Although I have some great colleagues who handle media bias, there are times when an instance that is so shocking, it’s something I can’t ignore.
This happened to me when I woke up Monday morning at 3:00 am with a headache. The following headline gave me a worse headache. I shouldn’t have picked up the telephone.
One handshake, one hug and one selfie at a time, President Joe Biden is on a mission to connect with everyday Americans. https://t.co/cX7pvaCNcG
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 24, 2022
We’ll soon get to the actual content, but it is not an editorial. It was actually written by Zeke Miller (AP’s top White House correspondent) and filed under the guise that it was hard news. It is an embarrassingly biased piece on Joe Biden that you will find when you read Miller’s article. The sycophancy begins in the first paragraph. It only gets worse from there.
This is a news item that has to be hard. Who signed off on it?
One handshake, one hug, and one selfie at a time. Longtime friends say that President Joe Biden would be a great president if he could greet all Americans this way.
Biden is not at his best when delivering big speeches. His delivery can sometimes be stilted and his stories can become rambling. Biden’s speech ends, which is often the beginning of his favorite part of an event — or the rope line in the parlance of political operatives. He spins, scans the crowd, and identifies his first target to make a one-on-1 connection.
Let’s not forget how demeaning this is for ordinary Americans. This is a suggestion that Biden’s subjective failures would not matter if he could only sniff more women and shake hands with more people. The president’s magnetic ability, which is not shown on camera, seems to be so amazing in person that he would have high approval ratings if he could clone himself and do hundreds upon hundreds of rope lines per day. Miller continues to push this narrative throughout the article, providing “examples”, which he claims prove his case.
Perhaps it’s with Tim Eichinger, a Milwaukee brewery operator who asked Biden a question at a TV town hall twenty months ago. Biden has since held a one-on-1 videoconference with Eichinger and sent a few letters to his grandson.
Perhaps it’s a child. Biden loves to have some cash on him so that he can discreetly give kids money to buy ice cream. They might be someone who stumbles and they are brought in for special attention by the president.
Biden spoke on Friday about student loans at Delaware State University. There were many handshakes and photos taken with students. Biden invited an audience member backstage at a Democratic National Committee Washington event last Tuesday to take a photo and autograph some of the abortion rights signs participants had been holding. He also took a few selfies.
According to his aides, the 79-year-old has perfected his selfie arm. These products are often shared on social media.
Miller isn’t sure who Miller believes shows up at Biden events. It is supposed to be remarkable that the president interacts well and effectively with his most loyal followers, especially those who don’t have anything better than listening to an old man rant for a few moments. Donald Trump is the most beloved president ever if he can interact well with people. However, Miller’s view is not mine.
Also, I love Biden’s claim of “perfecting” the “selfie arm,” which is attributed to his “aides”. It’s absurd.
Miller’s piece is another example. This basically suggests that Americans are too dumb to see how great Biden really is. If they could only shake his hand, it would make them enamored of his greatness. These same people, supposedly stupid, are still struggling to feed their families, cannot afford to buy a home, and are being crushed because of high energy prices.
However, none of this is worth reporting on. It doesn’t matter if Biden gives hugs or handshakes. This is the main story, not Biden’s abject failure to help the people he claims to represent. It would be impossible to pay for more absurd, biased coverage. Why would any Democrat pay for more biased, ridiculous coverage, even Biden? They can get it free at outlets like the Associated Press.
It’s a great thing to be a Democrat, even from a media perspective.
