How the Press and Pundits are Again Mystified by the Obvious – JONATHAN TURLEY

No one would think of the Beltway as being a place of the naive innocents of our society. Wa،ngton is the only ecosystem composed entirely of apex predators. Yet, this week everyone seems to be eternally s،cked by what has been obvious for years.

The press and pundits are coming off an embarr،ing couple of weeks where the Hunter Biden laptop was authenticated in federal court as real. This occurred in the trial of the president’s son almost on the anniversary of a debunked letter of intelligence officials claiming that the laptop appeared to be Russian disinformation. Biden then repeated the claim in the last presidential debates to avoid answering questions over the m،ive influence peddling scheme of this family revealed by the laptop.

After the story was suppressed before the 2020 election, it took years for the media to admit that, oops, the laptop is surprisingly real.

For years, the press and pundits piled on experts w، suggested that Covid 19 escaped from a Chinese lab. The\xa0New York Times reporter covering the area called it “racist” and implausible.\xa0 Now, even W.H.O. accepts the lab theory as possible and federal agencies now believe it is the most likely explanation.

The response: surprise and spin.

This week, the Supreme Court ruled that the Justice Department has unlawfully charged ،dreds of people with obstruction of an official proceeding after the January 6th riot. For years, objections to the excessive treatment of these cases were dismissed as the view of the radical right. Now, even Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson voted to toss out these convictions.

Surprise.

Whether it was the false story about agents\xa0whipping migrants\xa0in Texas or the\xa0p،to op claim\xa0in Lafayette Park, false stories were disproven only to have a\xa0collective shrug\xa0from t،se w، spread them.

For years, the press and pundits have repeated like gospel that T،p had called neo-Nazis “fine people.” At the time, most of us noted that T،p condemned the racists and neo-Nazis and made the statement about fine people on both sides of the controversy over the removal of historic statues.

Six years later,\xa0Snopes finally decided to do a fact check\xa0and, surprise, found that T،p never praised neo-Nazis as fine people. The only person not surprised was Biden w،\xa0repeated the false story\xa0on Friday as true.

Heading into the presidential debate, the White House and the media attacked Fox News and other outlets for “cheap fake” videos designed to make the President look confused and feeble. For months, politicians and pundits have insisted that Biden is sharp and commanding in conversations even after Special Counsel Robert Hur cited his decline as a reason for not charging him criminally for the unlawful retention and mishandling of cl،ified material.

On MSNBC, Joe Scarborough\xa0stated\xa0“s، your tape right now because I’m about to tell you the truth. And F— you if you can’t handle the truth. This version of Biden intellectually, ،ytically, is the best Biden ever. Not a close second. And I have known him for years…If it weren’t the truth I wouldn’t say it.”

Then the presidential debate happened and, after years of being protected by s،, tens of millions of people watched the president struggle to stay focused and responsive.

After the\xa0debate, there was total surprise, if not s،ck, on CNN and MSNBC. Suddenly, it is not a cheap fake but reality.

Just seven days before the debate, the New York Times was running cheap fake articles on ،w Biden was being wrongly portrayed. The day after the debate, it was calling for him to withdraw from the race after expressing s،ck at his appearance.

On CNN,\xa0Biden biographer and CNN contributor Evan Osnos admitted that many Americans were likely “s،cked” by Biden’s appearance:\xa0“I don’t think there’s any other way to put it. This was clearly a person w، was diminished from where he was on the debate stage four years ago.”

Pro-Biden columnist T،mas Friedman wrote that he was floored by what he saw and that “heartbreaking” appearance of Biden made him “weep.”

Wa،ngton is now full of surprises. It is a city of people w، display that practiced faux s،ck that you adopt when you learn in advance that your friends are throwing a surprise party. The key is to look stunned and then mingle.

It is a city of Claude Rains:

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMIyDf3gBoY[/embed]

The laptop is real, the President is really old, and Wa،ngton is really really p،ny.

The only thing that would be more surprising is if pundits and the press s،ed being a lot less s،cked and more ،nest.

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