MONDAY, MARCH 23, 2026
We'd say the answer is yes: The president's erratic behavior has continued all through this day. That said, we want to explore the claim that news orgs in Blue America may sometimes "sift" the news.
For the record, what happens when a news org "sifts" the news—when a news org engages in selective reporting? For starters, such news orgs may report the facts which align with preferred tribal storylines, while possibly failing to report other relevant facts which don't.
In this morning's report, we discussed a fairly obvious bit of "sifting" by the Fox News Channel—more specifically, by the trio of friends who co-host the four-hour morning show, Fox & Friends Weekend. Now, let's turn to the corresponding news report in yesterday's New York Times.
We refer to yesterday's front-page report about the death of Robert Mueller. The lengthy report—essentially, it was an obituary—was written by Tim Weiner, a former national security correspondent for the Times and a highly regarded, best-selling author.
For starters, credit where due:
In our view, the New York Times frequently tends to disappear the many borderline crazy statements the sitting president posts on Truth Social. In our view, this seems like a way of avoiding the need to report on a very important topic—the possible state of the sitting president's mental / emotional / cognitive health.
In this case, credit where due! In this case, the president's "jaw-dropping" post about Mueller's death was not disappeared by the Times. Headline included, Weiner's report started like this:
Robert S. Mueller III, 81, Dies; Rebuilt F.B.I. and Led Trump Inquiry
Robert S. Mueller III, who led the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 12 tumultuous years, brought politically explosive indictments as a special counsel examining Russia’s attack on the 2016 presidential election, and then concluded that he could neither absolve nor accuse President Trump of a crime, died on Friday. He was 81.
His family confirmed the death in a statement but did not say where he died or specify the cause. Last August, the family disclosed publicly that Mr. Mueller was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in the summer of 2021. The law firm WilmerHale, from which Mr. Mueller retired in 2022, said he died on Friday night in Charlottesville, Va.
Mr. Trump remained unforgiving of Mr. Mueller’s investigation even after Mr. Mueller’s death. On learning of it on Saturday, the president posted on Truth Social: “Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!”
Credit where due! On Fox, the highlighted statement had been disappeared. On this occasion, the New York Times sought safety in no such avoidance.
On the other hand, it had initially seemed to us that yesterday's Times report glossed the facts, in a familiar way, about the last major assignment of Mueller's career. We refer to Mueller's work, alluded to above, "as special counsel in a case where the chief subject of the investigation was the president of the United States."
Did the Times report gloss some facts about that matter? Weiner's account of the "Mueller report" started off like this:
The final 448-page report went to [Bill] Barr, who by then was the attorney general, on March 22, 2019. Mr. Mueller had trusted Mr. Barr, his longtime colleague and a family friend, to deliver its conclusions, unvarnished, to the American people. He would be sorely disappointed.
The report concluded that Russia had systemically sought to help Mr. Trump win the election, and that the candidate and his campaign had encouraged their clandestine assistance. It laid out 10 cases in which the president and his aides had sought to impede the F.B.I. investigation. Its key passage read: “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
But the attorney general, while keeping the text of the report secret, ostensibly to redact sensitive information, announced only that “the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”
Mr. Trump proclaimed that he had been “totally exonerated.”
Yesterday, it seemed to us that this passage glossed the facts of this matter. Today, after rereading that part of the Times report, we're still puzzled by what it says.
As you can see, the passage says that AG Barr failed to include the "key passage" in the Mueller report when he "announced" the statement quoted above, apparently on March 24, 2019. Here's the problem:
On that same day, Barr sent a four-page letter about the Mueller report to the relevant congressional committees. Its contents were reported by the New York Times that very day—and in the relevant part of the letter, Barr instantly quoted the "key passage" which he supposedly didn't "announce."
Here's the relevant New York Times report. (Headline: "Mueller Finds No Trump-Russia Conspiracy, but Stops Short of Exonerating President on Obstruction.") The report appeared on the front page of the Times on March 25, 2019, with an online link to the four-page letter.
The "key passage" quoted by Weiner was instantly cited in that Times report. Unless we misunderstand what Weiner was saying, that "key passage" in the Mueller report was hardly a secret.
We're sorry now that we ever mentioned this (dated) topic this morning. In all honesty, we now have no idea what Weiner and his editors meant by the passage we've posted.
That said:
Back in real time, we Blues were sure that President Trump surely had to have committed obstruction of justice. From that day right on through yesterday, it has always seemed to us that we Blues proceeded to overstate the degree of perfidy attributable to Barr, in precisely the way yesterday's report seems to have revived.
What were Weiner and his editors referring to in the passage we've posted? At this point, we don't know. But tribal grievances never die in highly tribalized times like these. That fact is put on display every day of the week on the Fox News Channel's highest-rated programs.
We're sorry we brought this up. But yes—Blue orgs, like their Red counterparts, do sometimes "sift" the news. They sometimes report the facts they like while omitting the facts they don't.
As seen on yesterday's Fox & Friends Weekend, Fox News is clownishly sunk in this practice. We'll be exploring such behaviors all week.
In conclusion: In conclusion, credit where due! The New York Times reported the sitting president's extremely strange Truth Social post about Robert Mueller's death!
All too often (in our view), the timorous newspaper fails to report such potentially worrying conduct by the sitting president.
