Jeffrey Lord
Jeffrey Lord is a contributing writer for NewsBusters. Lord is a former White House political director in the Reagan White House and aide to HUD Secretary Jack Kemp.
Back there in the Stone Age of February, 2024, the New York Post headlined:
Jill Biden and Dems committed elder abuse on Joe – now they must force him to step aside
Among other things the Post Editorial Board wrote:
As part of special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Joe Biden, he reviewed interviews conducted by a ghostwriter with Biden after he left office.
The former vice president was “painfully slow,” Hur’s report notes, with “limited precision and recall.”
This is in 2017 – three full years before he ran for president. What Hur has proven is that Joe Biden’s cognitive decline is not new, and it certainly wasn’t a secret.
Jill Biden knew. His aides knew. Heck, James Clyburn, the entire Democratic establishment knew.
Indeed they all did know. And so too did the mainstream media. And they said – and did – nothing.
Now, almost a full seven years from 2017, the CNN Biden-Trump debate has suddenly resulted in a horrified media not only admitting there’s a problem: Now they have abruptly joined with their Democrat allies in calling for Biden to be removed from the Democrat ticket.
The Wall Street Journal began to put a crack in this wall of silence with this recent pre-debate story headed:
Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping
Participants in meetings said the 81-year-old president performed poorly at times. The White House said Biden is sharp and his critics are playing partisan politics.
Now, post-debate, here’s the headline from USA Today:
‘Sense of shock’: Democrats melt down over Joe Biden’s debate disaster
This jewel included these lines:
WASHINGTON ? Democrats and other opponents of Donald Trump melted down as President Joe Biden struggled during Thursday’s debate, with some suggesting he should bow out to allow another Democrat to run instead.
Biden’s voice was hoarse and raspy from the start. He stumbled over words and had to correct himself with numbers. He was sometimes hard to follow. On one occasion, the president appeared to lose his train of thought, stopped speaking and concluded ? confusingly ? with the line, “we finally beat Medicare”.
CNN headlined:
Biden’s debate performance sets off alarm bells for Democrats
Reported the liberal network:
Washington CNN – President Joe Biden’s debate performance has set off alarm bells among top Democrats, leaving some to openly question whether Biden can stay atop of the Democratic ticket.
“He seemed a little disoriented. He did get stronger as the debate went on. But by that time, I think the panic had set in,” longtime Democratic operative and CNN senior political commentator David Axelrod said.
Axelrod also gave voice to a conversation happening among many Democrats on Thursday night: “There are going to be discussions about whether he should continue.”
Over at the Business Insider, the collection of media terrified about Biden’s performance was headed:
‘He must bow out’: the media reacts to Biden’s historically bad debate performance
The story reported:
President Joe Biden’s historically bad debate performance on Thursday night was received so poorly that there’s serious talk among America’s commentariat that he could, or should, or needs to be replaced.
US media outlets were blunt in their assessment, featuring Biden’s fumbling performance prominently in front-page headlines and scathing opinion pieces.
The Insider then runs a list of media outraged at Biden’s performance and his presence on the ticket.
- The New York Times
- The New York Post
- The Washington Post
- Fox News
- CNN
- The Wall Street Journal
- The Financial Times
Next the list shifted to mention the negative reviews of three individual commentators: Nate Silver of the New York Times, podcaster Joe Klein, and blogger Noah Smith.
Again, to remind, all of this is a full seven years after the Post noted that in 2017 “Joe Biden’s cognitive decline is not new, and it certainly wasn’t a secret.”
To sum up, the knowledge of Biden’s cognitive decline was available to the media. As the Post noted:
…Joe Biden’s cognitive decline is not new, and it certainly wasn’t a secret.
Jill Biden knew. His aides knew. Heck, James Clyburn, the entire Democratic establishment knew.
Indeed they all did know. And so too did the mainstream media. And they said – and did – nothing. Out there by himself was Fox’s Sean Hannity, who began to routinely note Biden’s cognitive struggles.
Now, of a sudden, as the result of a presidential debate in which Biden went off the tracks and illustrated in alarmingly vivid fashion that he is indeed seriously cognitively impaired – the mainstream media and their Democrat allies are demanding that Biden be replaced on the Democratic ticket.
Why? For no other reason than that now that the American voting public has seen the Biden cognitive problem at length in living color they quite possibly will unite behind – Donald Trump.
And the media simply can’t have that.
Which is another way of saying that when it came to Biden’s condition, the New York Post was on to it.
And said so, even when there was a veritable platoon of people in the media and the Democrat Establishment who simply zipped their journalistic lips.
Imagine that.
This article was originally published at NewsBusters.
