It has been amusing to watch members of the 'news' media congratulate themselves for their hard-nosed reporting about President Biden's condition, which ultimately helped drive him out of the 2024 race. Several media figures even claimed that the episode disproves conservatives' contention that the media has been 'in the tank' for Biden. What embarrassing nonsense. Journalists were all-in on protecting Biden and propping up the Big Lie about his declining faculties, so long as that lie served the larger Cause. They seamlessly adopted the invented "cheap fakes" term peddled by Biden's operation, and smeared people who observed the unavoidable truth with their own eyes as misinformation agents and liars. Once this Biden-shielding lie fell apart at the debate, and the president became a liability to the Cause, rather than its avatar, he was expendable. Not just that -- he needed to be politically defenestrated. So, for the Cause, they sprung into aggressive action and helped destroy any chance he would remain in the race.
With that needed step achieved, they are largely back to doing whatever they can do assist their Democratic allies ahead of the election. Maybe a burst of tough questions and scrutiny await Kamala Harris. So far, though, we'e gotten pop culture gushing, breathless reporting about her wardrobe and dinner choices, and giddy dispatches about her campaign theme song. As Charles Cooke noted in a brief and scathing essay, it was exciting to have a real media for a few weeks:
I wonder if America’s press might be willing to spare at least one of the journalists who are now trying to turn Kamala Harris into the second coming of Jesus Christ and keep him working on the Continuing Story of Joe Biden, who, if they hadn’t forgotten, is still the serving president of the United States — and will be for the next six months. I had predicted that as soon as the media got what it wanted — which was improving the electoral fortunes of the Democratic Party, and nothing else besides — it would drop its sudden interest in telling the truth about Biden’s health and move on, but Good Lord, when one sees it happen those predictions don’t make it any less jarring. If one were to plot the last three years on a timeline, one would end up with an extremely long line marked “Defend Joe Biden,” followed by a short line marked “Get Joe Biden Out Because He’s Losing,” followed by a new line marked “Defend Kamala Harris.” That trajectory marks many things, but none of them are journalism...Is [the media] going to ask Kamala Harris why she lied her head off on television about Biden’s state? What about the others who were involved? Beyond that, may we know specifically why the president decided not to run again, other than he “believes it is in the best interest of my party and the country”? May we learn how well he is doing his job?
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As we've been noting over the last few days, Harris has glaring vulnerabilities. Her administration's failures, coupled with her wildly radical policy stances articulated when she unsuccessfully ran for president last time, should be disqualifying. One of the reasons I think she might win is that many in the press will do everything in their power to ensure that these profound weaknesses do not penetrate. Republicans will need to do most of that heavy lifting themselves, and they should do so with focus, rejecting dumb and counter-productive attacks that the media will latch onto in order to deflect effective criticisms. As we highlighted yesterday, this is superb, and should be packaged in various ways and delivered repeatedly to the American people:
Republican operative texts me this McCormick ad and says, “What voters down ballot will be seeing in every Senate race from NV to PA until November”:pic.twitter.com/WHXwEWIXTP
— Philip Melanchthon Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) July 24, 2024
In our Monday post, we showcased this answer, which encapsulates Harris as a politician:
This clip has it all. The attempted dishonesty, the bizarre non-sequitur, the laugh, the playing dumb — all on the central issue of her policy portfolio, which has resulted in a history-making, record-shattering catastrophe on her watch: https://t.co/dijCRS0vO8
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) July 21, 2024
That interview was so disastrous that the White House basically benched her for quite some time. They understandably didn't trust her. She had been tapped as Biden's Border Czar, and that was the performance she turned in. Harris' team has occasionally tried to argue that technically fixing the border isn't her brief. She's working on the "root causes," they've spun, neglecting to note that the chief root cause of the border crisis is Biden-Harris policy. Ten million illegal crossings later -- including roughly two million known got-aways, and amid high-profile acts of violence committed by Biden-Harris 'newcomers,' plus a seriously heightened terrorism threat -- the 'news' media realizes this crisis is a problem for Harris. So the push has begun to distance her from the 'Border Czar' job altogether. Soon enough, it will be "misinformation" that has been "fact-checked" to refer to her as such. So let's just state, for the record, that yes, Harris is Biden's Border Czar. Yes, she was tasked with resolving the border crisis in 2021. And yes, it only spiraled into oblivion after she received that charge. Don't ask me, ask the 'news' media:
The amount of gaslighting we are seeing is really something. March 2021:
— AG (@AGHamilton29) July 24, 2024
LA Times: Harris Will Lead Response to Migrant Issue
AP: Biden Taps VP Harris to Lead Response to Border Challenges
CNN: Biden assigning Harris to lead diplomatic efforts... to address immigration https://t.co/IbBn5CJVRj pic.twitter.com/SP62em3SOg
Incredibly, one outlet spinning for Harris that she wasn't ever really the Border Czar referred to her as...the border czar in its own reporting:
Here’s how Axios described Harris in 2021. https://t.co/aZIT73GHWS pic.twitter.com/OLbrJK9ptE
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) July 24, 2024
https://t.co/vHtAmxAMa3 pic.twitter.com/n2x7FwQe6c
— Alberto E. Martinez (@albertemartinez) July 24, 2024
It's been her job since the earliest days of the Biden-Harris debacle. She's failed miserably. And she'd gotten her way, everything would be much worse -- as she's embraced abolishing ICE, decriminalizing illegal immigration, and providing taxpayer-funded healthcare plans to illegal immigrants. The existing incentives and policies are bad enough. The 'Border Czar' wants to decrease penalties for breaking our laws, defang out already-enervated enforcement mechanisms, and reward illegal immigrants with generous benefits. Leave it to Kamala Harris to do historically atrocious work on an important issue, having advocated unbelievably destructive policies that would have made everything far worse, while trying parse whether she really ever had the job in the first place. If we had a 'news' media, this would be hung around her neck and sink her. They're instead working double time to save her from her own record. I'll leave you with this:
Democrat-aligned Politifact rushing to the ramparts, of course. Back when there was no reason to spin, AP reported it this way: https://t.co/pzpAPEk6KO pic.twitter.com/Xlew2aU3Dv
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) July 24, 2024
NBC News, March 2021: "A senior administration official said Harris' role would focus on 'two tracks': both curbing the current flow of migrants and implementing a long-term strategy that addresses the root causes of migration." https://t.co/Hazk23eVKM pic.twitter.com/Bv5RZwjXc5
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) July 24, 2024
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