I almost framed this post as a parody of those public service ads begging us for donations to help “Johnny,” who is suffering from some dread disease. Read the Times op-ed titled “Democrats Have a Better Option Than Biden.” It’s like a parody itself, so I decided another layer of satire would be excessive. The author, Ezra Klein, was one of the pioneers of so-called “advocacy journalism.” He founded JournoList (sometimes referred to as the J-List), a private Google Groups forum where 400 progressive journalists, academics and others could plot how they would spread the Left’s propaganda and slant the news. He founded Vox, the all-progressive bias all the time website, which is approximately as trustworthy as a news source as MSNBC or Breitbart.

His Times piece (it’s out from behind the paywall) is both sad and funny. This is whistling a symphony past the graveyard—he’s obviously terrified that his favorite party will lose the White House in November and the evil Donald Trump will undo all of Joe Biden’s good works. I’d feel sorry for him if Klein wasn’t such a long-running dissembling, manipulative hack. The piece is funny, because it is so transparent and Klein’s spinning is so desperate. For example:

• The beginning alone would be enough to make anyone with self-respect stop reading (unless one were, say, seeking to make a point on an ethics blog). “My heart breaks a bit for Joe Biden,” Klein writes. “This is a man who has been running for president since he was young. He wins the presidency, finally, unexpectedly, when he’s old. And that age brought him wisdom. It brought an openness that hadn’t always been there in him.” “Openness”! Joe insists that he never discussed Hunter Biden’s business deals with his son. He has lied at least as often and on matters of more substance that Donald Trump, whom Klein and his fellow travelers have effectively tarred as a pathological liar. Biden was always unqualified to be President, and lucked into office because of a pandemic and the amazing weakness of the candidates his party had available to run against Trump.
• “Biden acted as a leader. He partnered with Bernie Sanders. He built the unity task forces. He integrated Warren’s and Sanders’s ideas and staff into not just his campaign but also his administration.” Only a blind Leftist could call following the socialist cant of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren admirable. The results have been disastrous predictable: an exploding national debt, inflation, indoctrination in the schools and open borders.
• “I had a conversation recently with Pramila Jayapal…” Klein actually uses Jayapal, a pro-Hamas, anti-Israel honorary member of “The Squad” who routinely calls the January 6 riot an “insurrection,” as an appeal to authority.
• “Then comes the special counsel report, which finds no criminal wrongdoing in his treatment of classified information, which is — remember — the question the special counsel was appointed to investigate. But the counsel takes a drive-by on Biden’s cognitive fitness.” That is an outright lie. Hur’s report did find what he called “serious” wrongdoing by Biden and said so. Klein is doing here what the biased mainstream media has been engaged in for more than a decade: deliberately distorting the facts to achieve a political agenda.
• “And I am convinced, watching him, listening to the testimony of those who meet with him — not all people who like him — I am convinced he is able to do the job of the presidency. He is sharp in meetings; he makes sound judgments. I cannot point you to a moment where Biden faltered in his presidency because his age had slowed him.” Why would anyone ever trust or read again a “journalist” who would write that? Klein sounds like he’s trying to convince himself, doesn’t he? This is a “Bias makes you stupid” extravaganza.

It is a long, long piece, and there is much more in it that is risible, like when Klein says that there is nothing to fear from Democrats using an open convention to find a successor for Biden, then notes that the last open Democratic Convention was in 1968—which blew up into street riots, ugly confrontations from the podium, and a shattered party that went down to defeat.  I began feeling sorry for Klein when I read, “I want to say this clearly: I like Biden. I think he’s been a good president. I think he is a good president.”  Keep saying it Ezra; maybe you’ll eventually convince yourself.