BIDEN-LOVING MEDIA'S MAD DASH TO PROTECT HIM FROM AN AVALANCHE OF DESERVED CRITICISM

Apologist press is ‘raving’ mad for Biden — but Americans say otherwise 

 

By Michael Goodwin

 

New York Post

March 29, 2022 

The Washington Post, just like the rest of the liberal media, attempted to bury The Post’s Hunter Biden exposé and defended the president's dangerous gaffe about overthrowing Putiiin

Anyone watching the media rush to defend President Biden’s weirdness in Warsaw is getting a free tutorial on the corrupt relationship between the press and this White House. The handmaidens’ mad dash to protect him from an avalanche of deserved criticism also helps explain why Biden’s presidency is a flop with voters.

 

To most of the world, including our European allies, Biden’s “this man cannot remain in power” remark in Poland was a clear call for ending Vladimir Putin’s rule in Russia. It was a dangerous surprise because the president was seemingly committing the United States and NATO to a radical policy of regime change against a brutal dictator who talks about using nuclear weapons. 

 

Nothing approaching that policy had been mentioned previously, yet in the context of the speech and the war in Ukraine, there could be no other interpretation of Biden’s words. 

 

His aides certainly heard it that way, which is why they immediately issued a clarifying statement that claimed Biden was “not discussing Putin’s power in Russia or regime change.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken went further, insisting there was no such American policy anywhere in the world.

 

Later, it became clear the reference about removing Putin was not in prepared remarks but was added by Biden on the fly.

 

If that had been the end of it, Washington would have moved on after a day or so and chalked up the detour as just another Biden-being-Biden gaffe. 

 

But that was not the end of it. Instead, many of the media’s usual suspects seized on the president’s heated language to credit him as heroically expressing universal horror at Putin’s savagery. 

 

CNN, The Washington Post, Newsweek and others published commentary hailing Biden’s cry from the heart, if not the head, as if they were praising a teenager for virtue signaling. It’s not that they necessarily favor regime change, it’s just that his outburst made them feel better.

 

 

President Joe Biden doubled down on his claim of replacing Russian President Vladimir Putin

Joe’s lame excuse

 

None of the apologists could top Daily Beast columnist David Rothkopf, who suggested Biden surpassed JFK’s “Ich bin ein berliner” speech and Ronald Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev tear down that wall” address. He found the remarks so stirring they reminded him of Winston Churchill’s remarkable “Iron Curtain” speech in Fulton, Mo., in 1946 that warned of the emerging Cold War with the Soviet Union. 

 

Rothkopf, while conceding the White House walk-back on regime change, still saw virtue in what he called a “moment of clarity from the plain-spoken president” that “elevated his speech. It made it clear that Biden’s passion was deeply felt and real.”

 

Apparently seeing such unexpected praise as too good to resist, the White House suddenly shifted gears overnight and grabbed it like a drowning man grabs a life raft. 

 

Now it, too, saw only virtue in Biden’s on-the-fly addition and the president on Monday made an appearance to defend the very remarks his aides had disavowed Saturday.

 

 

One columnist compared President Joe Biden’s Warsaw speech to the likes of Ronald Reagan’s Berlin Wall “Mr. Gorbachev tear down that wall” address

“I was expressing the moral outrage that I feel, and I make no apologies for it,” Biden told reporters, as he held a cheat sheet with possible questions and his answers. He said he never meant to call for Putin’s removal and it was “ridiculous” for anybody to think he was. 

 

“Nobody believes I was talking about taking down Putin. Nobody believes that,” he insisted.

 

Nobody except most of the world, and therein is the political problem for Biden and his team. Operating under the illusion that Big Media and its Big Tech fellow travelers represent the views of most Americans, they seem not to realize that the Amen corner reflects only an elite sliver of the country. 

 

Approval keeps sinking

 

Put it this way: How is it possible there is only the most gentle and occasional criticism of Biden on any subject in the big newspapers, the broadcast media, CNN and MSNBC and on most of social media, while the president’s approval rating among all voters is in the toilet?

 

 

CNN is among those who have recently praised Biden’s efforts

 

The gap is enormous. The most recent Harvard-Harris survey has him with just a 39% approval rating and the Real Clear Politics average of polls in the last two weeks shows him at 41% approval, with 53% disapproval. 

On the economy, his average approval is 37.5, with a 58% disapproval. On foreign policy, meaning mostly Ukraine, his approval is 40.7 and disapproval is 54.2. On immigration, it’s 34.4% approval vs. 57% disapproval.

 

Dem disaster looms

 

These numbers spell massive defeat for Democrats in November, yet policies that are widely unpopular remain in place as the general public is discounted while press support is overrated.

 

Recall that the administration’s preposterous effort to blame Putin for inflation, after a year of sharply rising prices on everything, was actually embraced by some in the press. The near-total collapse of border enforcement gets barely a mention in the media, except for accusations that anyone who wants an orderly, secure immigration system is a ­racist. 

 

The pattern started before Biden took office, with the blackballing of The Post for daring to expose Hunter Biden’s influence-peddling schemes and his father’s hidden help the best example. 

 

President Biden blamed Putin for skyrocketing gas prices

Then came the deluge of crazy ideas from the far left wing, from packing the Supreme Court to making DC a state to wrecking the domestic energy sector, all of which found more support in the media than the general public. Even the few remaining moderate Dems balked at most. 

 

Ditto for the spending monstrosity known as Build Back Better and the bid to have Washington control all election laws, an effort that demonized states as “Jim Crow 2.0” if they dared to require voter identification.

 

Biden’s vile accusation that anybody who opposed the measure was on the side of George Wallace, Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis remains a low point of his presidency. Yet even that smear was no bar to his lapdogs.

 

Every politician, of course, wants and seeks media acclaim. But the smart, successful ones understand the public no longer trusts most of the media and that lockstep support from the press can be a kiss of death. Somebody should tell Joe Biden.