The Credibility Is No Longer There

     Via AoSHQ, we have this from the Washington Post:

     In retrospect, Mr. Biden should not have sought reelection. The June 27 debate was worse than just a bad night, as the president maintained afterward. The 81-year-old had shown signs of slipping for a long time, but his inner circle worked to conceal his decline. He and the country would have been better off if Mr. Biden had kept his implied promise from the 2020 campaign to be a “transitional” figure, perhaps by bowing out after the Democrats’ surprisingly good showing in the 2022 midterm elections.
     But second-guessing is easy, and Mr. Biden’s decision gives time and space to underscore his accomplishments: historic climate and infrastructure legislation; support for Ukraine in resistance to Russian aggression; expanded health insurance coverage. [Emphasis added]

     Never mind that the Establishment knew that Biden was senile practically from the beginning of the 2020 presidential campaign. Never mind that they deliberately propped up that senile old man as the president of the United States, to shield its inner machinations from public view. Never mind that the election was verifiably stolen to put that dementia patient into the power seat. And never mind that the Usurper Regime’s “historic” legislation, involvement in an insane foreign war, and deliberate opening of the U.S. border have resulted in an economy in which two jobs are often not enough and no one feels secure. Let’s all move on from that so we can celebrate how selflessly the senile old man surrendered power under threat of removal by 25th Amendment procedure:

     It is Mr. Biden’s willingness to surrender power, albeit via internal party machinations rather than the ballot box, that deserves recognition. It creates a powerful and, for Mr. Biden, favorable contrast with Mr. Trump — who refused to acknowledge defeat in 2020 and instead stirred up a mob in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. The last weeks have shown how Mr. Biden’s withdrawal created a pathway for a new generation of Democratic leaders.

     Because that’s what matters, isn’t it?

     God give me strength. This acerbic Web commentator gig is getting to me.

     Media credibility is the basis upon which politicians attempt to ingratiate themselves with the media. However, the process, even when successful, produces benefits that are somewhat less than they might seem. Still, everyone loves positive notices in the press. Yea verily, even in the very small and local press; I’m here to tell you. But when the praise becomes too consistent, or too fervent, or too dismissive of countervailing, verifiable facts, reader reaction can be other than what the politician at issue would like.

     The Washington Post is not alone in its dalliance with the Democrat Party. The Democrats have invested a huge amount – money, effort, and the time of its luminaries – in courting the media, especially the major national newspapers and television networks. I’m reasonably certain that the efforts to keep those media allies in the Democrat camp are ongoing and substantial. But the hour is upon us for reflection on what return there has been on all that investment. Does it still “pay off?”

     The major media are under considerable pressure. The decline in readership and viewership being suffered by those media is impossible to conceal. Circulation – “eyeballs,” as it’s come to be known – determines revenue from advertisers and sponsors. An increasing number of news consumers disdain the majors in favor of alternative outlets. Their attempts to position themselves on the Web as entertaining and lively round-the-clock sources of news, opinion, and gossip have not slowed the deterioration of their status.

     They’re putting a lot of effort into shoring up their levees, Gentle Reader. It’s simply not working. Recent trends in “cord-cutting” provide ample confirmation.

     A great part of the media’s problem lies in exactly what I mentioned above. A rising number of Americans believe them to be partisan rather than objective. Owing to their consistency, their fervor, and their dismissal of contrary facts, their alliance with the Democrat Party has become too obvious. Theirs is the praise of boughten allies. PR agents, if you will.

     But to back away from those practices is not easy for major-media editors and publishers. At best it’s like admitting to a giant error, something journalists are as reluctant to do as politicians. At worst it tears the rest of the veil from their subservience to the barons of the Democrat Party, revealing the American news industry’s lack of an ethical core.

     Thomas Jefferson famously said that if he had to choose between government without newspapers or newspapers without government, he would unhesitatingly choose the latter. But as brilliant as he was – and he was, Gentle Reader; the foremost mind among the Founding Fathers –he did not foresee the rise of a dominant cartel of nationally organized and distributed media organs whose allegiance could be purchased by a major political party. He never got to see what my friend Lynn saw as they swelled: their decline toward illegitimacy.