Is old-school legacy media turning on President Joe Biden? It sure seems like it.
It seems several negative pieces in establishment organs could represent an echo chamber among Democrats to edge Joe Biden out of the 2024 race.
The two biggest paint a picture that Joe is just a bad person, disowning a grandchild and a jerk to his employees.
The president’s four-year-old granddaughter, that Hunter Biden sired with a stripper Lunden Roberts used to be off limits for mainstream media, which tut-tutted it as a Fox News story.
But this month, The New York Times reported “in strategy meetings in recent years, aides have been told that the Bidens have six, not seven, grandchildren.”
Then, among the ultimate establishment media figures, Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote a scathing column taking the president to task for “callously scarring” his granddaughter’s life by disowning her. The president has repeatedly and brazenly talked about having six grandchildren, while first lady Jill Biden almost tauntingly dedicated a children’s book to her six grandchildren.
The thought process of most media has been when the Times covers it, it’s real news. That reaches a new level for Dowd, a Pulitzer prize-winning columnist, who wrote “the president can’t defend Hunter on all his other messes and draw the line at accepting one little girl.”
“You can’t punish her for something she had no choice about,” Dowd wrote. “The Bidens should embrace the life Hunter brought into the world, even if he didn’t consider her mother ‘the dating type,’” referencing Hunter’s words about Roberts.
“The president’s cold shoulder — and heart — is counter to every message he has sent for decades, and it’s out of sync with the America he wants to continue to lead,” Dowd added.
Days later, Axios ran a story about Biden’s scathing temper, saying the president routinely drops F-bombs and GD in tirades against his staff, counter to the nice lunch bucket Joe he tries to project in public.
“He’ll grill aides on topics until it’s clear they don’t know the answer to a question — a routine that some see as meticulous and others call ‘stump the chump’ or ‘stump the dummy,’” Axios says.
It also says of the fearful White House staff: “Behind closed doors, Biden has such a quick-trigger temper that some aides try to avoid meeting alone with him. Some take a colleague, almost as a shield against a solo blast.”
Calling this an echo chamber is not meant to come across as conspiratorial or to imply all the articles are coordinated together. But it seems like maybe the dam broke at once. One must understand that so many stories and columns that emerge from Washington are pushed or planted–meant to send messages. So, one must wonder if this is a sneaky way Democrats are trying to find an opening.
Before the previous pieces, Politico’s Jack Schaefer straight up wrote about why Biden needs a viable Democratic opponent. He framed it as allowing Biden to tune up his campaign skills. But the point was the 80-year-old president is out of gas.
Noting the number of Republicans lining up to take on former President Donald Trump despite a seemingly insurmountable lead, Schaefer wrote, “Democrats should have such guts.”
“Gov. Gavin Newsom of California is already acting like the president-in-exile, proposing a new gun control constitutional amendment, working to ban gas-powered cars and threatening to arrest Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for kidnapping migrants,” he wrote. “Like Newsom, Pete Buttigieg wears his presidential ambitions on his forehead like a bumper sticker.”
He adds, “Someone? Anyone? Even Beto O’Rourke or Amy Klobuchar or Cory Booker or Chris Murphy or Elizabeth Warren would suffice.”
Even if enough Democrats are trying to dethrone Biden via death by a thousand leaks, it’s unlikely to work.
As Schaefer noted, “If Kamala Harris had convinced the country that she could step into Biden’s shoes should he suddenly step out of them, the argument for a primary challenge wouldn’t be so urgent.”
Harris is insurance for an 80-year-old to be nominated.
And for other viable Democrats, challenging an incumbent is high risk and low reward. It’s always tough to beat a incumbent president in a party primary. And, if Biden survived the primary only to lose to the Republican in the general election, at least some finger pointing will be directed at the intraparty challenger. The “Someone? Anyone?” Schaefer and likely other Democrats are pining for likely feel it’s safer for their political careers to wait for 2028.
Barbara Joanna Lucas is a writer and researcher in Northern Virginia. She has been a healthcare professional, political blogger, is a proud dog mom, and news junkie.
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