If only there were SOME institution whose job it was to root out the truths the public has a right to know, skeptical of what interested parties tell them about issues important to our country.
We need that, because “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
If only there were a profession called “journalism.” Journalists could use high standards to filter out the falsehoods from the truth. Maybe even, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”
Also the media:
“Public health should have told us that kids would be harmed by being locked at home, kept out of school for 18 months and forcibly masked against their will! Why didn’t anyone tell us?!”Also the media in a few years:
“Why didn’t doctors tell us that cutting of… pic.twitter.com/qGzRKirRIY— Jennifer Sey (@JenniferSey) May 21, 2025
Alas, no such institution exists, at least not when it comes to Democrats and bureaucrats.
That’s why The Washington Post has written, in sadness rather than anger, about its disappointment with Biden’s handlers and allies.
It now seems that, for a considerable time, Biden might have lacked the stamina and cognitive capacity the job demands — and that his family and closest aides concealed this from the public. Their apparent decision to put personal loyalties ahead of their duty to the country must be reckoned with. A legal mechanism should be considered to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.
The people closest to Biden could hardly have avoided observing his infirmity — indeed, the actions they took to hide it indicate that they knew all too well. Early issues surfaced in the 2020 campaign, when he had memory lapses, including forgetting the name of one of his closest advisers and the opening lines to the Declaration of Independence. A Democrat interviewed by Tapper and Thompson who was involved in making Zoom videos of Biden speaking to constituents during the pandemic lockdown said that, after watching hours of mostly unusable footage, they concluded he was incapable of doing the job.
Of course, many of us knew that Biden’s brain was cooked, and there were plenty of rumors about most of the “revelations” in Jake Tapper’s and Alex Thompson’s book. For instance, I have read many accounts–they were unconfirmed rumors, not confirmed facts back then–about Biden’s inability to be coherent during video shoots. Conservative commentators and less partisan observers have been noting Biden’s incapacity since the late 20-teens.
The 2020 campaign–the basement campaign, as you will recall–was clearly conducted in a manner to keep Biden hidden.
Such observations then became more frequent. “Since at least 2022,” Tapper and Thompson write, “he has had moments where he cannot recall the names of top aides whom he sees every day. He can sometimes seem incoherent. He is increasingly prone to losing his train of thought.”
“By late 2023,” the authors say, “Biden’s staff was pushing as much of his schedule as possible to midday, when Biden was at his best.” Even in small groups, the president often read from notes or a teleprompter.
This suggests that Biden might have been too impaired to responsibly lead the United States. The country was fortunate not to have experienced a late-night crisis that he would have had trouble handling. It would be folly to count on such luck in the future.
Gee, I wonder why Beege nicknamed Biden “Potatus.”
While it is true that Biden’s Vice President and Cabinet were constitutionally required not just to acknowledge Biden’s incapacity and move to replace him–ever heard of the 25th Amendment, anyone?–political considerations could and did lead to this scandalous coverup of Biden’s dangerous decline into dementia.
That’s where journalists are supposed to step in. As Ed wrote earlier today, Mark Liebovich of The Atlantic argues that journalists really didn’t need to cover Biden’s incapacity because, well, it was obvious to anybody with a working brain. In a way, he has a point; it WAS obvious, but that also is the most disturbing thing about how long this deception went on.
The only reason that Biden could get elected in 2020 and remain president for four years is that the Pravda Media, not Biden’s handlers, covered it all up. Few people have implicit trust in the paid spinners from either party, but far too many still have trust in the media, and the media were the enablers that made the cover-up work.
That’s where The Washington Post gets it so wrong, or should I say continues to lie. They claim that they bring light to the darkness of ignorance, but the reality is that they, not Karine Jean-Pierre or Biden’s Cabinet, were the biggest liars. They produced “fact check” after “fact check” denouncing anybody who questioned Biden’s acuity. They went on endlessly about “cheap fakes,” “doctored videos,” “ageism,” “ableist” slurs against stutterers, and how this was the “best Biden ever.”
He was FDR, Lincoln, and George Washington rolled up into one godlike figure, we were told.
By the “journalists.” Nobody cares what Pete Buttigieg said about Biden’s acuity. But Glenn Kessler? He is bringing light to the darkness, remember?
Officials in both parties have a responsibility to enable their voters to select standard-bearers who are up to the job. In the case of the former president, top Democrats turned a blind eye to Biden’s limitations — until the debate made that problem impossible to ignore and activated their political survival instincts.
In a democracy, the voters, when selecting a commander in chief, need to be discerning, to elevate candidates who have the stamina and the smarts to serve. Four years later, they can assess that person’s ability to take on another term. If problems arise between elections, then White House officials and Congress must be counted on to act responsibly.
The scandal here is not so much that Biden’s enablers enabled him; of course, they did. It is scandalous that the Vice President and the Cabinet were derelict in their duties, but hardly shocking. They are politicians, and 9 out of 10 politicians have the integrity of Bernie Madoff.
The American public is shocked by these revelations not because they believed Biden’s flacks, but because they thought they could trust the media to be skeptical and look into the issues. After all, as Liebovich rightly points out, everybody could see that something was wrong with Joe Biden. The only reason they had to doubt it was that The Washington Post and other propagandists kept on asserting that he was sharper than ever.
By far the worst malefactors in this whole sorry affair were the Pravda Media. They betrayed their readers, to whom they are supposed to be loyal. They sell themselves as the ultimate “fact-checkers,” and have proven themselves to be the chief liars.
We expect politicians to lie, and we are entitled to expect journalists to sniff out the lies and bring light into that darkness that threatens to kill democracy.
