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Post-Debate Post Mortem: The Press Is Not Handling the Joe Biden Debate Performance Well...At All

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Jun 28, 2024
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A cold chill has shot through the press industry as a result of the horrendous performance of Joe Biden at the presidential debate. I covered what this will mean to the overall industry, as all who have been part of the artificial display of the president have become exposed, fully.

This column will comprise a collection of the very revealing details and comments from the press that expose many of the problems we have been witnessing regarding their approach to journalism.

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We’ll open with a Chuck Todd performance. Not necessarily because he was the worst, but Chuckles managed to — quite unintentionally — perfectly distill what has been a complete lack of journalistic ethics. In other words, the press was lying about BIden’s condition when caught on tape.l:

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At the end of the day, Joe Biden looks like the caricature that conservative media has been painting. And there were no clips tonight, right, this was - you saw it before your eyes.

Sooooo…Biden is, in fact, having troubles, the conservatives were not lying, and the videos were not altered to misrepresent his condition. Thank you for the clarification, Chuck!

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One of Biden’s most ardent supporters has been Nicolle Wallace, and seeing her coming out of the gate with commentary about the Democrats replacing him was quite surprising.

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Joy Reid was equally affected. Looking downcast and unable to spin this performance (and unable to blame it on racism), she dourly reported how she had been speaking with many Democrat players and they all exhibited a similar negative response.

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It might be tough to find anyone having a tougher time grappling with this fallout than Joe Scarborough. He had a painful morning. After all, he is the one who boldly stated “F-U if you cannot handle the truth” about Joe Biden just a few months ago. He had been heralding how Joe is rapier smart, has a laser-like focus, and is the best brand of Joe Biden ever seen.

Well…Scar-Joe is having a tough time handling the truth today. Faced with reality, suddenly the car salesman talk has been dropped, and he admits Joe may need to be handed his exit papers.

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And we cannot have a dysfunctional media festival without some stunted coverage from Brian Stelter. He was praiseworthy of MSNBC for forging ahead with factual coverage, despite the sinking feeling felt. He also said they were not denying reality, unlike that seen at Fox News. (Because Brian is required by law to scorch Fox, even when it does not apply.)

First off, MSNBC has been the leader in denying the reality of Joe Biden’s functional demise. (We refer you to Scar-Joe above.) 

But additionally, of course, Brian has to pretend he does not recognize that if the network and its audience were both experiencing a “sinking feeling” as a result of the implosion of the man at the top of the Democratic Party ticket, that means they are all in the tank for that party! This is, after all, Biden’s favorite news network, as has been reported.

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And for mirth, we'll just close out with a gem from Jennifer Rubin. She found a silver lining in all of this madcap post-debate hysteria.

Okay, maybe we are not smart enough to follow this "smart punditry": Is Jennifer really suggesting that because the audience was technically much smaller than previous debates, this means Biden does not have a serious condition that needs to be contended with and that everything with the campaign and the Democrats is just fine?!