Last Time I Checked, 50% Was Still An F

I’m not one of those people who thinks life grades on a curve. There are circumstances that can be judged as to whether job performance of individuals meet the standards, exceed them, far exceed them, or fail. Let’s turn to the latest round of interviews of Jake Tapper and/or Alex Thompson about their new book, Original Sin.

On a recent podcast, Jake ceded ground on the scandal to cover-up the cognitive and physical decline of former President Joe Biden to the furthest point he’s thus far been willing to go.

Quite simply, Jake is half-right. He is entirely correct when he says the “entire Democratic Party” essentially conspired and lied to cover-up the fact that Joe Biden couldn’t not dispense with the duties of his office. But in no world can you cite the ‘entire Democratic Party’ and not include the media/propaganda wing of the Democratic Party, the Beltway-Manhattan media complex, of which Jake Tapper occupies a penthouse suite. Any time you take a test and get a 50% score, you fail. Even inside California’s Department of Motor Vehicles, where the bar for passage and getting licensed is low enough to give a limbo dancer flop sweats, 50% would keep you legally from taking the wheel. 

Podcaster and philosopher Sam Harris is clearly a man of the left. Obviously. He appeared almost three years ago on the Trigger Nometry podcast, and had this to say about media and their loyalties.

In which, Sam Harris says that it’s ok to conspire against Trump getting elected, because he was the equivalent of an asteroid headed towards earth. Literally literally. Worth watching just for Francis’ reaction at the end. Omg. pic.twitter.com/hVH7IPAx1t

— Alexandros Marinos 🏴‍☠️ (@alexandrosM) August 18, 2022

Talk about saying the quiet part out loud. Harris is totes fine with media conspiring with the left, specifically against Donald Trump, because he is perceived, by both elected Democrats and media types, as an existential threat. And yet Tapper still doesn’t have the wherewithal to see that perhaps there are members of his ranks inside the fourth estate who might share the same political and ideological worldview as the Democratic Party. 

Tapper’s Original Sin co-author, Alex Thompson, had a memorable appearance on News Nation last night with our friend, Leland Vittert. 

You can’t square Thompson’s answer with Tapper’s premise. You can’t have the Democrats circling the wagons around Biden, admitting they lied about his condition but pleasantly surprised at how much media was willing to go along with the lie, and Tapper claiming media writ large had no earthly idea until Biden laid the fatal egg in the June debate with Trump. Both cannot be true. Andrew C. McCarthy wrote a great book on the concept of being Willfully Ignorant. He wrote about the intel failures leading up to 9/11. Media was willfully ignorant with the blizzard of lies around Joe Biden.

James Kirchick has a book review essay in Politico, and for the first, and perhaps last time, I am here to publicly recommend a reading of a Politico story. I must admit that when I first saw this essay circulate, I was skeptical about it precisely because it appeared in Politico. But I do respect the writing and reporting of Kirchick, so I gave it a read. It gives his review of the three Biden expose books released thus far – Original Sin by Tapper and Thompson, Fight by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, and Uncharted by Chris Whipple. Kirchick’s review is a stunning read. 

First, in relation to the “who’s running the country” question that nobody in media still wants to address, Kirchick notes this exchange about Kamala Harris, what she knew, and when she knew it.

The morbid observation by some Biden aides that the pandemic, while terrible for the world, was an enormous boon for their campaign, was entirely accurate. With Biden granted a plausible excuse to avoid active campaigning, the American people were shielded from the physical and mental regression that would become increasingly apparent as the country opened up. And once he entered the White House, it was visible to anyone who saw him up close. “The cabinet meetings were terrible and at times uncomfortable — and they were from the beginning,” a cabinet secretary told Tapper and Thompson, one of four to speak anonymously with the authors. In October 2021, when Biden addressed the Democratic House caucus in an effort to win their support for an infrastructure package, one member described his 30-minute speech as “incomprehensible.” According to Allen and Parnes, Vice President Kamala Harris’ communications director eventually drew up a spreadsheet listing judges across the country who could administer her the oath of office in the event Biden died.

So when Kamala Harris said Biden was just fine a thousand times…

WATCH: Over 6 minutes of Kamala Harris covering up Joe Biden’s cognitive decline.

For years, she said Biden is “very bold and vibrant” and is “tireless in terms of working.” Kamala claimed Biden “is gonna be fine,” and said he “is in good shape, in good health.”

Kamala LIED. pic.twitter.com/d2domPIUOA

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) July 7, 2024

…where was media? Right there transcribing and taking her word salads at face value. 

Back to Kirchick’s Politico article, and why Tapper doesn’t have enough fingers to put in the dyke in order to stop the truthful water from emanating out. This is Kirchick’s summation of the three books. 

Revealingly, none of these books are interested in the essential role that the media played in the cover-up. Given how much the press valorizes itself for defending democracy, its dereliction of duty regarding Biden’s infirmities is a massive failure. To be sure, the Biden White House didn’t make things easy for reporters; it’s no coincidence that the two journalists granted the most access to Biden — Evan Osnos of the New Yorker and Franklin Foer of the Atlantic — overlooked the biggest story of his presidency. But lack of access is no excuse. When POLITICO’s Ben Schreckinger produced a deeply reported, unvarnished book about the Biden family’s half-century rise to power in 2021, the mainstream media ignored it. With the exception of Thompson, one of the handful of journalists who consistently reported on Biden’s fitness and who bears the scars of vicious White House attacks on his character to prove it, most of the media declined to investigate Biden’s disposition because it interfered with a higher priority: saving the country from Donald Trump.

The test can be retaken, Jake. You’ll never be able to get an A, but you have the opportunity to bring that F up to a C. You know what it’ll take, right? A truthful accounting of the role media played, including you and your own network. 

In NBC’s case, I’m not sure they’re even able to retake the test. They seem destined to have to drop the course. Here’s crackerjack reporter Kelly O’Donnell on NBC News Now with Hallie Jackson yesterday.

“Tip of the spear reporting?” C’mon, man. O’Donnell is breathlessly reporting that Joe Biden’s end-stage metastatic prostate cancer diagnose was just learned for the first time on Friday. O’Donnell is using anonymous sources, *checks notes*, inside the Biden camp. Her same sources that lied about Russiagate, COVID, Biden’s fitness in 2020, the authenticity of Hunter’ laptop, Biden’s fitness in 2024, the classified documents spirited away to his beach house, the effectiveness of the withdrawal of Afghanistan, the ‘inflation reduction act’ that caused over a two trillion dollar deficit…

I’d continue with the list of lies, but a shorter column would actually be recalling the things Biden, the Democrats, and the media got right. 

Tapper, to be charitable, is at least paying lip service to the prospect that he wants his credibility back…as well as selling a bunch of books. 

NBC? Well, I’m not sure they’re even trying anymore. They’re more like Kevin Bacon in Animal House trying to pledge Omega Theta Pi.

Tapper currently sits on a 50% score. That’s a failing grade. Perhaps he should study a bit and aim a little higher. Until then, he’s hurtling towards the full Blutarsky – 0.0.