{"id":43013,"date":"2025-06-01T09:17:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T14:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=43013"},"modified":"2025-06-03T03:51:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T08:51:18","slug":"the-medias-post-biden-show-of-contrition-is-just-a-setup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=43013","title":{"rendered":"The media\u2019s post-Biden show of contrition is just a setup"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It was the easiest thing in the world to predict: The media\u2019s moment of half-hearted contrition for \u201cmissing\u201d President Joe Biden\u2019s\u2002<\/u><\/a>obvious physical and cognitive decline has given way already to a fixation on President Trump\u2019s health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The journalists have no choice, you see. They\u2019re humbled now. Their renewed zeal for the truth compels them to correct for the reporting mistakes of the Biden era. Therefore, they must now be unrelentingly suspicious of Trump\u2019s mental and physical health. They learned their lesson!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mea culpas seem awfully hollow now \u2014 more like a thin cover for a public relations reset, clearing the way for media to be far more aggressive about Trump\u2019s age and health than anything we saw during Biden\u2019s term in office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t have to imagine a double standard. We just lived through four years of major media pretending as if it simply didn\u2019t notice the dementia patient in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Daily Beast, which had been an eager and credulous supporter<\/u><\/a> of the Biden White House\u2019s \u201ccheap fakes\u201d nonsense last year, published a May 28 report titled, \u201cTrump Shows Signs of \u2018Cognitive Decline,\u2019 Says Speech Expert<\/u><\/a>.\u201d The subhead adds, humorously, \u201cAs pressure mounts for an inquiry into Joe Biden\u2019s mental decline, the president faces scrutiny over his health.\u201d This is a neat trick, by the way \u2014 publishing an article questioning the president\u2019s mental acuity while also pretending as if you\u2019re not the one doing the \u201cscrutiny.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elsewhere, the\u2002<\/u><\/a>Associated Press\u2002<\/u><\/a>published<\/u><\/a> a story titled, \u201cTrump proclaims himself \u2018in good shape,\u2019 but the results of his physical aren\u2019t immediately released.\u201d In a separate report<\/u><\/a> published the same month, the AP warned, \u201cDespite raising persistent questions about Biden\u2019s physical and mental capacity and repeatedly asserting that Biden did not know what he was doing, Trump has routinely kept basic details about his health shrouded in secrecy, in contrast to the traditional transparency on medical issues that presidents of both political parties have shown.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For context, the AP, days before Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential election, published a report titled<\/u><\/a>, \u201cBiden at 81: Often sharp and focused but sometimes confused and forgetful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the world of commentary and opinion writing, USA Today<\/u><\/a>\u2002published<\/u><\/a> a piece this month titled, \u201cIs Trump in mental decline? He sounds far worse than Biden ever did.\u201d Incredibly, the post is authored by the same pundit who declared in March 2024<\/u><\/a>, \u201cBiden old and frail? Nope. President delivers fiery State of the Union his campaign needed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the Boston Globe<\/u><\/a>, an opinion headline reads, \u201cTrump has lots to say about Biden\u2019s health. His own? Not so much.\u201d Globe columnist Renee Graham argues that the media should \u201cexamine more critically the health of the men elected to lead this nation. That certainly includes the physical and cognitive health of the current White House occupant, a Constitution-shredding authoritarian who doesn\u2019t deserve to get by on medical reports that rely more on hyperbole than facts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For comparison, Graham wrote last year<\/u><\/a>, in response to questions regarding Biden\u2019s fitness for office, \u201cI can\u2019t speak to Biden\u2019s mental acuity, but we\u2019re witnessing in real time for the first time what it means to have a president in his 80s. How we\u2019re reacting may say more about us than about him. But that\u2019s only part of the frank conversations we need to have about what it means to grow old in a nation that routinely ridicules senior citizens \u2014 and not just among our leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the world of outright partisan media, the New Republic<\/u><\/a> this month continued a cheeky long-running series meant to highlight Trump\u2019s quirks and foibles, each article of which leads with the question, \u201cCognitive decline?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, former New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan\u2002<\/u><\/a>concluded this month that the main takeaway from the press cover-up of Biden\u2019s decline is that the media aren\u2019t hard enough on Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo if the media were going to put their thumb on the scale \u2014 as they inevitably do \u2014 they ought to have done so in defense of democracy, the rule of law and human decency,\u201d writes Sullivan for a piece titled<\/u><\/a>, \u201cYes, the media\u2019s Biden coverage was flawed. But its reporting on Trump was far worse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Meet the Press host Chuck Todd added elsewhere<\/u><\/a> a somewhat different note that was still similarly beside-the-point: \u201cTo the folks shaming the Biden-enablers, I get the instinct, but the folks on the right doing the victory lap are simultaneously behaving the same way (or worse) when it comes to Trump and his bizarre rants\/ statements\/ policies that aren\u2019t working\/ graft etc. To those folks feeling good about their Biden takes, you comfortable with your Trump enabling? You really think it\u2019ll age well?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So yes, this is a trend. We are really going to go from four years of news media pretending not to notice the obvious about Biden to four years of the same news media demanding radical transparency and accountability. Next thing you know, they will be demanding weekly blood and urine samples from the current president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We should not be surprised that the brief period of contrition for turning a blind eye toward Biden has already segued into an opportunity to do to a Republican what they couldn\u2019t bring themselves to do to a Democrat. The signs were all there last year, even before Trump won his re-election bid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New York Times reported in October 2024, \u201cTrump\u2019s Speeches, Increasingly Angry and Rambling, Reignite the Question of Age<\/u><\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just months earlier, before Biden imploded on national television during a presidential debate, the New York Times had attempted to brush off photo evidence of Biden\u2019s decline as lacking context and selectively edited with a disinformative story titled, \u201cHow Misleading Videos Are Trailing Biden as He Battles Age Doubts.\u201d<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Said\u2002PBS<\/u><\/a>, \u201cTrump\u2019s rambling speeches raise questions about mental decline.\u201d From what I can tell, there is no such news report anywhere on PBS\u2019s website regarding Biden\u2019s decline from during any of the four years of his presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018Unintelligible\u2019: Trump\u2019s mental decline on display in final stretch to election,\u201d<\/u><\/a> read a headline on MSNBC. That network had been the site of the famous Joe Scarborough declaration that Biden is \u201cbetter than he\u2019s ever been, intellectually, analytically<\/u><\/a>  \u2026 This version of Biden, intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One should not be surprised that we\u2019ve moved on already to applying to Trump a standard that was unthinkable for a Biden obviously suffering mental and physical deterioration. But one must feel some measure of contempt for those who are so obviously unwilling to maintain consistent standards in their news coverage and commentary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

thehill<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was the easiest thing in the world to predict: The media\u2019s moment of half-hearted contrition for \u201cmissing\u201d President Joe Biden\u2019s\u2002obvious physical and cognitive decline has given way already to a fixation on President Trump\u2019s health. The journalists have no choice, you see. They\u2019re humbled now. Their renewed zeal for the truth compels them to correct […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":43014,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1169,33509,1747,9757,33508],"class_list":["post-43013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-biden","tag-cognitive-decline","tag-media","tag-physical","tag-repentance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43013"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43016,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43013\/revisions\/43016"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}