The Patriot Post® · In Brief: Media Gaslighting on Biden's Decline
Have You Seen the ‘Cheap Fake’ Videos of Biden’s Dementia? asked our Nate Jackson last week. The story is the Leftmedia’s concerted effort to tell us that various videos depicting Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive decline don’t really show that and are “edited” to make him look bad. You know, like every single video in the news is edited for the purpose of the story. Becket Adams says it reminds him of the gaslighting on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Major media are aiming to repeat their performance from the 2020 presidential election, back when they endeavored to deny, dismiss, and denounce a story that could have damaged the Democratic presidential nominee.
In that election cycle, the press reflexively rallied behind a theory that the contents of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop were “Russian disinformation,” a Kremlin plot to throw the election in the GOP’s favor. Some went as far as to suggest that the laptop itself was fake (or stolen or didn’t belong to Hunter). Under the flimsy pretense of combating Russian interference, major media engaged in an industry-wide conspiracy to censor and reject the story.
The laptop is real. It appeared as evidence against Hunter Biden in his gun-felony case.
Adams says the same is happening now with the videos “making plain the loss of pep in President Joe Biden’s step.”
Any journalist who covered Biden as vice president (raises hand) can tell you this: The Joe Biden of 2024 is not the Joe Biden of 2012 or 2008. Not even close. He’s barely even the Joe Biden of 2020.
The president mumbles and fumbles, often appearing confused. He is prone to rambling nonsensically or freezing up entirely. He struggles to perform basic physical activities, including walking and entering vehicles. There’s ample photographic and video evidence to back this. For crying out loud, the president wears special sneakers to keep from falling down.
Yet newsrooms insist there’s very little to the growing pile of video evidence showing Biden’s lapses and struggles. Those viral videos that have you worried about whether our country is safe in his hands? They are “cheap fakes,” media say, parroting the exact term used by the White House.
The Associated Press, for example, claimed recent footage of Biden on stage at the end of a fundraising event in Los Angeles is not what it seems. It certainly isn’t that Biden froze up while Barack Obama waved at members of the audience. It certainly isn’t that Biden’s former boss saw no choice but to take the president by the wrist and lead him off the stage, as one would a lost child. No sir! The video, which was captured and shared on social media by the Hollywood Reporter’s Chris Gardner, shows a perfectly normal interaction. Obama merely wanted to appear “chummy,” the AP reports, citing an anonymous source who supposedly helped organize the event. Also, a spokesperson for the man who moderated the event said it’s “nonsense” to suggest Biden froze.
Please stop watching the video!
NBC News ran this headline: “Misleading GOP videos of Biden are going viral. The fact-checks have trouble keeping up.” The article explains that “cheap fakes” can be “rendered through Photoshop, lookalikes, re-contextualizing footage, speeding, or slowing.” It’s a fair point: Some of the Biden-has-lost-it viral videos are unfairly cropped or lack context.
But a handful of unfairly manipulated clips do not excuse away the entire body of footage showing that Biden is a long, long way away from who he was in 2012.
Adams notes other videos of Biden wandering off, tripping, or falling. He recalls the vigor Biden showed in previous campaigns compared to now. He marvels over White House propaganda about what a great worker and decision-maker Biden is — “your lyin’ eyes notwithstanding.” And he condemns the media’s collusion with or sympathy for the president.
Importantly, he argues:
Look, the bottom line is this: No White House should lie to the public about the president’s health.