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Jake Tapper’s Post-Election Bow [1]
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Date: 2025-05-14
It appears that CNN’s Jake Tapper is the first prominent member of the media to have burned up his keyboard with an apology book to Republicans (for underreporting Joe Biden’s cognitive decline). The GOP pointed accusatory fingers at the press for allegedly helping Democrats hide former President Joe Biden’s failing physical and mental cognition. That notion has always been ratings-seeking speculation. The press, both in print and visual media, has written numerous stories, both speculative and malicious, about Joe Biden, especially after his disastrous debate performance. Most of the stories were from supposed inside sources that Biden was faltering mentally, but to date, no one has offered proof of any decision that was affected by his widely reported mental failings.
Meanwhile, the country adjusts to the current President, Donald Trump, whose practiced racism confused Harvard with Harlem.
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Mr. Trump has surrounded himself with government neophytes, including TV personalities, in charge of transportation, defense, health care, and potentially justice in my home city of Washington, DC. When asked about his appointment of the Surgeon General, the president said, “Because Bobby thought she was a fantastic, brilliant woman who went through Stanford — she wanted to be [an] academic instead of [a] physician.” “I don’t know her; I listened to Bobby,” Trump added. “I think she’ll be great.” The Bobby he referred to is the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who himself has no background in either science or medicine.
In the early excerpts from Jake Tapper’s book, Original Sin, he wrote that Mr. Biden momentarily had trouble recognizing actor and activist George Clooney after returning from a long trip to Italy for the G7 conference. Granted, Mr. Clooney is one of the most recognized celebrities in the world; the President may have had more on his mind than immediately feting George Clooney at a fundraiser, or his being insulted because an aide had to point out who Clooney is to the former president. America is breathlessly awaiting the Tapper book about when Mr. Trump confused the woman he was adjudicated to have sexually assaulted with one of his ex-wives (holding my breath).
The second of the widely reported excerpts from Tapper was that Biden aides considered having him use a wheelchair. Since the book is not due to be available until May 20, I have not read it for context (and may never read it), but is Jake Tapper suggesting that had Mr. Biden, who was widely known to ride a bicycle regularly and may have later needed a wheelchair for assistance; that would have been politically disqualifying? If that is the case, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott should be scrutinized for his fitness immediately. If Mr. Biden had used a wheelchair, he would not have been the first president to do so. The man some consider the most consequential Democratic president of all time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, used a wheelchair. Of course, the press had a lot less access, and social media was non-existent, so Roosevelt’s physical infirmity, along with that of John F. Kennedy, who suffered debilitating back pain from his Addison’s disease, went widely unreported. No one then or now believes it substantively affected either man's decision-making.
Tapper, and I am willing to wager others will follow with the GOP narrative that Biden's so-called cognitive decline went underreported and was ignored by the press, despite more than 68% of articles being about Biden’s age, according to data accrued by Media Matters. Recently, I heard former presidential adviser and aide Rahm Emanuel say that Democrats have to stop letting Donald Trump get in their heads. The same can be said for the press, which refuses to call a lie a lie and gives short shrift to stories about extortion, bribery, incompetence, and Trump’s flouting of Constitutional law. The press has ceded ground to Trump, calling them fake and deranged for reporting the truth, and have acquiesced to his bullying tactics once more by painting Mr. Biden as a doddering old fool without once concretely pointing to a failure due to age. I, for most of my life, have revered the press and would like to continue, but the internal politics of access over truth are making it complicated. Oh, has Diddy been convicted?
Your Vote is Still Your Voice
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