breaking your fingers, you do admit that some gentleman at the Hotel Intercontinental asked you to bring some papers to someone. That's it, that's all you did -- you had no idea he was asking you to do something illegal! You had no idea he might be one of those Covert Intelligence Johnnies!

You tell them just enough to get them to stop breaking your fingers.

Quoting the CNN Modified Limited Hangout:

In June, when the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy piece on President Joe Biden's mental state, the newspaper got slammed. The White House, its allies, and some in the media -- including CNN's Reliable Sources -- criticized the Journal for quoting mostly Republican political foes on the record, who had a clear political motive to damage Biden's image. No Democrats were quoted on the record making those allegations, and several Democrats complained their on-the-record quotes praising Biden's sharpness were not included. The Journal defended its reporting at the time.

CNN wants you to believe they found this story incredible because Democrats would only talk about Biden's lapses anonymously -- as if they were not jeopardizing their careers if they spoke openly.

As for Democrats saying they also mentioned Biden's sharp(as a tack)ness -- yes, the WSJ mentioned this. Specifically, they mentioned that Democrats they interviewed admitted they'd been called by the White House and told to call the WSJ again, and praise Biden for how sharp and probing his mind was.

CNN is still defending their decision to attack this story and otherwise ignore it.

Last week's debate on CNN laid bare many of the concerns the Journal's reporting had raised -- that the president has good days and bad days but can sometimes seem to slip up. A New York Times report on Tuesday raised similar concerns by those who have recently been in the room with Biden. The Times reported Biden has more frequent "lapses," although at other times he appears sharp.

After Biden's lackluster performance last week, some are questioning whether the White House press corps dropped the ball on fully covering Biden's limitations.

...

Several White House reporters told CNN that the coverage of Biden's age and his mental stamina should have pushed harder. They cited several difficulties in doing so before the debate -- from the obvious political motivations of sources who either want to protect Biden's image or project a certain image, to the blowback from pursuing such reports, especially from the White House and Democrats.

The Democrats we serve with all our heart and soul would get made at us if we reported this, so we didn't.

This is their excuse. This is the slimy evasion offered by the Brave Truth-Tellers of the Media -- they risk their very lives every day! They're braver than fire-fighters!

But if the Democrats don't like a story, we'll kill that story and smear anyone reporting it.

Strom comments:

It's the same argument made for why schools needed to be closed during the pandemic--Trump wanted them reopened, and we couldn't have that.

How far we have fallen from the argument that the press is the vital "fourth estate" that needs to "hold politicians accountable." Now we are told that journalists have a duty to harm Republicans and to help Democrats, and more importantly that even those imperatives is not to piss off the Democrats.

Back to CNN:

The failure of the media, one White House reporter said, was not pushing more aggressively into Biden's abilities after the release of the Robert Hurr report in February, which called Biden a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."

Biden's age was also a right-wing talking point for years, something the White House was quick to point out to reporters, which may have inadvertently turned off any serious investigation.

Wait, I thought that the news media were objective and not biased against conservatives -- and yet they confess that because this was a "right wing talking point," that may have "turned off any serious investigation."

Biden's sharpness, vitality, and probing mind with its -- as Mayorkas, I think, attested -- "photographic memory" was a left-wing talking point -- but for some reason I could not possibly guess, this did not "turn off" reporters.

Now they trot out the new spin: When we said Biden wasn't senile before, it was true.

It's just that he went senile in the past three weeks, after we smeared anyone posting videos of him looking lost as peddling "cheap fakes."

"The right-wing media was calling him senile from day one, and that wasn't true," the reporter said. "Then whenever you report on the age you were in some ways solidifying, giving credence to some people that were actually of bad faith."

CNN is quick to brand the people telling the truth the "right wing media."

What, praytell, does that make CNN -- which is reflexively "turned off" by any "right wing talking point"?

CNN again:

All the White House reporters who spoke to CNN for this piece chose to speak anonymously so they could speak more freely about their relationship with the White House.

Oh, you mean like the sources for the WSJ did? Why is now understandable why Democrats may want to speak anonymously, where before it was a sign that the "right wing media" was just making up lies?

Say, Hadas, maybe you should tell leftwingers that Trump is a Bad Orange Man as way to "contextualize" your lies.

"[B]erating reporters who bring them reporting about age concerns, bemoaning that it's all anyone writes about (clearly, it's not) and often attacking pieces after they run," the reporter told CNN. "I think that's left some folks to conclude that these stories are too painful to report or that they should pick their spots more. It's clear the age stories that have angered the White House (and the liberal Twittersphere) the most."

Alex Thompson, a White House reporter for Axios, said on CNN the day after the debate that "the White House's response every single time it has come up for three-and-a-half years has been to deflect, to gaslight, to not tell the truth -- not just to reporters, not just to other Democrats, but even at times to themselves about the president's limitations at his age."

Still, this White House's recent conduct with reporters pales in comparison to Trump's team, which has done everything from revoking press access to reporters they disagree with, to calling reporters the "enemy of the people."

The White House declined to comment.

Reporters are the enemies of the people, as this latest gaslighting operation proves. As if the previous ten exposed psyops didn't already prove it.

Let's go back to the storyline that Biden wasn't senile when we said he wasn't senile, but just suddenly went senile when we weren't looking.

Aging is also not a sudden moment. That makes it trickier to report on.

"To some extent, the decline has appeared to be gradual -- hard to notice from day to day -- and that's perhaps made it harder for reporters to determine when is the right moment to write something," one of the reporters said.

Just a few days before the debate, Biden held a press conference at the G7 alongside Ukrainian President Vlodomyr Zelensky that passed off without anything of note in Biden's demeanor.

But reporters pointed out (and have published stories noting) that the president has been using teleprompters at most big events, even fundraisers where in the past he might not have. He has also started to use the lower stairs to board Air Force One.

Last year, The New York Times published a lengthy piece on the "complicated reality of America's oldest president," which looked at some of those accommodations and concerns for his age, but also the moments where he showed stamina and vigor.

Some reporters said that there has been a distinct change within the last year, and that the press corps should have reported more aggressively on the accommodations made for the president.

"I think the press, most of the White House press, did suffer from a bit of lack of curiosity," one of the reporters said.

Ah. They'll cop to a "lack of curiosity." And that's the worst journalistic sin they'll admit.

Here comes the real defense -- the only defense they really need.

"We lied because Trump lies."

Look who you're up against

Biden's allies will often question coverage of the president's age, questioning why reporters focus on the president's age and mental lucidity and not on Trump's -- who, at 78, was observed falling asleep during his hush money trial, has made his own major verbal flubs and bizarre statements, and regularly spouts complete falsehoods.

Trump's demented too! He falls asleep, briefly, at long trials which he is forced to sit through despite having no role at all to play.

By the way: Jurors routinely fall asleep, too. And they have an important role.

And Trump "regularly spouts" falsehoods!

"It makes sense to reflect on this now and ask whether we missed or, really, under-reported the story of Biden's age and decline. But it's complicated," one of the reporters said. "The fact that the political alternative to Biden is an authoritarian who sparked an insurrection and is a convicted felon does not mean that the press is failing American democracy to focus on Biden's obvious frailty."

One of the reporters said the media can, and do, report on both. Biden's allies, however, say too much attention is placed on Biden's age and not on the threat Trump could pose to American democracy.

But the reporters say they can, and should, do both.

"Just because you are reporting on Biden age, doesn't mean you're not reporting on Trump's lies. I find that argument silly, and it seems one design towards like producing a certain outcome in the election, rather than like an honest reporting," one of the reporters said.

Strom makes a good point. This won't convince you. It's not supposed to -- this is CNN's attempt to assuage its hyperliberal viewers who, despite being hyperliberal, are themselves feeling gaslit by CNN.

Strom says that CNN is saying, "We were trying to help you! That's why we kept quiet."

In other words: Yes we lied, but we lied for the cause.

T. Becket Adams @BecketAdams

Pulitzer Prize-winning newsrooms and pundits with six-figure salaries all "missed" the deterioration of Joe Biden's cognitive abilities, while accounts with handles such as PatriotMom1776 and RealEagle_Freedom have been pointing it out for about five years.

CNN's admission could have been written much more simply and forthrightly:

Charles C. W. Cooke @charlescwcooke

If you're looking for a broader takeaway from all this, take how the press covered up Biden's infirmity because it wanted to protect the Democrats, and apply it to literally every single thing that it does, on any topic, in any year, in any circumstance, forever.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:10 PM

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