Media Meltdown Over Biden Report Fuels New "But Her Emails" Nightmare
By: Greg Sargent (The New Republic)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
For many liberals and Democrats, the release of a new, harshly worded special counsel report on President Biden is stirring terrible flashbacks to 2016. Just as a Justice Department finding on Hillary Clinton's emails produced absurdly skewed media coverage that helped sink her candidacy, so too is the new report generating questionable editorial choices that threaten political harm to Biden.
But this can serve as a wake-up moment for Democrats. It's a reminder that there's always another "but her emails" moment lurking around the next corner—and that Republicans ruthlessly exploit such episodes with tactics that Democrats still struggle to respond to, resulting in press coverage that unduly reflects GOP frames. They should be prepared next time.
Let's first acknowledge this right at the outset: The report from special counsel Robert Hur does find that Biden seriously mishandled classified material, though Hur found no basis to criminally prosecute him for it. The report documents that Biden "willfully retained" classified documents as a private citizen relating to his work as Barack Obama's vice president, including national security materials involving the U.S. war in Afghanistan. That's bad.
But as serious as that is, media coverage of the findings has already gone overboard. News analysis pieces are focusing on Hur's declaration that during the investigation, Biden came across as a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory" and displayed "diminished faculties in advancing age":
Note the weaselly construction: If the report "puts Biden's age and memory in the spotlight," it's at least partly because Republicans have seized on those particular lines from the inquiry, and because the coverage has used that fact as the hook to emphasize them.
Indeed, that New York Times analysis claims those details were "quickly seized on by Republicans," and could "set the stage" for "a fresh round of political attacks" on Biden. You might call this the "ammo device": Because the opposition will seize on this or that piece of information as "ammunition" to launch a political attack, that itself becomes the justification for centralizing the importance of that info, packaged as an analysis of its political significance.
But in this case, those findings in the report are both being manipulated dishonestly by Republicans and are largely tangential to the report's most important finding. Republicans are claiming the special counsel opted against charges for Biden because of his "age related dementia," with many jumping on that idea to declare that this showed him to be unfit for office.
But that's a serious distortion of what Hur's report actually says.
One of Hur's key findings is that at one point in 2017, in private life, Biden appeared to allude to classified documents in his position. Hur concluded that a jury would not place sufficient "evidentiary weight" on that one instance, given Biden's "limited precision and recall."
Yet Hur also reached that conclusion for another reason. He explicitly declares that a jury would be unlikely to convict "in the absence of other, more direct evidence" that Biden willfully and improperly hoarded that classified information. Hur says investigators "searched" for such evidence, but "found it wanting," adding that "no witness, photo, email, text message, or any other evidence" was discovered. That's why a jury would be unlikely to convict. Hur found similarly on other allegations, too.
Because of all this, many have whacked Hur for including those details about Biden's memory during the investigation. Some have sharply criticized Attorney General Merrick Garland (who appointed Hur) for presiding over this debacle. After all, those details were not nearly as essential to Hur's conclusion as was his failure to produce sufficient evidence of Biden's criminality.
Biden's age is a real issue, and no one denies this. But the real rub here is that news analysis pieces elevating the material about his age did so by editorial choice. Other, better editorial choices were available.
Importantly, Hur's report extensively noted that Biden cooperated with requests that he search for and turn over classified documents in his possession, casting doubt on whether he harbored corrupt intent. The report drew a powerful distinction between Biden and Trump, who is facing criminal charges for his document hoarding:
Most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite. According to the indictment, he not only refused to return the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it. In contrast, Mr. Biden turned in classified documents…consented to the search of multiple locations including his homes, sat for a voluntary interview, and in other ways cooperated with the investigation.
You'd think this might make a good topic for news analysis pieces. Here's a hypothetical:
News Analysis
Report Highlights Stark Difference Between Biden and Trump on Classified Information
Special counsel findings show that Biden retained classified documents, as Trump did, but cooperated with investigators where Trump did not.
That's flatly factual. And given that voters will soon decide which of the two men to entrust with the presidency, this direct contrast in how they handled the awesome responsibilities of that office seems at least as relevant to voters as Biden's memory, or more so.
To be clear, one could choose news analysis topics that are highly unflattering to Biden while also being more informative to voters than age-focused analyses have been. A piece questioning how Biden could commit such missteps given his long experience in national security affairs would be fair game—damning and also more useful to voters deciding on who the next president should be.
As it happens, one of the key pieces of evidence—that Biden forgot the timing of his son's death—is simply not credible, as Josh Marshall notes. Biden forcefully denied it at a press conference late Thursday, and his performance gave the lie to the report's allegations.
On top of all that, journalists like John Harwood and Paul Krugman report that their direct interactions with Biden also wreck Republican claims of senility and dementia.
But because the age-related details in Hur's report were "quickly seized on by Republicans," those get all the ink and pixels. Other approaches—again, including ones that also might be damning to Biden—would surely be more informative to voters.
All of this is a rerun of the Hillary emails fiasco in 2016: The new information that Republicans seized on was of uncertain importance, yet editorial decisions were made to give it outsize significance precisely because GOP attacks over it might impact the race, which itself became the news.
As Brian Beutler writes on Substack, Democrats should ponder why Republicans often use such details to manipulate the discourse so effectively, and think harder about how to showcase Biden's fitness for the presidency. They should declare forthrightly that media coverage is being gamed by GOP manipulation, making GOP dishonesty part of the story. Imagine if they'd jumped on the Hur report's contrast between Biden and Trump, directing the media herd in that direction?
Fortunately, this blowup occurred eight months before Election Day, as opposed to much later in the campaign season, as in 2016. But Democrats have been warned: This will happen again, and again, and again. As for the media, many still angrily reject the idea that anything was amiss in 2016. They're wrong. And this time they should do better.
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How soon some forget it was the media coverage (or lack of ) that most likely got Biden the presidency to begin with. Hunters laptop sound familiar? It was either not covered o said to be Russian disinformation by the dishonest media and social media.
Maybe he just didn’t want to tell the whole truth, so he acted like he couldn’t remember;
”Biden's memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023.”
The article is about the media coverage.
Maybe Biden should hold more press conferences like he did on Thursday to counter the despicable press accounts.
Maybe you should not go off topic 50 times a day.
I can’t help it, I’m a couple of months out from being 70.
Or prove them to be true
Exactly
Indeed, I'm aging like a fine left bank Bordeaux, a Chateau Haut Brion. I have aged into an incredibly, complex, refined, elegant, and sensuous man, not heavy or ever out of balance.
Well then, following the Biden model, you are excused.
There is a simple solution.
Garland ignore the advise of the Special Counsel and take the more than ample evidence against Brandon and the ghost writer and prosecute both to the full extent of the law.
Brandon can prove his innocence (only if he has a completely leftist judge and jury which is likely considering the trial would take place in the state of one of his residences where he was storing the illegal classified documents and conducted the interviews with the ghost writer). A judge can decide if Brandon is competent enough to stand trial by forcing him to take a cognitive test administered by a qualified professional- as well as a psych examination.
If Brandon is found competent to stand trial it proceeds as normal. If not then the 25th amendment is automatically invoked and we suffer through Kamala to the end of his term.
Garland can prove he isn't a partisan human piece of shit protecting Brandon and Democrats. A talking point for Republicans and Conservatives will also be removed as either Brandon is put on trial; or he is forced out of office.
Garland will never do it.
He got exactly what he wanted out of Hur. No charges. The rest is just semantics that the leftist media are already spinning as hard as they can. The sheeple have fallen in line.
This country's legal system, DOJ, FBI, IRS, and administration and Congress aren't worth a shit.
Democrats are turning us into a woke, dumber, more racially and class divided version of Russia or China.
All empires fall. Including this one.
You used to occasionally make sense. Not lately.
Who the fuck is Brandon and what does this article have to do with him?
It's a loving term of endearment for Biden by his admirers, as if you didn't know.
That is because he is
I feel a little bad for those democrats who continue prostitute their integrity for Biden. We all see bidens mental Decline. There is no spinning it; but they try, lord they try. They are now mad, not because they shill for a man too mentally incompetent to be President today and who wants to remain president until 2029, but that the truth came out. They are literally mad at a special prosecutor for not engaging in a cover up and continuing their lies about Biden’s fitness. The truth is their enemy, and they aren’t shy about that anymore.
Even Paul Begala, no small partisan himself , admitted this is a disaster for for democrats. Hur did the only thing he could do, write an honest report, because if he has participated in the cover up and not disclosed bidens inability to remember when he was vice president, it would have destroyed his credibility when the transcripts are made public and further damaged the reputation of the justice department.
Every day Trump is a candidate is a disaster for America.
What does that have to do with the fact Biden is no longer competent to hold office?
The bar does not go low enough for Biden to be considered competent.
That is about the funniest thing I have ever seen you write.
"Just as a Justice Department finding on Hillary Clinton's emails produced absurdly skewed media coverage that helped sink her candidacy, so too is the new report generating questionable editorial choices that threaten political harm to Biden."
Hillary's actions regarding the whole emails scandal were laid out for all to see and are hard facts. Comey said that what she did was "extremely careless", but that "no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case" Any other person would have been prosecuted. Biden's reduced mental acuity and memory loss has been on display for three years now and are now established facts that cannot be denied.
Hur's report simply stated the truth about Biden, and of course the Republicans are going to use it to their advantage. That's how politics works. Biden's chances of coming out on top are non-existent.
What he neglected to say that that was because no prosecutor wanted to end up like Vince Foster
Before this story broke, the liberal pundit Nate silver wrote an article describing how democratic hacks like Greg Sargent now use the “but her emails” tag as their go to deflection from any legitimate criticism of a democrat.
Anytime it’s employed, you know the shills are rattled.
"But as serious as that is, media coverage of the findings has already gone overboard. News analysis pieces are focusing on Hur's declaration that during the investigation, Biden came across as a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory" and displayed "diminished faculties in advancing age""
Exactly, it's well known how biased the media coverage is against the Dems. CNN, WashP, NPR, ect. all are in a meltdown over this report and Biden's memory lapses.
Biden's staff did him no favor when they put him in front of the hostile media in the early evening after a long day at work instead of in the morning.
While the crazed press has made a big deal on mistaking the President of Mexico with Egypts leader, let's hope they don't figure out the other memory lapses' on display last Thur:
Biden's staff have to step up their game in protecting this president's image.
Not enough hours in a day