And this kind of thing is why I stopped watching Sunday Morning public events shows more than a decade ago. The disgraceful exchange, on “Meet the Press,” which has fallen apart in chunks since its glory days with Tim Russert:
KRISTEN WELKER: Obviously, there has been a lot of focus on President Biden’s role in this. You were obviously in close contact with President Biden well before the public tuned into that debate that ultimately led to him stepping down. I want to play you a little bit of something you said last year. Take a look.
[ TAPE] SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: I talk to President Biden, you know, regularly, sometimes several times in a week, or usually several times in a week. His mental acuity is great. It’s fine. It’s as good as it’s been over the years. All this right-wing propaganda that his mental acuity has declined is wrong. [END TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER: Leader Schumer, what do you say to Americans who feel as though you and other top Democrats misled them about President Biden’s mental acuity?
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: No. Look, we didn’t. And let’s – let’s look – let’s look at President Biden. He’s had an amazing record. The legislation we passed, one of the most significant groups of legislation since the New Deal – since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, putting in 235 judges, a record. And he’s a patriot. He’s a great guy. And when he stepped down, he did it on his own because he thought it was better not only for the Democratic Party, for America. We should all salute him. We should all salute him.
This offensive question and answer was bouncing around social media all day yesterday almost from the minute it aired, but I have promises to keep and miles to go and a sock drawer to organize, so I let the post wait until today. Much of the emphasis among the critics I read was on the gall required for NBC to raise the issue of the cover-up to Schumer as if the network itself wasn’t fully complicit in hiding Biden’s condition from its viewers and the public—you know, to save the nation from a fascist who would do horrible things like create a propaganda machine that would hide facts from citizens.
Welker’s question was also deceitful: she didn’t say that Americans were deceived at least since 2020 about Biden’s plummeting mental competence, she said, the weasel, that they feel like they were deceived.
But Schumer’s answer was truly head-exploding. He ducked the question completely:
“Let’s look at President Biden.” Yes, lets. When we were looking at him and he looked like an escaped dementia patient, NBC claimed that the video had been manipulated. He has been looking like this…
with disturbing regularity. You said you met with him frequently. Didn’t you look at him?
“He’s had an amazing record.” That’s a nice meaningless description. “That was amazing!” is SOP in the theater when you have to tell a friend who bombed in a show what you thought of his or her performance,
“The legislation we passed, one of the most significant groups of legislation since the New Deal – since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, putting in 235 judges, a record.” None of which has anything to do with Biden being senile. If Welker was a respectable journalist, she would have asked, “Who do you think has been running the country, since Biden clearly can’t?”
“And he’s a patriot.” So was Jimmy Carter last year, but he was in a hospice.
“He’s a great guy.” He’s not, and even if Biden is, it’s irrelevant to whether he was and is fit to be President. What a desperate response!
“And when he stepped down, he did it on his own because he thought it was better not only for the Democratic Party, for America.” This, we know, is an outright lie.
“We should all salute him. We should all salute him.” Ann Althouse this morning picked up on the irony of that coming from a leader of a party that had been accusing the opposing party’s candidate of being Hitler. Ann wrote, “You just went off on a screwy rant that ended with a demand that we salute Joe Biden. Salute the President? And they say Trump supporters seem like fascists.”
Of course, being the unethical and partisan hack that she is, Welker just moved on to the next question. A competent and trustworthy interviewer would have said, “With all due respect, Senator, you didn’t answer my question, unless what you said is intended to convey your belief that the American public should care who’s running the country as long as lots of progressive judges are appointed. Is that your position?”
Ethics Alarms 
I’ve got no problem with the initial question: I might have said “think” instead of “feel,” but it’s not her place to make an accusation. She needn’t be Zola to do her job. The question can be paraphrased as “tell us why they shouldn’t think that, Senator…” That strikes me as sufficient. Letting Schumer’s desperate and absurd evasiveness go unchallenged is, of course, another matter.
I would agree. In a way, “feel” is better. Schumer can flat out deny that he misled anyone-and he did deny it. What he cannot deny is that people feel that way, or believe they were. And, of course, I further agree that she should not have let him get away with that evasive answer.
-Jut
I am complete agreement with you comment. I would add that nothing in Schumer’s response indicates that Biden made any decisions at all.
“[I]t’s not [a newsperson’s or political reporter’s] place to make an accusation.”
Can we read that into the record for future reference over the course of the next four years, Curmie?
Sure. But asking a pol (or whoever) to respond to existing allegations will always be part of the job, as it was here.
Sorry, you’ve lost me.
OB: I could have sworn I responded to this yesterday. Apparently not.
Anyway, I’m just suggesting that there’s a difference between saying “you did this bad thing” and asking “how do you respond to the people who say you did this bad thing?” The latter is less confrontational and shows more respect for the office even if not for the individual, but gets you to the same place… and it might even get you closer to an answer.
I can (or, rather, could, prior to Schumer’s evasiveness) imagine a scenario in which he hadn’t been intentionally deceiving the public about Biden’s mental state. Allowing him to explain without a direct accusation of wrong-doing was appropriate.
And yes, the same guidelines would apply in the future.
“The legislation we passed, one of the most significant groups of legislation since the New Deal . . . .”
Um, Senator Shumer, unless the President wrote it himself then that would be an accomplishment of the Congress, not the President. Any elementary school kid who’s seen Schoolhouse Rock! understands this.
–Dwayne
It’s remarkable that anyone who grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons in the 70s and 80s – and was exposed to Schoolhouse Rock – has a better understanding of government (and grammar and history and math) than AOC…or any number of current-day politicians.
I think it may have been as recently as the Obama administration, but it may date back to the Clinton administration, that political reporters suddenly, and inexplicably stopped asking follow-up questions. Reporters simply toss up a softball question, the pol recites a totally non-responsive prepared collection of non-sensical talking points, and the reporter says, “Thank you Senator,” and that’s that. It’s bizarre kabuki theater or some orchestrated dance, or the recitation of an article of faith.
I found Schumer’s statement to be absolutely breathtaking. Brazen. There has to be a Yiddish term for the likes of Adam Schiff, Steven Cohen and Jaime Raskin. Brazen liars who lie with such incredible zeal. Schumer’s really thrown his reputation in the toilet to take on the Schiff/Cohen/Raskin mantle. I think “shit stirrers” (a term I heard from a now deceased tax lawyer partner of mine) may fill the bill for describing these absolute creeps.
You wrote
[…] nothing in Schumer’s response indicates that Biden made any decisions at all.
How about,
I read that as Biden took the decision to step down all by himself.
Oeps …
The right comment at the wrong place.
My comment above is a response at this comment of Chris Marschner
Wanna buy a bridge?
Nah, I already own two.
I guess I was not precise enough in my comment.
Here is the improved version.
________
You wrote
[…] nothing in Schumer’s response indicates that Biden made any decisions at all.
How about,
I read that as Schumer indicating that Biden took the decision to step down all by himself.