SATURDAY: When The Five reviewed the president's speech...

SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2024

...they said he should pee in a cup: No serious person forms an opinion about a State of the Union address until The Five have had a chance to check in.

Yesterday, at 5 o'clock sharp, the Fox News panel began a lengthy of President Biden's address. 

As usual, the panel was evenly split, with four (4) standard Fox News types arrayed against one (1) lone liberal. Serving as moderator, resident loudmouth Judge Jeanine offered this initial overview of the president speech:

PIRRO (3/8/24): It's five o'clock in New York City, and this is The Five.

It was must-scream TV! The president yelling at Americans for over an hour during one of the most hyper-partisan State of the Unions. 

President Biden's lack of leadership was on full display in a speech designed to please his base of MSNBC flunkies and not the American people.

One of the chyrons said, OLD YELLER. The discussion continued from there.

The first segment ran until 5:13. At that point, the judge teased the program's second segment in the manner shown:

PIRRO: Coming up, "a tour de force." Joe Biden's clapping seals in the media give a slobbering review of his State of the Union.

We'll say this for Judge Jeanine. Yes, she may be a world-class loudmouth. But when she's cast in the moderator role, she plays it right down the middle! 

After a commercial break, that second segment unfolded. By its conclusion, an overall assessment had clicked into place: 

President Biden was hopped up on drugs during Thursday night's address.

After several feints from several performers, it fell to TV's silliest child to articulate this assessment. Lone liberal Jessica Tarlov had finally addressed the insinuations, leading to this declaration:

WATTERS: I'm not a doctor, but they are giving him something, Jessica!

If you see a horse, and the horse is old and injured and mopes around the barnyard, and then all of a sudden you race the horse and he fires out of the gate and laps everyone, what did they give the horse?

Jessica, the man has walked around lethargically for the last three years. Barely picks his head up, can't hear, is out of breath, falls asleep, skips dinner internationally, dies out during funeral processions.

All of a sudden, this guy is like on speed or something, Jessica. To dismiss it like, "Oh, he's definitely clean"— He should pee in a cup.

PIRRO: [LAUGHTER]

There was more to this gentleman's diagnosis. But you've now gotten the general drift of the program's initial half hour.

At 5:27 p.m., it fell to substitute panelist Shannon Bream to tease the program's third segment. For the record, it seems to us that a serious point of concern did arise during the upcoming segment:

BREAM: Coming up, Laken Riley's mom ripping into President Biden for fumbling her daughter's name.

In our view, this next segment did involve a teachable moment. In this morning's New York Times, Annie Karni reports on the general topic while omitting one event:

KARNI (3/9/24): As he made his way to the rostrum, Mr. Biden gasped and appeared taken aback by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the hard-right Republican from Georgia, who had dressed herself as a one-woman political protest. She wore a red “Make America Great Again” cap and a T-shirt emblazoned with the name of Laken Riley, the 22-year-old nursing student allegedly killed by a Venezuelan migrant, a horror story Republicans have used as a cudgel against Mr. Biden.

“It’s about Laken Riley!” she cried out later from her seat during the segment of Mr. Biden’s speech devoted to the U.S. border with Mexico, in which Mr. Biden blamed his “predecessor” (as he referred to Mr. Trump all night) for tanking a bipartisan border security bill.

Ms. Greene saw her moment, interrupting the president to call the suspect in Ms. Riley’s killing an “illegal.” The authorities have charged a Venezuelan migrant who crossed into the United States illegally and was then released on parole. “Say her name!” Ms. Greene shouted.

In response, Mr. Biden did, in fact, say her name, albeit botching the pronunciation so it sounded more like “Lincoln Riley.” The president referred to her as “an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal—that’s right.”

“But how many of thousands of people are being killed by legals?” he said.

[...]

He added: “To her parents, I say, my heart goes out to you. Having lost children myself, I understand.”

The president’s off-script use of the term “illegal” drew immediate pushback from progressives. “No human being is illegal,” Representative Delia Ramirez, Democrat of Illinois, posted on social media shortly after he uttered the word.

For what it's worth, we've seen no videotape in which Taylor Greene refers to the alleged murderer as "an illegal." It may be that she actually did, but Karni offers no source for the claim.

That said:

This was one of the most dramatic moments in which Biden ventured off-prompter during Thursday's address. When he did, he made a series of errors or apparent errors:

He mispronounced Laken Riley's name. He then used a term which generated instant pushback from a wide array of progressives. 

Also, he authored that peculiar question about the "thousands of people being killed by legals." The utterance was interpreted in various ways on various sides of the aisle.

That said, this morning's Times report didn't include what happened next. Here's the way Jesse Watters introduced the third segment on yesterday's The Five:

WATTERS: Joe Biden, botching the name of Laken Riley, the Georgia nursing student brutally murdered at the hands of an illegal alien. Watch:

[Videotape of Biden and Taylor Greene]

WATTERS: Laken Riley's mom slamming Joe Biden as "pathetic" for fumbling the name of her daughter, and adding this:  "If you are going to say her name (even when forced to do so) at least say the right name.

And Democrats are upset because the president called the killer "an illegal."

[Videotape of several Democrats criticizing Biden for his use of that term]

As the segment unfolded, Biden was slammed for mispronouncing Riley's name and for failing to speak to her parents. Democrats were slammed for allegedly caring more about language issues than about the murder of Riley itself.

The report in this morning's New York Times omitted the statement by Riley's mother. Also, it included this passage—a passage which is perfectly accurate, but speaks to a claim we've seen no one make on Fox:

KARNI: (For years, studies have found that undocumented immigrants have much lower crime rates than citizens born in the United States and legal immigrants across a variety of offenses, including violent crimes, drug crimes and property crimes.)

That passage addresses a claim we've seen no one make. Here are the claims which have been widely made by red tribe observers, even on such clownish programs as The Five:

Familiar claims on red tribe TV shows:
For the bulk of his first three years, President Biden made no serious effort to stop the rapidly increasing flow of unauthorized immigrants across the southern border. As a result, an untold number of violent people were presumably able to cross the border along with everyone else. 

It was one of those violent people who is alleged to have murdered Laken Riley. For three years, the Biden Admin made no serious effort to staunch the flow across the border, even as they kept insisting that the border was secure and closed.

It seems to us that red tribe pundits are raising perfectly valid points when they make such arguments. Until big city mayor began to complain, it seems to us that the Biden administration had been weirdly silent about the vast increase in chaos at the southern border. 

As part of this package, a very large number of unvetted people have been allowed to stay in the country over the past several years. One of those people was Jose Ibarra, who has been accused of the murder of Laken Riley. 

In the wake of this highly publicized murder, remarkably clueless blue tribe pundits have laughed about the silly voters who see the border as a major issue. In one case, a major figure at MSNBC seemed to be unaware of the most elementary facts about the killing of Riley. 

Completing the rule of three, the president then mispronounced Riley's name in the course of making a jumbled off-prompter presentation. So it goes in our unsustainable modern world—in a world whose major news orgs are often rigidly "segregated by viewpoint." 

Thanks to this rigid segregation, we live in a modern Babel. Red tribe voters hear one set of facts. Blue tribe voters—even blue tribe media stars—may be completely clueless concerning topics which are going viral on the streets where they and their colleagues don't live.

Or then again, they may not care. We can't rule that out.

The clowns at The Five were in typical form during the bulk of yesterday's program. There were moments of typical clown-car stupidity which we haven't even mentioned.

The Five is an imitation of life, a gruesome parody of journalism. In the end, it seemed to us that yesterday's program also raised some reasonable points.

Red tribe voters mourn a killing; blue pundits crack jokes and laugh. So it goes in our rigidly segregated America—in America Red and Blue.

Can a large modern nation really function this way? Go ahead! Take a good look around!