By The Federalist (Politics) | Created at 2024-12-18 18:14:31 | Updated at 2024-12-18 20:54:15
2 hours ago
After months downplaying concerns about President Joe Biden’s cognitive abilities, a new report in The New York Times (NYT) finally admitted what many Americans have known for years: Biden was never truly qualified to serve a second term.
A Tuesday report by The Times’ Peter Baker and Zolan Kanno-Youngs fawned over Biden’s recent trip to Africa. They noted, however, that after a grueling day that included touring a factory, Biden “put his head in his hand and briefly closed his eyes as the speeches droned on.”
It likely wasn’t the speeches’ fault for “droning” on that put Biden to sleep while world leaders looked on. It was because Biden was once again exhibiting signs of physical and cognitive decline that The Times has continually tried to downplay. But this time, The Times couldn’t ignore the facts any longer. The Times admitted it would be “hard to imagine that [Biden] seriously thought he could do the world’s most stressful job for another four years.”
The report goes on to list several examples of Biden’s declining cognitive and physical health, including his frequent mumbling and the need for other leaders to physically help hold him up.
But that wasn’t the tune sung by The Times over the past few months and years. The same paper once went to great lengths to dismiss these signs and even enlisted the help of so-called “experts” to help downplay concerns about Biden’s cognitive decline and physical impairments.
Recall back in June when Biden needed to be escorted off stage by former President Barack Obama after freezing on stage at a massive fundraiser. The Times didn’t bother addressing the incident directly (despite it dominating the news). Instead, The Times ran a piece alleging Republicans were sharing “misleading” videos of Biden that were “twisted” or “manipulated.”
“In the last two weeks … [Republicans] … have circulated videos of Mr. Biden that lacked important context and twisted mundane moments to paint him in an unflattering light.” The article conveniently didn’t mention the fundraiser video despite it generating the news cycle. They also trotted out so-called “experts” who claimed most of the videos are “cheap fakes” or manipulated videos meant to play into the concerns of Americans over Biden’s age.
Just months prior, Biden showed up late to his own State of the Union speech. But The Times’ A.O. Scott brushed it off as a quirky part of Biden’s “style.”
As for the report released by Special Counsel Robert Hur, who declined to charge Biden for taking classified documents, saying a jury would perceive the president as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” The Times enlisted “experts” to argue that Biden’s memory lapses were nothing more than normal forgetfulness for someone his age.
Dr. Charan Ranganath, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, dismissed the concerns raised by Hur’s report about Biden’s cognitive abilities.
“As an expert on memory, I can assure you that everyone forgets,” Ranganath wrote for The Times, arguing Biden’s memory lapses were normal for someone his age rather than the sign of someone suffering from some type of impairment.
Meanwhile The Times’ Gina Kolato used the phrase “Republicans were quick to pounce” before also trying to dismiss concerns about the report, writing “… medical experts on Friday noted that [the reports’] judgements were not based on science and that its methods bore no resemblance to those that doctors use to assess possible cognitive impairment.”
The Times has carried water for Biden well before the Hur report, however. A 2022 article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg for Biden’s 80th birthday cited “experts” who said that Biden “has a lot going in his favor” and are all “conducive to healthy aging.” Notably, this report was released a few weeks after Biden called out into the audience for the late Congresswoman Jackie Walorski, who tragically died in an August car crash. But The Times found an “expert” to help downplay the incident, with Professor Emeritus and Psychiatric epidemiologist at Duke University School of Medicine Dr. Dan Blazer saying that “slippage of memory is something that is usual, but it is not a real deficit.”
All of these reports served the same purpose: to downplay Biden’s evident decline and brush off concerns about his fitness to lead. But now that the election is over, The Times no longer has to cover for a failing president.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
