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Are these the same "enemies of the people" who spent the last four years being chastised for selling "fake news" and being insulted daily by the "chosen one?" Do they remember having to stand outside in the driveway with a running helicopter competing for their audio? How many were personally attacked for doing their jobs, and spoken down to on national tv? Did they somehow enjoy having to find ways to cover the official words and actions of the POTUS while avoiding saying or writing too obviously about the hideous lack of competence and decorum that permeated the entire experience? And finally, does the 'mainstream press' realize that their mainstream-ness is a fragile instrument, which when abused drives more and more questioning of their news judgement, and bias. I agree with your assessment Mr. B., and hope the real news industry grabs a glove and gets in the game sooner rather than later.

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Charlie Pierce is so on the spot when he refers to Politico as "Tiger Beat On The Potomac"!

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founding

Thank you for bringing up the fawning treatment that the press usually gave, and still gives, to Reagan. Democrats often speculate on the reasons for the media’s kid glove treatment of Republicans and often believe it is a recent phenomenon. The 2020 Showtime documentary “The Reagans” by Matt Tyrnauer makes it clear that this treatment started with Reagan:

“Tyrnauer argues that Reagan has been protected by historians, Republicans and journalists because of his political success and likability.”

An blatant example of this was given by Leslie Stahl in her interview for Tyrnauer:

“Stahl, in her interview, describes the allure this first family had over the media as she recalls the first time he stepped into the White House briefing room to talk to the press. “We all kind of melted,” she says. “We were puddles on the floor.””

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/arts/television/the-reagans.html

You would think that a respected, influential journalists like Stahl would have been deeply embarassed to admit that kind of fawning behavior. She sounds like a teenager with a crush on a rock star, not a professional.

At least since JFK the media has been too influenced by style over substance, by glamour and charm, especially when that charm is directed at them and has downgraded quiet competence and achievement. Imagine their reaction if an Angela Merkel type dared to run here.

Another potent factor behind the media’s lower bar for Republicans is the intimidation by the right that has been going on for decades. Nixon had Agnew do the attacking. Agnew’s viscous disparagement of the press with words written by Pat Buchanan was very similar to Trump’s.

That kind of intimidation has worked not only here but also in the UK. A recent article in The Guardian has described how the British media has ignored the blatant corruption that has happened under Johnson. It has been known for months that for critical COVID supplies were given in secret to Boris’s cronies yet the media has barely covered it, apparently because they are too afraid to challenge their conservative government. Even the BBC has been doing its best to avoid this and other stories about Johnson’s shady deals. It doesn’t help that conservative officials at the top of the BBC.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/27/media-government-cronyism-dishonesty-bbc-press

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Ironically if Ronald Reagan were a candidate today, he would be drummed out of the Republican Party. I never voted for Reagan and thought he was an awful president. But he was never Donald Trump. The Republicans today are the party of Trump, not Reagan. Biden's head down approach and not taking the Beltway Press bait is another reason why he is so successful and why his poll numbers are so high. I just find this presidency so enjoyable to watch and piggybacking on your metaphor Eric, unlike past Democrats who came to the plate in hopes of getting a piece of a Nolan Ryan fastball, Biden barrels it up and makes solid contact every time.

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Apr 30, 2021Liked by Eric Boehlert

ThX

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"Or, as its headline announced, "Biden Gives Republicans What They've Been Waiting For."

That is some tortured logic. Especially considering that people who watched Biden's First 100 Days speech loved it, as he outlined new initiatives for cheaper childcare, smoother roads, faster internet, and promised to combat climate change."

I'm fairly confident most of the story was written in advance, with just a few details thrown in afterward. When you have the narrative you want, what else do you need?

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Why is Politico still in business? Anyone "in the weeds" like us barely pays them any attention. The rest of the world barely reads.

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Because of Press Run exposing Politico to me, I stopped reading it months ago. I guess incompetent, sheeple-writers don't know how to get clicks from writing about a decent, hardworking, competent president, so they get their clicks from writing dishonest trash.

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founding

The media seems unable to get off the false equivalence train and their penchant for writing Dems in disarray. Do they teach that in journalism school? Also what is going on at the Wapo?

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PS. Off topic but how about the way VP Harris is portrayed lately by msm as wanting to please her boss as her main objective. Who comes up w/these conjectures? How about delving in to the real issues she is leading on?

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Reagan's oft-quoted line sums up my thoughts on Politico: "there you go again."

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Way too much hollow, irrelevant inside baseball from Politico. Lizza et al seem enamored by their own insiderness. I read the Politico piece y’day and couldn’t figure out what the heck they were talking about. Biden continues to hit it out of the park and is hiding in plain sight. Seems success by Biden and the Ds is a verboten topic to report on by these ‘conflict or bust’ R tinged scribers - ‘reporters’ is a bit of a stretch imo - turning themselves and their writing into pretzels to get to the strained point they’re trying to make while naming names of insiders they know and have access to AND trying to show off their own relevance. Big pond, small fish?

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I'm just waiting to see what the SDNY is going to do with Rudy's buddy John Solomon...

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But to do their jobs would be contrary to what the diseased hundred-thousandth of a cent streetwalkers who comprise the DC political media brothel and its satellites have done for decades, and the fact that they are the enemies of the people does a great deal to explain the state we are in.

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And now this from CNN; After reading the article by two CNN reporters it was clear that Al Qaeda operatives told CNN that Al Qaeda will be "continuing war on all other fronts against America unless they are expelled from the rest of the Islamic world". Which could have been an accurate header, and would not have been the click bait they went with: Al Qaeda Promises War On All Fronts Against America As Biden Pulls Out Of Afghanistan. As if the President has somehow done something to put the US deeper in peril? Really?

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A few days ago I saw a video clip on Twitter of a young Senator Biden ripping into Ronald Reagan. I think this was the title: "Young Joe Biden speaking of how Reagan planned to weaken the working class", and the url (https://twitter.com/YAForJoeBiden/status/1215107579203989505) but when I went to find it recently, the page no longer existed. It's a very important clip in my opinion. If anyone has a different location of the clip, would you be kind enough to post it here?

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