Oh-oh. This is more depressing news.
Althouse’s shtick is beginning all of her blog posts with a quote from another article, then she weighs in. Let me start this post the same way: here is part of what Ann writes regarding the news media’s rapid rush to condemn President Biden’s debate performance, what she calls ” a stampede.”
I’d really like to know who decided a stampede was the right approach and unleashed it while the President was still on the debate stage. Immediately after the debate, CNN’s John King was cued up to describe a stampede already in motion…As King described it, it’s hard to see how they even watched the debate. They seem to have gone into cabal mode to capture the post-debate narrative. Was it — to use Solnit’s phrase — “a sort of insider coup”? Who did this without knowing that they could — via stampede — drive their own candidate out of the race?…I want to know who led the “deep… wide… very aggressive panic” that “started minutes into the debate” and communicated it to John King and motivated CNN to present this as the narrative, right after the debate, preempting any normal post-debate analysis and throwing the Democratic Party into chaos. Did someone decide to risk everything to shock and awe Joe Biden into submission? Who could do that? Who would do that? And how did that old man — that supposedly broken down hopeless old man — resist? How could he resist? Who’s helping him with his hero story, which is going strangely well against the deep, wide, aggressive panickers… whoever they are?
What the hell?
It must be hard being a relentless contrarian, which is Althouse’s brand There is an obvious peril in working to say the opposite of what the conventional wisdom is, which is that occasionally the conventional wisdom is right, and a contrarian looks ridiculous. I hope that’s the explanation for that passage; if not, one of my long-time favorite bloggers has lost her frick’n mind.
What led her into this morass was an essay at The Guardian titled “Why is the pundit class so desperate to push Biden out of the race?”
It’s a dumb article by a climate change activist (among other things). Maybe Ann was having trouble finding blog topics; it’s happened to me. But come on: isn’t it clear why anyone with eyes, ears and a brain would be desperate to push Biden out of the race? He’s sliding into full dementia, that’s why; it’s been obvious for a long time, and dementia-sufferers shouldn’t be President of the United States!
The “pundit class” has another very good reason to “stampede”: trying to somehow salvage a scrap of public trust after being exposed as fully complicit in the Democrats’ Soviet-style cover-up. Is this so difficult to figure out? For Althouse? A lawyer, social critic and law professor Emeritus?
Apparently it is. Althouse’s commentary quoted above is at least as laughable—and ethically warped— as the Trump-Deranged Guardian article that inspired it:
1. Who decided? Nothing needed to be “decided.” Biden’s Gabby Johnson impression instantly exposed a multi-level scandal and a Constitutional crisis. The rapid response of the news media is called “reporting the news.” Asking Ann’s question is like asking who decided that we needed to be told there was a terror attack against the U.S. when the Twin Towers came down.
2. “[I]t’s hard to see how they even watched the debate.” They didn’t have to watch the debate! The early “and we beat Medicare” gibberish was debate and game over for Biden. I posted about its clear implications before the debate was over. The idea in journalism is to be the first out with the story, and the story was blazing before the debate was at the half-way point.
3. Ann seems to be laboring under the delusion that the furious media response to Biden’s crash was some kind of plot to “force him from the race.” The facts should force Biden from the race, and news media were only reacting reasonably—if hypocritically, given how much it had covered up and ignored exactly what it was suddenly reporting as a cataclysm—to an event that compelled their reaction.
4. “Preempting any normal post-debate analysis”??? Althouse is too smart for this, or at least I thought she was. Does she wonder why the papers didn’t print reviews of “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater the morning after Lincoln was shot? The debate was irrelevant as soon as Biden started gaping, muttering and babbling.
The only ones who wanted to concentrate on the debate were those who wanted to distract attention away from Biden’s proving on national TV that all the conservative media’s reports on his alarming condition weren’t “cheap fakes.”
5. “Did someone decide to risk everything to shock and awe Joe Biden into submission?” Risk everything? Did Ann Althouse just come out as a “by any means necessary” anti-Trump fanatic? The risk is having a President of the United States mentally incapable of doing the job. The risk is having “Woodrow Wilson, the Sequel,” with a helpless President being manipulated and used as a puppet by unelected figures unknown. Biden shouldn’t be running. He shouldn’t be President now. Nobody should have to “shock” a responsible leader into stepping down when he represents a threat to security and a detriment to the government, but if it takes journalists to make him do the right thing by reporting the facts, good. They are doing their jobs for once.
6. “And how did that old man — that supposedly broken down hopeless old man — resist?” This is embarrassing. How? He’s President of the United States; at least he knows that. Presidents can resist a lot: nobody has the power to remove him. And, as the interview with George Stephanopolis vividly illustrated, Biden is in denial. It’s easy to resist facts that you refuse to acknowledge. Biden and his minions have been doing that his entire administration. The border is secure! There’s no inflation! We support Israel unconditionally! The President is fit and sharp as a metaphorical tack!
7. “Who’s helping him with his hero story, which is going strangely well against the deep, wide, aggressive panickers… whoever they are?”
OK, that tears it: I want Ann Althouse to take a cognitive function test. Biden’s obstinacy is not going “strangely well.” Who believes that, except maybe Jill Biden and Ann?
It is worth remembering that on debate night, Althouse inexplicably opined that Biden’s performance wasn’t “that bad.” This time, however, she’s faulting the news media for doing the right thing, indeed the only thing possible, while sympathizing with Biden, not because of his leaking brain cells, but because his incapacity is finally getting the attention it should have received all along.
What’s the matter with her?
Ethics Alarms 
Forget it Jack…it’s 77 Square Miles Surrounded By A Sea Of Reality…
MONEY QUOTE: “They are not reporting that he is a loser; THEY ARE MAKING HIM ONE.“ (bolds/caps/italics mine)
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
“one of my long-time favorite bloggers has lost her frick’n mind.”
Glass half full?
For the most part, her commentariat hasn’t.
PWS
My favorite comment from one of the Althouse commenters:
“I always assumed that stampedes in real life end up with the animals looking at each other like Benjamin and Elaine sitting in the back of the bus.”
Not that I agree at all that the stampede was orchestrated or the participants are wrong to think Biden is non compos mentis, it’s just a terrific reference to the crucial scene in “The Graduate” that has always been completely ignored as if it should have been edited out. The scene, which if you blink you’ll miss, is the main point of the movie and its commentary on “the rebellious ‘sixties.” And everyone acts as if the scene’s inclusion in the movie is some sort of editing oversight.
I think one can safely say Ann is too clever by half. I think it stems from her simply being, despite her often being very lucid and of course, sophisticated, a modern-day yellow dog Democrat.
A great CNN headline:
“Biden team says it will stop offering questions to interviewers after radio host says aides gave her questions.”
Sounds like, “When did you stop beating your wife” stuff. Incredible.
The most annoying lefty/Dem talking point: “Biden can beat Trump.”
Jesus H. Christ. That’s NOT the question. The question is, “Can Biden serve as president today or any subsequent day.”
Exactly. Biden can beat Trump. To which I reply: “at what cost?”
I’m not sure, but I think you might be missing the point of the Althouse article. It’s not clear, because the quotes she uses seem to be arguing that Biden is being unjustly forced out of the race. If that’s her point, then I agree with you that she might need to take a cognitive function test too.
But it’s possible to think that Biden isn’t capable mentally to be president, and at the same time to wonder how the reaction to his debate performance coalesced so quickly. I too am curious if it was an organic reaction or if a decision was made pre-debate that his time had come and this was the moment to do it.
It’s also possible to be surprised that Biden has resisted to this point. I’m surprised. I thought he would be gone within a few days of that fiasco. Your point is well taken, though, that presidents can resist a lot, and he is in denial.
Finally, it’s possible to think that Biden’s debate performance wasn’t as bad as it could have been yet still think it clearly demonstrates he’s not competent. In my mind, there were two bars. He did better than I expected him to. He cleared that bar, but it was set REALLY low. However, he’s clearly nowhere near capable of running the country. He might be able to run a lemonade stand, though I think he’d need help. I might buy the lemonade, but I’d be hesitant to drink it.
But again, that first terrible incoherent answer where he mixed up millions and billions and forgot what he was saying, then muttered “and we beat Medicare” was all that was needed. Signature significance: a healthy, mentally capable man doesn’t say that even once, ever. Pundits were tweeting about it immediately, for the same reason I posted on it immediately. Ann doesn’t get that. How can she not? (And how much worse could Biden have been???)
“And how much worse could Biden have been?” Yea, verily.
This from Joy Reid:
“If it’s Biden in a coma, I’m going to vote for Biden in a coma. I don’t even really, in particular, like the guy. A lot of his policies? Don’t like them, [but] he’s not Donald Trump, right?”
This train wreck is showing another aspect of the left: Their insistence upon government by experts is so ubiquitous, it’s come to even include not just the executive branch, but the executive himself. They’re perfectly comfortable with unelected appointees running things. This is a constitutional problem analogous to (or part of?) the unfettered federal regulatory regime. The government is simply a monolith independent of and superior to the electorate. But don’t worry, Joy went to Harvard, so, she clearly knows best.
Here is a excerpt from a comment from over at SJ yesterday: “Whatever happens, I will vote for whoever is the Dem nominee. I think hyperbole or not Trump has to be taken seriously. If he gets another chance at the wheel we may not be the same country in 4 years. For the record, I’m a lifelong liberal Dem who thinks it’s okay to compromise to get things done.” (emphasis added).
It isn’t a Trump presidency that will destroy the country. It isn’t a Trump presidency that will result in a different country 4 years from now. I’ll tell you what is destroying the country since Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016. The intense hatred of one man is leading to the corruption and destruction in some cases of every facet of the American system. The intense hatred of Donald Trump by Democrats and Progressives is consuming them causing them to abandon all moral, ethical and legal values. They will stop at nothing to try and destroy Donald Trump and keep him from a second term as their intense hatred of Donald Trump festers and drives them beyond mad and illogical behavior.
For whom does Donald Trump show hatred? In my opinion, no one. He may use juvenile insults and behave like a blowhard, but, I can honestly say that it doesn’t appear to me that he is consumed by hate for his opponents. Maybe it’s bias on my part but I just don’t see him full of hate like those on the left trying to destroy and defeat him.
No, it won’t be a Trump presidency that will put this country in decline but the intense hatred for the man and a no holds barred attitude to destroy him at any cost. Yes, the commenter said that “it’s okay to compromise to get things done”. Or, in other words, the end justifies the means.
Nice comment, Edward.
A shocking piece by Chris Hayes.
We can’t give Donald Trump permission to end American democracy (msnbc.com)
He refuses to concede that if elected Trump will be able to destroy the country. Watch it, Chris. Don’t wander off the reservation.
He concludes, “But conceding, in advance, that Trump is now free to end American democracy as a whole is a lot like giving him permission to do it. And I for one refuse to give him that.”
What’s up with that? Chris Hayes being reasonable? Is he admitting Trump may win? Trump’s winning being an existential threat to existence is all the Dems are running on. Not sure what to make of this.
“But conceding, in advance, that Trump is now free to end American democracy” – That’s another phrase that pushes my buttons. It comes in various forms but boils down to “If Trump is elected for a second term it will be the end of democracy in America.” I mean, where in the entire known universe is the evidence for that kind of conclusion? It must be in some virtual reality where the majority of the population now exists. Don’t they know social media news feeds are driven by AI and are specifically selected to manipulate them? No, they don’t – they are hypnotized and a captive of virtual reality. It makes no logical sense that a second Trump presidency will end democracy in America – it is more likely that a second Biden presidency will result in the end of democracy in America.
Talking points are intended to create an alternative reality, Edward. They’re essentially non sequiturs, intended to stymie inquiry and discussion. It’s what makes them so mind-numbing.
What OB said, Edward!
PWS
Ann Althouse is a Democrat. As a Democrat, she takes for granted the idea that everything on TV is scripted. She knows all the questions to the debate were given to Biden in advance. She knows that his handlers had him practice their answers to the questions. More importantly, she knows that CNN doesn’t report anything that hasn’t been approved by their ruling class master’s. CNN doesn’t report on a debate, they read the script about the debate that they has already been given and practiced. She can’t comprehend Democrats responding to the disaster that just happened. In her mind, she knows that their talking points had been given to them before the debate even began. You can see it in her response about how they couldn’t have watched the debate. That doesn’t make sense unless you believe everything is prescripted. The commentators always comment right after a debate, the only thing that is different is that she didn’t like what they were saying. She has known all along that Biden is just a puppet and she accepts this as appropriate. In her mind, Trump trying to be president (set foreign policy, issue executive orders against the bureaucracy’s wishes, setting military policy against the military’s wishes) was the abberation and unconstitutional state, not a puppet controlled by the ruling class.
i have seen studies that find that only about 10% of the population is capable of independent thought.
Althouse’s point, I think, is a fair one. Yes, Biden’s debate performance was shocking and, as you say, “exposed a multi-level scandal and a Constitutional crisis.” But your idea that the press suddenly decided in unison to “report the news” seems naïve. They covered it up before, and I expected that they would try to cover it up again.
As Althouse says in response to the comments to her post:
<blockquote> I watched the debate, and when it ended, I fully expected the CNN commentators to insist that Biden won and to explain why. But they all went hard in another direction. I want to know how that happened.</blockquote>
Her point is not that Biden did a good job but that she doesn’t believe CNN and MSNBC commentators all unanimously decided to abandon the coverup. In response to the comment:
<blockquote> “There was no controlling source of the narrative. John King’s phone started blowing up five minutes into the debate as every Democrat lawmaker and mega-donor who had his private number went into absolute panic as the ability to hide Biden’s decline was destroyed on live TV.” </blockquote>
Althouse says:
<blockquote> Did King say that or are you guessing? I understand the grassroots/groundswell theory, but that doesn’t prove there was no leadership. This was a big move, and I don’t believe it was King’s decision to present it that way and preempt the narrative.
Of course, that’s how King presented it at the time. I just don’t believe he’d do that on his own, and also everyone else on the panel repeated the same narrative. It was weirdly coordinated. The panelists were all saying the same thing, when normally they argue with each other and present lively debate (even exaggerating their differences) .</blockquote>
I happen to agree with her. The people who had been lying for four years needed at least permission, if not orders, to stop lying.
Makes no sense, Greg. It was right out there in front of anyone. How could even the most biased, propaganda-spewing hack say Biden “won the debate” when a conspiracy was revealed? Res ipsa loquitur. This was a tipping point. The moment when the news media realized that they couldn’t fool enough of the people enough of the time. When the jig is up, you don’t need permission to start spilling your guts.
But they did try. If you look at the very first comments made by CNN, it was all about Trump’s ‘lies’, etc. The idea that they wouldn’t abandon this in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary just proves how brainwashed the cult is. They (Althouse included) cannot fathom that the news media wouldn’t protect the Democratic narrative and their nonsensical partisan talking points even when it would mean completely discrediting themselves. They are all part of the cult and they have known for a long time how the cult operates.
For what it’s worth, I watched the debate, too, and I thought Biden had done a lousy job, but I didn’t think he had done so poorly that the TV networks wouldn’t try to declare him the winner. The reason was that I didn’t watch it on TV. I watched it on an internet stream with commentators. The picture I was seeing was the faces of the commentators, with Biden and Trump in a small box in the corner of the screen. I was looking at the commentators’ faces, not Biden’s. It wasn’t until later, when I saw video of Biden looking like a drooling zombie that I realized why the networks couldn’t try to explain it away as Biden’s “stutter.”
I have wondered if Althouse watched it the same way, and if maybe that’s why she also didn’t think he was as bad as he was.
Or just read a transcript, which would be completely misleading.
Jeez, Greg, it had nothing to do with the “debate.” It was how Biden looked, spoke, sounded, stared and made it clear that he is not well. I’ll stick with the Twin Towers analogy.
To be honest, I was also surprised at the fairness and balance of CNN’s questions during the debate. I fully expected the first 5 questions to be about Trump’s court cases and all of the questions to Biden to be softballs. But they started with tough questions for Biden and were scrupulously fair. Who gave them permission/instructions to do that?
THAT was a corporate level decision. The fact is that the news media knows they are losing public trust and that a lot of people believe they “rigged” the election by keeping their thumb on the scales. That’s why they didn’t “factcheck” too.
They tried to ‘factcheck’ right after the debate. If you look, they claimed that Donald Trump’s statement that he fixed the insulin price crisis was a lie and that it was one of Joe Biden’t ‘signature victories’. I was pretty sure Trump fixed that and I was right. Sanofi had the patents on the new insulin products and jacked up the price to over $500/month. We had older insulin products on the market that were cheap, but Sanofi had convinced almost 100% of our idiot doctors that it would be irresponsible to prescribe cheaper insulin products that were 2-5% worse in their performance. Trump and the Republicans in Congress got Sanofi to reduce the price to $99/month for uninsured and $135/month for insured people. When Biden was elected, Sanofi smelled weakness (and probably corruption potential) and increased the price again. It took Biden about 3 years to achieve what Trump did in 2 months. I am willing to agree that this is a ‘signature victory’ for Biden.