“Joe Biden’s eye just started bleeding? This isn’t a joke what in the hell just happened,” tweeted one individual who for some reason had nothing better to do than to watch CNN’s “climate change town meeting.” Indeed it had, and in some universes, like social media, this was the big story of the night. The Washington Times and Washington Examiner reported it; so did Fox News and The New York Post. If you couldn’t figure it out from those clues, it was the conservative news media that thought this was an event worth knowing about. In the parallel an corrupt universe of the mainstream news media—you know, the ones determined to influence the election so Donald Trump is a one-term President? That one?—it was “Eye? What eye?”
The New York Times hasn’t mentioned it yet. On Memeorandum, the useful news aggregator that I thought was non-partisan but now I’m wondering, didn’t have a single link about it. Even CNN, which hosted the debate, ignored the moment. I couldn’t believe it, so I searched for “eye” in the debate coverage on the CNN website, and got only “At times, candidates waged a bidding war to show liberal activists their plan was the most audacious — and even expensive. But with an eye on November 2020, others warned against throwing the economy out of the window.” The story was headlined “What happened during CNN’s climate town hall and what it means for 2020,” so as far as CNN is concerned, nothing happened. Politico, the left-leaning website, at least alluded to the eye by joking, “Even the shallow matter of what we now call “optics” went badly for Biden. He chose to sit through his appearance—Harris, Sanders, and Warren all stood—and by the end of it, a burst blood vessel in his left eye was noticeable.” Optics, get it? AOL, which I would call anti-Trump, distingished itself by importing coverage from the Wrap headlined, “Biden’s mysterious bloody eye overshadows CNN climate town hall.”
Wait: how could something “overshadow” the event, and simultaneously not be worthy of news coverage?
You know, I’m sick of writing these stories, and I’m sure many of you are sick of reading them. These smoking gun episodes where the news media deliberately tries to manipulate the news for a partisan agenda rather than fairly informing the public and allowing the metaphorical chips to fall where they may happen again and again, and yet journalists still deny their obvious unethical practices. Democrats, who benefit, look you right in the eye and say, “Oh, no, that’s just a right-wing talking point!” and friends and associates I once thought had brains and integrity but now emulate Sgt Schulz on “Hogan’s Heroes,” on the topic of news media bias…
[An aside: My father, who never forgave the German people for denying that they were complicit in Hitler’s crimes (“We couldn’t find a Nazi after we marched into a German town,” he said. “Not one. Ever.”), felt was not merely the clown he was portrayed as on the sitcom, but a dark metaphor for all of the Germans who enabled the Nazis by perfecting wilful blindness. Make what analogies you like to your friends who now channel John Banner’s character routinely…]
Conservative wag Jim Treacher, who has been pointing out media bias for years and is really good at it, writes of the absurd lack of coverage regarding Joe’s eye…
Which makes sense, because Biden is a Democrat and the job of the press is to protect Democrats. This can’t be used against the Republicans, so the media will just ignore it and hope it goes away. That’s what they did when Hillary Clinton collapsed in the street and had to be tossed into a waiting van like a sack of potatoes. They just pretended it never happened, until they were forced to finally cover it. They want a Democrat in the White House, and they’ll ignore any story that interferes with that, as long as they can.
I’m afraid to post this matter on Facebook (where I can’t just link to Ethics Alarms, because Facebook, which also isn’t biased, regards my essays as unfit for the web), because I’m afraid someone I care about and once respected will defend it, and I will have to unleash my infamous, unrestrained invective on them, which I never use here. (“You won’t like me when I’m angry…”)
Of course this is news. Biden is 76, he has had health problems, including aneurysms, and looks and sounds like a man in precipitous decline. Sure, the episode could be minor, but it could also be a sign of something serious. Do not insult my intelligence by claiming that if Richard Nixon, or Ronald Reagan, or Trump, or John McCain, or any Republican going all the way back to President Eisenhower suddenly had an eye fill with blood in a TV appearance it wouldn’t have been considered newsworthy. The Today show, which along with NBC News buried the story in the health section rather than report it straight, noted that the condition could be serious, especially in old people, not that this would have anything to do with Joe, of course.
Here’s what Treacher didn’t say, but should have. It isn’t just that Biden is a Democrat. He’s the only Democrat the news media thinks can beat Trump, so it is committed to carrying him across the finish line to the nomination if that’s what it takes. If what it takes means that “Democracy dies in darkness,” as the Washington Post hypocritically intones, so be it.
Ethics Alarms 
Have you tried posting a link to your Tweet for a post, instead of directly to this blog? The extra level of indirection may avoid triggering their algorithm. It will probably work until one of your “Facebag Friends” flags it anyway.
I hadn’t thought of that! Worth a shot.
This looks so much like the fix is in.
Biden was VP for 2 terms but does not want to run for President. We then find that the fix was in for HRC. No wonder Biden did not run. They were going to have the woman candidate. Now, it is Buden’s Turn, even though the base does not want the white male (except Sanders or buttigieg, maybe Beto).
This coverage (or lack thereof) looks like the fix is in again. Mind you, I don’t like Biden or HRC, but I feel sorry for them in such episodes, where their health appears compromised. By contrast, Bill MAHER wallows in such pain and misery.
-Jut
Joe’s essentially a Trojan horse. He sort of looks like an old time Democrat. A vehicle to get the D.C. power elite back in control. He’ll be a sock puppet for all the usual government employees and think tank people. He’ll do whatever the conventional lefty Democratic industrial complex says and then then take another nap. Maybe he’ll even die in office and a woman of color VP will take over and get ready for 2024. Even better!
But I still think Biden, like all the other Dem candidates, will get creamed by Trump. If HRC couldn’t run against him, none of these other people will be able to deal successfully with the wild man. Praise Allah!
Disagree. I did not vote for Trump. I don’t like him, but the left has made him sympathetic by the unrelenting and often petty attack’s on him.
I have not ruled out voting for him this time around.
But, I am open to the Dems putting up someone better than HRC this time around. I know, it sounds like a low bar, but I am from the State that Mondale Won. The Dems could nominate the rabid squirrel and my vote would still be meaningless.
-Jut
But do you see someone better than (as good as?) HRC in the current group of Dem nominees, or elsewhere? I don’t. (There are times I wonder whether any viable Dems are sitting this one out thinking it’s unwinnable, like when Robert Dole was made to walk the plank for the GOP “because it was ‘his turn.'”)
Regardless, under no circumstances could I vote for someone from the party of Nancy Pelosi and The Squad, or Keith Ellison or Adam Schiff and all of Hollywood and the entire media and the left wing of the Supremes and the Green New Deal and Reparations and college debt forgiveness and who knows what other giveaways.
(Had to look up the state Fritz won. Thought it was Mrs. OB’s Commonwealth of Massachusetts until I checked. “…and all the children are above average.”)
Cheers.
I probably won’t. Never have. But, I always keep an open mind. Last time, I voted for neither Trump nor Hilary. Had the Dems put up anyone else (except Sanders), I might have voted for their candidate.
Yes, I think Trump has been treated unfairly. Even so, he is still the candidate I did not like before. So, I will see what the Dems offer us. But, hell, this time I might actually vote for Trump.
-Jut
P.S. you forgot which state Mondale won. Then, I guess you forgot this exchange on the Simpsons:
Marge:
We saved the newspaper from the day Lisa was born.
Lisa Simpson:
[reading] Mondale to Hart: Where’s the beef.
Bart:
Where’s the beef? What the hell does that mean?
Homer:
[laughing] Where’s the beef. No wonder he won Minnesota.
For shame
What if Michelle Obama came out tomorrow with a presidential run?
That would make things really interesting . . .
Preposterous. Totally unqualified and lacking in political temperament. She couldn’t evn handle being first lady. No patience whatsoever. Looks down her nose at everyone, certainly her husband. Contemptuous of almost everyone. As preposterous as Oprah running for President.
Preposterous? This is America and it is 2019!
Arguably, she is better qualified that her husband was when he won. He had a law degree, some decades of being paid to do…well…something by investment banks. He taught a few classes as an adjunct, was an undistinguished state legislator and then won a Senate seat to vote ‘present’ a lot. No real accomplishments, no real leadership anywhere. Michelle Obama has first hand experience with executive power. She was involved with destroying/improving (depending on viewpoint) the school lunch program, she visited many of the Cabinet-level departments, she toured the world to get the same foreign-policy experience Hillary Clinton did, she lobbied for legislation. In short, she is fairly close in qualifications to a 2-term Democratic President.
As for being contemptuous of everyone around her, that didn’t stop Hillary Clinton from being nominated.
It was of course a joke, but I am really curious how the Hysterical Left is going to conduct itself when it sees that, more than likely, it won’t be able to win. I know there is such a thing as an October Surprise. But this is a more serious game now.
In a way Michelle is quite qualified: she knows everyone, and world-leaders, and her husband is nearby and would, in some sense, operate behind the scenes. As BC would have done if HRC had one, and as he might have done wen she served under Obama.
If they were really desperate, as they seem to be, and if she could be convinced to run, it seems to me she would have a good chance at overturning Trump.
Just imagine how the NYSlimes would exult if she did jump in . . .
The “two for one” talking point never really worked for the Clintons and it is even more preposterous it would work for the Obamas. She’s affirmative action incarnate. Worked in local NGOs and was a nearly invisible figurehead of a first lady, a job she never really wanted. To call her qualified is as absurd as calling HRC “the most qualified presidential nominee in history.” Gag me with a spoon.
How the left will react to a Trump win is a darned good question.
I see your point. You could be very right: that she would not even attempt it because of her own sense of being unqualified. It must be a very very thankless and demanding job. Maddening really.
So, I guess there is just no one.
Not covered because it’s proof SlowJoe is a reptile
Gee I thought it,was because a young woman caught his eye.
That photo is grisly. What is that condition symptomatic of?
Joe’s eye condition is most assuredly a benign, spontaneous, idiopathic condition called sub conjunctival hemmorhage. It is only a drop or two of blood squeezed between the white globe and the clear membrane above it. Blood thinners might predispose patients to it or not. They are alarming to those who have them because they are unecpectedly painless. They were good for two or three office visits a week at my eye practice, clear up in a few weeks with only reassurance as treatment.
So why can’t the news media report THAT…? Your comment is the single most informative thing I’ve read about this incident.
–Dwayne
Bingo!
FYI. The minute I heard about the eye incident I googled it and the same prognosis came up. Oddly, searching in the NYTs nothing comes up about this incident with ‘Biden eye’. It is not a major thing and is in fact (likely) quite minor, as the ophthalmologist has just reported.
You ask why the Times does not report this (I assume other papers and websites have reported it). The answer is simple, and surely you know it: without a viable Democrat candidate — and there appears to be no one — Trump will get elected again. So, in the spirit of employing any and all tactics even if they are technically unethical and un-journalistic, this news must not be reported on as though it is important. It has to be non-reported so it does not seem a problem, so that Biden’s (remote) chances are preserved.
There is a war going on and the full description of that war is not stated, and cannot be stated — that is in any national media nor in ‘general conversation’. I think that I have stated it though or got close to stating it: it is in its essence the continued dispossession of America’s ‘original demographic’. That describes the war being fought. The entire issue, the project, the event, is world-scale though and what is happening in America is just one (important) facet of a far larger issue.
If say five years ago people were not awake to what is going on, today they seem to be a bit more awake. But they do not seem to *fully understand* but to understand in partial terms. Like peeking through a thin crack in a wall at a complex scene and trying to interpret it.
Interpretation is the key. It seems to be about what a person will allow themselves to see, to think, to speculate, to conclude: interpretation. I cannot believe how criminal I feel in saying what I say. Just to state things clearly in this strange present has become a dangerous action. And that tells you how serious the game is.
I admit that coming to greater awareness is a bit-by-bit poco-a-poco thing. It requires self-patience and self-understanding. It is really hard to believe that what is going on is in fact really going on.
[Reposted with a slight fix of formatting]
Sorry! I am a bit pessimistic this morning . . .
Dare We Dream of the End of the Republican Party? by Michelle Goldberg in Todays NY Slimes:
“This is not the first time that experts have predicted the inevitable triumph of progressive politics. Seventeen years ago, John Judis and Ruy Teixeira published “The Emerging Democratic Majority,” which argued that the country was on the cusp of a liberal political realignment driven by growing diversity, urbanization and gender equality.”
Maybe John Judis and Ruy Teixeira should go into the climate prediction business.
Exactly one news report, the one I linked to from the Today Show, pointed out what you just wrote.
Thank you, Kent. “Idiopathic.” Such a wonderful word, at least in it’s connotation.
well at least snopes reported it correctly!!! shocker!
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/joe-biden-eye-blood/
But in such a condescending manner.
Optometrist this one, but I think the surgeons could have gotten the diagnosis also. Thankfully we no longer fight turf battles with them as there is plenty of work for us all.
I am surprised this would actually garner such attention. I have seen that happen to people before. However, I have not been in a room where people proposed forced ‘buybacks’ of all automobiles (greatly limiting American’s freedom to travel) and reducing the world population by aborting children in other countries. I find those last 2 kind of horrifying.
See the most recent post.
A 76 year old man running for President is different. Any health issue is newsworthy. After 70, people can fall apart like the Wonderful One-Hoss Shay, “all at once, and nothing first.” Hence Hillary’s cough was newsworthy. And I will not believe that if a candidate the media wasn’t desperately trying to carry across the finish line had the same episode, it wouldn’t have been covered on both sides of the partisan divide.
I wonder… did someone actually hit him, and it bled later?
Reminds me of the Harry Reid ‘PT accident’ and his sudden retirement.