Damned If You Do, and Damned If You Don't

 

Friends, I highly recommend this article to you.  It's by Brian Karem, formerly Playboy's Senior White House correspondent -- so you know he carries a lot of weight, morally and intellectually speaking, among Democrats and progressives.  It's what's being said in the article that counts, though, not who's saying it.  Karem argues that, by naming Joseph R. Biden as Generalissimo of the Left, progressives may have...erred!  Can you imagine???  That almost sounds like, well, criticism!  I mean, you can't bad-mouth Joe Biden, right?  He's fighting a noble battle to "restore the soul of America" and save it from Trumpian fascism.  Heck, he's the anti-Trump!  Why would any leftist call him out, therefore?  Politics, especially in a two-party democracy, is a zero-sum game.  Any harm done to Biden and the Democrats is, almost by definition, helpful to Trump and Republicans.  What gives?

The answer is that Brian Karem is this thing called a "journalist".  Journalists are supposed to tell it like it is.  They're supposed to investigate, ask questions, look under rocks and see what's crawling and squirming there.  For two years, mainstream journalists have resolutely refused to do their jobs, as we all know, when it comes to Joe Biden, the Biden family, Kamala Harris, and the Democratic Party.  They've given all Dems and progressives a pass when it comes to scrutiny and criticism.  In fact, they've even joined in the mammoth effort to suppress, censor, demean, and intimidate any one who does scrutinize or criticize Biden and his ilk.  They've done so, as Karem more or less admits, with one overriding goal in mind: the defeat of Donald Trump and the GOP.  While painfully aware that Biden and the Democrats do have flaws, they've long since decided that these minor imperfections pale in comparison to the racism, sexism, lunacy, and treason that, they say, characterize the political right.  And, if you believed everything that these people believe about Trump and Trumpers, you'd probably think and say exactly the same thing. Now, though, that Biden is the President of the United States, and the Democratic Party is -- gasp! -- the governing party, these activist journalists feel like maybe, just maybe, they should return to their professional roots and subject the Biden Administration and Congressional Democrats to a little bit of constructive criticism.  In fact, the time may even have come to ask the question that no one on the Left was allowed to ask for two long years: is Joe Biden really the best that the Democratic Party can come up with?  Is he, more to the point, the right man to lead progressives, the United States of America, and the free world?  I mean, he is an old white guy (Karem calls him "patriarchal"), which is inherently suspect.  He's also tanking in the polls, and he can barely string a sentence together at times.  Makes you think, right?

If you read Karem's article, and I hope you will, you'll notice that he spends far more time insulting Donald Trump and Republicans than he does critically analyzing the leadership of Joe Biden.  And that's to be expected.  At first, any faultfinding re: the "savior" of "America's soul" will be apologetic and tentative in nature.  Poor Brian Karem isn't quite sure if he's allowed to say anything bad about Joe Biden.  Not yet.  He's painfully aware and deeply afraid that he may be pilloried as an enemy of progressivism for doing so.  He writes: "It seems almost perverse to criticize the current president for anything, compared to the batshit craziness of those on the other side of the aisle." And yet, Karem feels that ultimately the time has come.  He thus cites some back channel communication among Democrats and leftists about Biden's, uh, foibles.  He quotes one Dem insider saying, "We don't know — when he shows up, are we going to get someone barely there, or someone who's on his game?"  Ouch!  Karem goes on to write that recently he posed a question to Biden himself, and his "answer made no sense, and he took no follow-up questions. He walked away. That's part of his problem.  Many members of the press have long complained about the lack of communication from the president".  So Biden isn't just erratic and incoherent -- he's also aloof and unaccountable, and the press really hates that, as you can imagine.  Double ouch!  Karem concludes that "The trick for us in the press corps is framing the narrative. While Biden deserves criticism, it isn't on the same level as the outright outrage leveled against the former president, who remains the driving force behind an effort to overthrow our government."  Get that?  It's okay to criticize Joe Biden, just as long as you remind your readers, viewers, and listeners that Trump is still a million times worse.  Interesting.  And yet, for conservatives, this represents real progress.  It represents a rediscovery by the press of its foremost obligation -- to seek out and expose the truth -- even if their execution of that sacred charge leaves much to be desired.  It represents, for Republicans, an opportunity, even a golden opportunity, in 2022 and beyond, when, for the first time since 2019, and arguably since 2015, the mainstream media feels like it can direct some of its belligerence, scorn, and disrespect at both parties, not just one of them.  Wow!

 

So pay close attention to articles like Brian Karem's.  They represent a sea change in the media environment, and in the framing and construction, if you will, of public opinion, that could and probably will herald major gains for Republicans in the midterm elections.  They also represent the seed of what could become, if Biden continues to lead his progressive confederates into the political wilderness, an outright rebellion against old guard, Bidenist leadership.  Karem talks about "whispers" against Biden on the Left.  Well, every campaign of vilification starts out with soft-spoken barbs, and it usually ends with vitriolic shouts.  Expect, as night follows day, that the denigration of Joe Biden will escalate steadily. And if, as most observers predict, the midterm elections turn out disastrously for Team Blue, expect calls for Biden's ouster to become a popular refrain -- with long-term consequences for Democrats and progressives that we can only guess at.

 

And, just for the record, Brian Karem started it.  He may never live it down!

 

https://www.salon.com/2022/02/03/the-whisper-campaign-against-joe-biden-wont-stop--unless-he-can-change-the-narrative/ 

 

In other news, here's a great defense of Realpolitik and spheres of influence in international affairs, which, as the author points out, we ignore at our peril!

 

https://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2022/02/03/spheres_of_influence_are_a_reality_815186.html 

 

The RNC has formally censured Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for defying the consensus of the party and the Republican caucus in the House, for endangering Americans' rights to free speech and due process, and for prizing a vendetta against Donald Trump over the national interest.  Hear hear!

 

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/rnc-censure-kinzinger-cheney/2022/02/04/id/1055555/ 

 

Michael Avenatti, once the darling of CNN and MSNBC and one of fiercest Trump critics around, is heading to jail.  And that's ironic, because he garnered fame and praise on the Left mainly by assuring anyone who would listen that DJT himself was prison-bound.  Guess he missed the mark!

 

https://nypost.com/2022/02/04/michael-avenatti-convicted-of-stealing-300k-from-stormy-daniels/ 

 

Finally, how nuts is critical race theory and the people whose brains have been addled by it?  Pretty nuts!  Here's a woke Hollywood actress apologizing for being black-ish, or, in other words, not black enough. 

 

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2022/02/04/thandiwe-newton-apologizes-to-darker-skinned-actresses-im-sorry-that-im-the-one-chosen/