How Far Will Corporate Media Go To Cover For And Re-Elect Joe Biden?The president’s press conference cheat sheet raises serious questions about journalistic ethics as well as his declining mental state.
By: Jonathan S. Tobin
April 28, 2023
Like just about anything else that undermines the Democrats’ preferred narratives, the Getty Images photo that revealed that President Joe Biden’s responses to questions at his joint press conference with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol earlier this week were scripted went mostly unreported throughout the corporate press. And, compared to the damage done by the out-of-control spending and woke policies at home and incoherent foreign policy abroad pursued by Biden, perhaps it isn’t earth-shaking that he needs cheat sheets on those rare occasions when his handlers allow him to field live questions from the press.
We’ve already seen plenty of evidence that the 80-year-old commander-in-chief requires printed cards with detailed instructions to navigate public events. He spent most of the 2020 presidential campaign doing virtual events; the press and public were given little or no access to him. That’s continued since he entered the White House.
Starting from his first meeting with his first formal press conference in March 2021, he has been carrying such cards with him in such settings. In March 2022, he was caught holding a card with answers to possible questions about the war in Ukraine. And in both a June 2022 event with wind industry executives and then a November 2022 summit in Indonesia, the cameras were able to see the cue cards he carried that told him precisely what to do, with phrases like “You enter,” “You take your seat,” “You thank participants,” and “You depart.” And to the consternation of his handlers, sometimes he reads the stage instructions aloud.
But this week’s cheat sheet goes beyond the usual embarrassment about an octogenarian president who is unable to perform without a script and often incapable of following the instructions he’s given.
It’s one thing for the White House staff to tell the president what to do or even to supply him with answers to possible questions that he can’t be relied upon to remember without a script in front of him.
It’s quite another when members of the White House press corps are actively colluding in the charade. And that is what the photo of his presser cheat sheet revealed. ...
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