FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 2021
The cult of the upper-end press: The whole thing started with Nancy Cordes of CBS News.
She could have asked Joe Biden anything. Instead, she asked him this:
CORDES (3/25/21): On a related note, have you decided whether you are going to run for reelection in 2024? You haven't set up a reelection campaign yet as your predecessor had by this time.
Has he decided to run in 2024? Skillfully, we glanced at the calendar. Just as we expected, it still said 2021!
Biden has been president for barely two months. The slate is crowded with major issues, procedural and substantive both.
Cordes could have asked about any topic. Instead, she wanted to know why Biden hasn't declared for re-election yet, the way The Craziest Boy in History had already done at this point.
Everyone thought it was totally nuts when Crazy Boy started so early. But given the chance to approach any issue, Cordes was wondering why Biden hasn't done the same thing!
Biden gave the shortest possible answer. He said it's his intention to run.
Then he turned to CNN's Kaitlan Collins—and the analysts came out of their chairs. After some questions about the filibuster, Collins came out with this:
COLLINS: You made news by saying you are going to run for reelection.
BIDEN: I said that is my expectation.
COLLINS: So that is a yes, that you are running for reelection?
BIDEN: I don’t know where you guys come from. I am a great respecter of fate. I have never been able to plan for three and a half years ahead for certain.
COLLINS: If you do, will Vice President Harris be on your ticket?
BIDEN: I would expect that to be the case. She’s doing a great job. She’s a great partner.
COLLINS: Do you believe you will be running against former President Trump?
We're grateful that she didn't ask him if he had bumper stickers yet. Wondering what planet he found himself on, the embattled Biden said this:
BIDEN: Oh, come on. I don't even think about it. I have no idea. I have no idea whether there'll be a Republican Party. Do you? I know you don't have to answer my question, but I mean, you know, do you?
At that point, he offered a short, effective speech about who he's in office to serve.
In fairness, no one asked him to state his view about which royal made which royal cry about the bridesmaids' dresses.
Does he feel bad that Meghan and Harry are going to have to make do with a $15 million house? Nobody pushed him on that!
He was allowed to duck those points. But asking those re-elections questions in March 2021? We'll call it a cultural lesson.
Let it be said that we're big Kaitlan Collins fans at this particular site. Due to her youth and her inexperience, we were major skeptics when CNN hired her and assigned her a major post, all at age 25.
But at one point during The First Covid Year, Collins stood up to the ludicrous President Trump in a way no colleague was willing to do. We've been fans ever since. We vastly admire her confidence.
The analysts moaned when Collins asked that string of re-election questions. It's very, very hard to grasp how empty the guild's culture is.
Final point:
Are they finding it hard to quit Donald J. Trump? Even Collins, who we want to admire, couldn't help bringing him up!
We're with you on this one, dear Bob.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, who cares which figurehead your liberal-hitlerian establishment is going to try to install in 2025?
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"Has he decided to run in 2024? Skillfully, we glanced at the calendar. Just as we expected, it still said 2021!"
ReplyDeleteTrump declared his candidacy for 2020 right after his inauguration in 2016. I don't recall Somerby saying anything about the ridiculousness of that. Why shouldn't this reporter ask, since the other major party seems to declare immediately?
"Let it be said that we're big Kaitlan Collins fans at this particular site. Due to her youth and her inexperience, we were major skeptics when CNN hired her and assigned her a major post, all at age 25."
ReplyDeleteHow old and what gender was the first reporter who asked about Biden's plans for 2024? Why doesn't Somerby tell us that?
This personal information about this particular reporter has nothing to do with the question she asked. It has nothing to do with anything at all. It is Somerby's way of suggesting that perhaps young women don't belong in journalism, or that they don't know how to ask the right questions.
You don't need to list these personal details unless you wish to generalize from this person to others having those same characteristics (which should be irrelevant).
"We vastly admire her confidence."
And this is the kind of statement that Somerby makes, coupled with criticism, to misdirect us from his actual intention. Although, he forgot to say that he is sure she is a good, decent person. But he goes on to tar the whole guild with her question.
Trump is the nominal head of the Republican party. Of course reporters are going to ask Biden about him, and the things that the Republicans do and say. That's how politics works.
If Somerby liked Kaitlan Collins, he wouldn't be emphasizing her youth and gender. He would be focusing on her work in a positive manner. That he does not, tells us what he really thinks of her.
"
Delete"If Somerby liked Kaitlan Collins, he wouldn't be emphasizing her youth and gender. He would be focusing on her work in a positive manner. That he does not, tells us what he really thinks of her."
It's a new ballgame. She challenged Biden.
She challenged Biden? Missed that. They were fluff, dumb questions that weren’t the least bit challenging to Biden. That he used them to question, comparatively, the staying power of the Republican Party was skillful.
DeleteI wasn’t praising Collin’s question or technique.
DeleteShe kept pushing Biden with a question that was a round about way of getting him to affirm unequivocally that he’ll run when he’s four years older.
He said something less than, “Piece of cake, honey child”, so she kept at it.
Soft way to ask Biden his feelings and expectations of himself. Good way to say the questions/charges concerning his competence had been asked and the president was raring with confidence.
Somerby wasn’t pleased with Collins for doggedly keeping to this route even if it was a tactic meant to make Biden “make news” at what would then be a brilliant presser that definitively settled the question of the president’s expectations, zest, and commitment. Yay, Biden! Yay, Collins!
Oh, well. There’s the determination you loved a year ago. It’s less than clean and sleek when you see it up close.,
Meh. Of course the whole things was 100% scripted.
DeleteDear Bob didn't like this particular episode (we guess he wasn't, after all, the only one in the target audience), but he really did like another one, where (we paraphrase) 'two legs bad four legs good Putin and Xi are devils'. So, everything is fine.
“lovecrime”. heh!
DeleteThanks to Collins questions, she was able to provide the public with absolutely nothing of value.
DeleteMaybe COVID and Biden's awesome response to it, slipped her mind like it did the rest of the corporate-owned, Right-wing media (AKA the media).
“have you decided whether you are going to run for reelection in 2024?”
ReplyDeleteSomerby makes fun of this. (Oddly enough, so did every commenter on MSNBC last night.)
Somerby must not be aware that there was/is a widely discussed right wing talking point that Biden, if elected, planned to serve only one term and then step aside for Harris.
This question addresses that rumor/conspiracy theory without mentioning it.
Here is the bio of Nancy Cordes, the first journalist to ask about Biden's 2024 election plans:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cbsnews.com/team/nancy-cordes/
She is a very experienced, top reporter at a major news network. It is reasonable to expect that a younger journalist might follow her lead, especially since Biden didn't fully explain his plans. Her questions were follow-ups to Biden's terse reply.
I agree that it is too early for such questions, but Trump is already making lists of potential 2024 candidates, so it isn't as if the question came out of nowhere.
But why would Somerby pick on the younger, less experienced reporter and not on Nancy Cordes? Like all bullies who choose weaker targets, Somerby avoids going after the more impressive Cordes, ridiculing her questions on the grounds of youth, not merit. But then, Somerby rarely makes a substantive argument about anything any more.
Somerby “picked on” Collins because she failed to live up to the admiration and esteem he has come to feel for her and expressed several times on the blog.
DeleteHave you read him this long and not understood that sentiments such as that are rare from him?
To my knowledge he’s never said anything about Cordes one or the other and he has certainly never let position or esteem in the industry ever stop him from knocking a journo he finds amiss.
This is ridiculous.
DeleteRight. It’s far more reasonable to accuse Somerby of going after “a weaker target” in Collins when Somerby has praised her several times in the past and voiced surprise and disappointment that she didn’t live up to his expectations in this encounter.
DeleteWe would like you to address this (no, not at all amazing) development, dear Bob. When you get a chance.
ReplyDeleteCNN's Defense of Chris Cuomo's Special COVID Privileges is Grotesque
It appears to be just a tad more important than the horrible crime of asking the veggie demigod about running for the second term, no?
Well, if a guy who got suckered out of $30K by Trump's scam university says so, who are we to disagree?
DeleteAt the press conference, Biden did not call on Fox News, who might have asked more difficult questions.
ReplyDeleteCheers
When Fox decides to become a legitimate news organization rather than an outlet for crank theories deligitimizing his election, Biden may decide to engage with them.
DeleteIt’s interesting to me that when Biden answering a question that has engaged his heart, he far and away more effective than when he’s is scripted.
DeleteThey script him because he’s lost a step or two and gets off track and stumblesfinding his way back.
If they would get an expert who could pinpoint what emotion particular issues trigger within him, and focus on that in the prep,he’d do far better.
In that context, he is able to riff away and still find his way back. He is able to sound relevant and sincere.
He did just fine without your help.
DeleteOnly a moron would watch that press conference and think the problem is with Biden and not the useless press.
DeleteCecelia,
You're pretty sure the problem at the press conference was Biden, correct?
What problem at the press conference?
DeleteThe press, and it's habit of putting distractions before news.
DeleteThe press didn't bring up COVID, because they couldn't "both sides" Biden's awesome response to it.
DeleteLeave it to Biden and the Democrats to take both, COVID and governing, seriously.
Delete“ The press, and it's habit of putting distractions before news.”
DeleteOh, that’s a problem now?
No, I don’t blame Biden for that.
Right wing mischaracterizations of Biden’s mental competency have the ironic effect of bolstering him when he outperforms their narrative, as he did at the press conference. Until he gets carted off to Walter Reed on a Saturday to be asked to identify the silhouettes of zoo animals, any right wing commentary regarding the state of his mental health can be considered partisan bullshit unless the commenter voiced such concerns during the Trump regime.
DeleteUnamused, I’ll run that parameter on conversation up the flagpole and salute it as I do all the other ones that are declared for the blogger and commenters here.
DeleteSuch decrees compromise the majority of utterances on the left.
May we suggest a new 'performance art' concept for the woke brothers and sisters: righteous outrage at bigotry against old-age dementia?
Delete"Cognitive decline"? No! Cognitive diversity! Different cognition! Take that, you bigots!
“Such decrees...”. Suggesting that right wing commenters show a little consistency in their unprofessional musings about the mental health of Trump vs Biden is likely to be too much for them. I don’t recall anyone suggesting that Trump needed an expert to give Him a prep course about emotional triggers for his off the rails bs spewed during press conferences and daily COVID briefings. Not feeling compromised here in the least.
DeleteInteresting that you don’t recall anyone critiquing Trump’s speeches and remarks. There were whole blog devoted to that subject.
DeleteOf course those blogs never said correct things in the correct way that focused on the correct reasons as to why and how to correct Trump so that the correct authors, filmmakers, orators, academics, average jills, readers, would not correctly feel injured in some correct way by the never correct blogger.
So there we go.
Guess I said that wrong and you intentionally misinterpreted. I don’t recall any RIGHT WING posters stating such criticisms of Trump. You know, people like yourself. So there you go.
DeleteI’ve made statements about Trump being caustic here on this blog, but that doesn’t matter.
DeleteI don’t have to do an equal time spot whenever I comment on Biden or anyone else.
I’ve never made a similar juvenile demand like that of anyone here.
Nor have you ever made a good faith argument to anyone here.
DeleteYou don’t need an argument in “good faith”.
DeleteYou need a reasoned one.
You can't reason with those who refuse to do so in good faith (i.e Right-wingers).
DeleteIt's why you work around, not with Republicans.
Or Joe Manchin.
Delete“I’ve made statements about Trump being caustic...” well good for you, maybe you’ve even said he had bad hair. That has nothing to do with his mental state.
Delete“I’ve never made a similar juvenile demand like that of anyone here...” for someone who occasionally throws around straw man accusations on this blog you seem pretty committed here to defining the term. No one has asked,let alone demanded, that you do anything. It was pointed out, by me, that it is partisan bullshit for individuals to comment on Biden’s ability to navigate a press conference having accepted the unhinged behaviors of his predecessor. That is not asking you to do anything. You are free to be as inconsistent as your little heart desires.
Unamused, interesting to know that being caustic is more akin to the characteristics of your hair than to your mental state.
DeleteLord, Jesus! Q-Anon members some of the most ridiculous people on the planet, but you people tell me that you are among your best and brightest!
I agree!
Show me a Right-winger who understands basic mathematics, and I'll show you a fraud.
DeleteCecelia,
DeleteState houses run by Right-wingers are in ignorant states, not mental states.
Biden never answered a question by calling the question "fake news" or saying that the reporter was rude.
ReplyDeleteThat may be because Collins wasn’t rude. She was direct, not confrontation, and she didn’t ask a question that implied hypocrisy or duplicity on the part of Biden.
DeleteCollins was not at all prodding or dismissive of his answers.
As usual too, all polite push back was from the left- You and Obama think the filibuster is racist. Why not end it? Are you going to do something about guns? How will you fix the optics on the border?
And of course,- Do you think you’ll run against Trump so we can plausibly start following him around and gin this up into The Empire Strikes Back because our ratings are dropping?
The reporters who Trump maligned were not "rude" either but were just doing their jobs.
DeleteJim Acosta had colleagues who ripped him for being an oppositional showboat.
DeleteRe; Acosta
DeleteCollins is getting a lot of flak too.
Acosta was one too many clowns at Trump's one-ring circus.
DeleteSame with the rest of CNN.
Delete