It Happens to the Best of Us, It Happened to the Media

There is a saying some people like to use all the time that says, "It happens to the best of us." While the saying applies mostly to otherwise good, honest people caught in a simple mistake, I will allow the news media to have the saying at least for now.

I am fully admitting it's hard to call the media "good people."

For one thing, and this is no secret mind you, they lie. The media. And if they're not lying, they're shaping narratives that are caught somewhere between a lie and a half-truth.

It's been a long 8 or so years, folks. From the moment Donald J. Trump came down that escalator at Trump Tower to announce he was running for president to now, with Joe Biden as the sitting president. It's been one thing after the other, and constant.

If they weren't bashing Trump, or aren't bashing Trump now, they were giving praise after praise for Joe Biden—and outright lying to us about his health and fitness to be president. The untold lies about his record of successes notwithstanding.

Reality often hits the fan, so to speak. It happens to the best of us. And the media has finally come to terms with the idea that they simply cannot continue the lie about Joe Biden's health or fitness to be president anymore. The gig is up. It's simply undeniable after what can only be labeled as a complete disaster of a performance by Joe Biden on the debate stage.

There's a point when one can at least "get away" with the lie. Not that it makes it okay to tell the lie, but there's no real consequence for telling it. People will still afford you some level of credibility, and when you're in the media credentials are everything, right?

Regardless of whether you are telling the truth or not, you still have to appear intelligent and informed to a degree. Sort of like a salesman when you think about it. He might be completely full of shit, but you still feel like he mostly knows what he's talking about. He needs that. He needs you to feel that.

In the case of Biden and his debate performance, what was widely suspected to be, and that he was long-time accused of became so glaringly obvious it was simply impossible to ignore it. If this would have been a spin-room in a sales office, that performance would have been a firm acknowledgement, "There's just no way we can sell this anymore other than for what it actually is."

The media now has no other option, in order to maintain any sense of credibility, but to be honest. Joe Biden is just not fit to be president.

You saw it first, immediately following the debate from the panel on CNN. And instead of their initial thoughts quieting down, they are doubling down on the idea that Joe Biden cannot win, and especially that he shouldn't even be running at all.

Take the George Stephanopoulos interview, which was a one-on-one with Joe Biden recently. It was hard knocks. These were very direct and tough questions. I'd say probably some of the toughest questions ever posed to a sitting president, let alone a Democrat one.

There was no room in this one to sit back in one's chair contemplatively and ask the president what his favorite flavor of ice cream happened to be.

This is about the future of America, and everyone gets that.

There's also no foreseeable turnaround that's going to happen here either. I am not sure Biden gets that, or his team for that matter. The news media is not going to suddenly change their mind. Even if Biden somehow manages to pull off a good debate performance in September, I think it will be too little too late.

Suddenly all eyes will turn back to the State of the Union address, and the media will have to wonder—like so many of us already wondered before they ever would—what was he on? What did they give him? It's a rouse!

No one is going to buy it that if the president was a rambling mess on Monday through Saturday, but all put together well on Sunday, that it wasn't because of some reason. The reality is that the reality simply can no longer be ignored or brushed aside.

Why would the media turn their backs on their guy and not defend him to the hilt no matter what? Again, it's because they need to be at least somewhat credible. America is watching, and they are watching very closely. They are seeing what they are seeing, and there's no way to sell the story any other way than what's right in front of their eyes.

Granted, it doesn't mean we will start getting the whole truth from them. Come on. Get real. Look at how they continue to report on Trump. When Trump wins in November, and I think that's easier to predict now that he actually will, they're not going to give up on bashing him and telling lie after lie about him.

But see, the difference is they can still get away with the Trump lies. They cannot get away with the Biden ones. In an ironic sense, it means that what the American people at least get in the meantime is the truth we need within the other lies they'll tell. 

The lies about Trump, in other words, don't matter as much as the truth about Biden does. 

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© 2024 Jim Bauer

Just One More Excuse for Biden's Awful Debate Performance

Are we to the point of the Biden administration desperately clutching at straws? And how stupid do they think we are? Because I think we have to start asking that question along with, of course, a plethora of others.

We're being played, and we've been played for a very long time. For the most part, Joe Biden and his camp, including the media, have gotten pass after pass after pass. From his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan to his insistent lies that the border is secure, and that any issues we have on the border are Trump's fault, it's one thing after another.

All the other issues notwithstanding—we can't forget those—and the way it's all been spun. From job creation claims that were actually just jobs coming back after Covid to inflation, gas prices and whatever else you want to add in there.

There is a long trail of disaster behind almost everything the Biden administration has touched.

Of course, in the beginning they did all they could to try to deflect and turn American's attentions to more "serious" matters. The threat to our democracy, for example, because Trump is supposedly an evil man hell bent on becoming a dictator on day one.

In his final State of the Union address to the nation, he literally compared the 2024 election to the days of Hitler.

It's to hide things. That's all it's really about. To hide Biden's numerous failures and more importantly, to hide the obvious decline in his mental health that has been evident to many people over the course of his presidency.

The problem is that big lie, the one about Biden being on top of his game, came to its head during the debate. Everyone saw it, and no one could deny it anymore. Even CNN. Something was wrong with the president.

He keeps saying he must continue to run to save the country. But how can a country be saved by a man who doesn't even know where he is? How can the country, at its very foundation, be preserved as the founding fathers intended if the leader that we know to be the leader isn't actually the one leading?

The White House was quick to dismiss any claims of mental decline and criticized the media for "jumping the gun." And they continued to plod out their narrative that, "The man you see is not the man we see every day in the Oval Office doing the hard work for the American people."

As Bill Maher put it, "Tape that so we can all see it too."

"The president was suffering from a cold," was of course the first thing they passed along as sort of an explanation of sorts as to why he performed so badly during the debate. Okay, that explains his voice, which was frail and weak and raspy. But it doesn't explain why he could not put a complete sentence together or get the facts straight.

Which, by the way, after being reminded of Trump's many lies by the news media and even the White House, is also a "clutching of straws."

Biden lied several times during the debate. He lied about Trump wanting to get rid of Social Security. He lied about the insulin cap. He lied about the Medicare cap. He lied about his job creation. He lied about what unemployment was when he took office.

Oh, and the 800-pound gorilla in the room. He lied about no troops dying during his watch. In fact, there have been several. The most glaring of which were the 13 service members who died on the tarmac in Afghanistan during that horrific withdrawal.

Now they come out and tell us, "Well, he's a 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. president, and during those times he's sharp as a tack." Okay. Fine. But what if he gets that proverbial call at 3 A.M. Then what?

Beyond that, now Biden is claiming he was suffering from serious jet lag from recent overseas trips and that he "nearly fell asleep on stage." It's one more clutch. And frankly, one more outright lie. I think at the end of the day everything should be crystal clear to the voters right now. His record, and his ability. But the reality is that everything about him is in question.

He's sitting on abysmal approval ratings with only 38% of Americans believing he's doing a good job, and when you ask the question of his fitness to be president, it's even worse. 72% of Americans feel Biden is not up to the job.

It reminds me of that age old idea that the more you have to tell people you're this, the more the reality is that you are something else entirely.

The fact is that the American people more than ever know now that they have been being lied to all along. By the media. By the Biden administration. By everyone. And it's beginning to really rub people the wrong way. No one wants to be taken for a fool.

A cold. Jet lag. What's next when no one buys that?

How about you're simply not the man you used to be, Mr. Biden? How about it's just time to pack your bags and really do your duty and serve the country's best interests by ensuring we are not led by people other than you? But an actual president, able to do the job, making the critical decisions, who was elected by the People?

Because let's face it. Desperation is not an admirable trait either. And that's the other trait being put on full display here. The president and the people in his camp are desperate to win, at any cost, and regardless of what's in the best interests of the American people.

The more the Biden administration continues to deny, deny, deny the truth, the more the American people become convinced their worst fears are, in fact, true. And the angrier they become about that.

Sorry, Mr. President, but the chickens have come home to roost.

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© 2024 Jim Bauer

...and now, for something completely different.