I have previously written how the level of advocacy and bias has created a danger of a de facto state media in the United States. It is possible to have such a system by consent rather than coercion. Given that long concern, a letter drafted by the Biden White House Legal Counsel’s Office was striking in a call for major media to “ramp up their scrutiny” of House Republicans “for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies.”
The message is curious and concerning, particularly in the aggressive role being played by the White House Counsel’s office under Stuart Frank Delery.
First, as I have previously noted, the White House is now actively involved in pushing narratives and denying factual allegations linked to the Biden corruption scandal. That could create Nixonian-type allegations of the abuse of office in the use of federal employees to counter impeachment efforts.
Second, the letter was drafted by Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House Counsel’s Office. So White House lawyers are now enlisting the media in a counter media campaign against impeachment? The letter removes any pretense of separation between the Biden personal legal team and the White House Counsel’s office. Sams has been the most aggressive White House official in actively swatting down allegations of corruption as well as the President’s documents investigation.
Third, the letter calls for the media to actively support the White House account. The draft of the letter is a call for what I have previously criticized as “advocacy journalism” where reporters frame stories to advance their own viewpoints or values.
Sams wrote “[c]overing impeachment as a process story – Republicans say X, but the White House says Y – is a disservice to the American public who relies on the independent press to hold those in power accountable.” In other words, media should (and it has for years) decline to give equal attention to allegations against the Bidens and instead tell the public what the truth is.
It is a call for media to tailor the coverage to push the position of the White House against this effort to ramp up the investigation into corruption. It is an approach that is already embraced by many in the media. That was evident in the meltdown of Washington Post columnist Philip Bump recently when he was confronted by countervailing evidence in the Biden scandals. Before storming out, Bump chastised the interviewer for not just taking his work as the “putative expert” and said that he had enough “because you don’t listen to the press. I’m sitting here and I’m telling you, you’re wrong about these things, and you don’t listen, and you continue to insist upon things that are, you know, parsing of language.”
That appears the approach pushed by Sams, who specifically references Facebook and Fox as enemies of the truth: “in the modern media environment, where every day liars and hucksters peddle disinformation and lies everywhere from Facebook to Fox, process stories that fail to unpack the illegitimacy of the claims on which House Republicans are basing all their actions only serve to generate confusion, put false premises in people’s feeds, and obscure the truth.”
The letter has an uncomfortable feeling of marching orders to the media. This is a media that followed the lead of Biden associates in spreading the false story that the Hunter laptop was Russian disinformation.
This is the media that refused to acknowledge the authenticity of the laptop until only recently — long after the presidential election.
This was the media that only recently admitted that President Biden has been lying about denials related to his son’s influence peddling.
Yet, the White House is now calling for the media to again form the wagons around the President and attack the impeachment effort as it did the laptop and the corruption investigation.
Once again, what is most disturbing is that the White House shows no reluctance or concern in making such an open pitch to the press. There is a sense of license in using the media as an extension of the White House press push. The fact that this is a representative of the White House counsel’s office is particularly chilling. This is not the press office but the counsel for the President calling on media to form a unified front against the Republicans and the impeachment inquiry.
The letter is an alarming erosion of separation of the White House Counsel’s office from the Biden defense team. It also confirms an active and aggressive role of White House officials in swatting down allegations against the President. While the staff obviously is not expected to be neutral on impeachment, there is a careful line that past White House counsels have walked between fulfilling their duties to the office as opposed to the officeholder.
Is anyone surprised that the White House is pushing a narrative?? Or even the media may go with their narrative? Yet, half the country does not believe a word from the White House or media. It is not working.
How about trying to publish unvarnished truth regardless of where it goes.
A majority of Americans don’t want Biden impeached. Thank you, MSM.
I don’t want him impeached either, that would only gain sympathy votes for the prog/left. I want him hauled into court for treason, tax evasion, general grifting and any other such crime he has committed in his decades old stint as a weasel. Hauled away in an orange jumpsuit and placed in the general population at Folsom Prison. Just as a good example for other such grifters with plans to follow in his criminal path.
Whimsicalmama,
I agree.
Let the inquiry lay out all the evidence to the point it is so overwhelming even our useful idiot leftist friends cannot defend Biden.
Let the public judge him in the election.
Then, afterwards, bring forth charges of him as a mere citizen and family members who can be tried and convicted.
Be a glorious end to a crime family.
American people demand justice !
Ok JT, you can knock it off with the feigned astonishment. These people have shown their audacity and disdain for the American people, over and over again.
Parading his disgraceful adult son all over Washington and around the world with him, KJP insisting the story will never change, as she changes the story, Joe repeating the same lies he has told before, even after being reminded that he’s lying, the list goes on…
Adam, nothing to see here folks, just move along.
That, Independent Bob, is exactly what the New York Times said about Hitler and the Holocaust, as it was occurring.
Biden has an extensive history of plagiarizing and telling lies. He did so in law school and was caught. He lifted words from speeches made by other politicians word for word of “British politician Neil Kinnock, Robert Kennedy, and President John F. Kennedy.”
The list of whoppers is extensive and mind boggling and the press, to their credit, exposed him. This is a clip from a Time Magazine Piece from then. “Biden’s short-lived 1988 campaign would end up having long-lasting effect on future political campaigns and political journalism, with Walter Shapiro arguing in a December 1987 TIME essay that it had helped turn political reporters into “character cops” who trade in “paparazzi politics and pop psychology.”
Just a few days ago, Biden announced that he visited the 911 site the day after the event. He did visit but it was 9 days later.
There is not a fair-minded citizen of this country who would trust him to be their pilot, chauffeur, mow their yard, go shopping for them. He is incapacitated, yet this spectacle of him being our President is ridiculous. His official WH schedule is virtually empty. He is often at his beachside home or attending a dinner here and there.
This is the children’s story, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
Despite an Appellate court ordering the BIden Administration to stop advising media companies, specifically, social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, the Biden Administration is still offering advice and instructions to…media companies. Shouldn’t they be held in contempt??
I suppose we should be looking to Merritt Garland to handle all this inappropriate behavior – oh wait – isn’t he the gatekeeper for the sanctity of the biden crime spree? I suppose we are at that “between a rock and a hard place” in our nation’s political history, We need to take action to set this right but I doubt if there are enough true American patriots remaining to get that job done.
Is any thinking person educated in history still willing to believe we are not dealing with a regime? The DNC is no longer a political party.
The scary part to me: younger people think this is how our government, our society, is supposed to work. Older millennials at least got a taste of the pre-Obama era. It is clear the left will simply never relent or compromise, and by any means necessary is absolutely on the table. Was it ever that tricky to puzzle out how all dem levers, without exception, have had not just similar, but *identical* talking points? Give me a break. This has been going on for years and as with so many other 21st century ills, no one could be bothered to take it seriously.
I don’t know which is worse: that it’s happening in a free country, or that those involved are so narcissistic, petty, privileged, and lazy, they are eager to comply.
It definitely feels like we crossed over into something beyond 2 political parties and their typical differences, to something far more sinister. Whoever is pulling the strings to this puppet regime needs to be outed. If not, we are in for unprecedented times.
If one ever needed an example that his Administration is run by authoritarian thugs, this is it. If this Administration is not terminated in 2024, there is little hope for the preservation of the First Amendment.
The Dems have been so successful in controlling the (now) state media that they don’t even bother to hide their attempts. The corruption is out in plain sight, taunting the public to challenge their grip on gaslighting, propaganda, and outright lies. How much longer before pitch forks and torches are in order?
Ian Sams letter to the mainstream media was completely unnecessary. They are already loyal Democratic foot soldiers.
Who here would be surprised to find out that there are emails being sent to members of the press, telling them their precise talking points.
Case in point, all the jibber-jabber about how “everyone” was calling for Shokin’s ouster turned out to be nothing but a narrative pushed out by Biden’s handlers.
Never mind the story from both of the principals involved, Shokin and Zlovchevsky, who both said the investigation was going on. And Archers testimony that it was the very reason they hired Hunter. Never mind that Archer said IT WAS JOE that Hunter and Zlovchevsky called from Dubai.
Its the recorded calls with Poroshenko that are going to begin the end for Pedo Joe. And if they ever get the Zlovchevsky recordings, even the likes of Dennis wont be able to twist and contort enough.
Who here would be surprised to find out that there are emails being sent to members of the press, telling them their precise talking points.
We only have to go back to the DNC emails(not hacked by Russia) to see proof the DNC had a list of ~70 “journalists” that would eagerly lend their by-line to DNC created copy.
We are far past debating if the leftist media is honest. Everyday they prove themselves nothing but the propaganda arm of the DNC
The level of collusion between the Biden admin and MSM is shockingly disturbing.
To what lengths will they go during the impeachment inquiry?
The 2024 election? If Biden loses, will we go from “the most secure, fair election!” in 2020, to “the Russian’s stole the election for Trump!” in 2024?
To what other lengths will they go?
The really sick part is MSM is absolutely okay with this level of banana republic tactics.
Perhaps we should stop referring to them as main stream media and begin calling them the propaganda arm of the democrat prog/left. Do not give them the title of a media but rather call them partisan apparatchiks for a specific ideology and treat them like the snake oil salesmen that they are and confront them each time they pass off an untruth as fact. We really need to much more aggressive with them as they are the enemy of the state – wolves in sheeps clothing.
Whimsicalmama,
Agreed.
DNC propagandists it is.
The problem is that so many on the proh/left have been trained to think that a banana republic is preferable to a federal republic of states with a constitution and bill of rights. They actually believe, in their delusion, that they are crusaders for the just cause. Until they are either aged out of our society or severely reeducated as to their planned ignorance, they will continue on this course, just like a well trained mule will continue to plod on.
Shades of Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Xi. There is no speech unless allowed unless approved by the White House.
Nailed it!!!!!
Wow, right in the face of every American. Hard not to believe the MSM isn’t funded with Dark money.
Correction: it is hard to believe that it isn’t and hasn’t always been…
Save your bullets Republicans…fast forward to the point where Biden Pardons himself, family members and some of his long-term Political operatives and disappears into history with a well feathered nest.
Problem is Biden is only the poster child for the evil of the Democrat Party. The rot goes to its every core and unless and until that is excised somehow….the show goes on….and on….and on.
I am sure that even the Terminex Guy couldn’t clean out this infestation of vermin. Something much more powerful is going to be needed to cleanse this cesspool, but do we have the stomach for it? It is going to get mean and dirty before it’s over.
That could create Nixonian-type allegations of the abuse of office in the use of federal employees to counter impeachment efforts.
regarding abuses of the Chief Executive, Nixon had nothing on Obama. Eric Holder looks like Old Testament Philosopher King Solomon compared to Merrick Garland. That Biden has outperformed Obama’s abuses is not even disputed. Biden’s Handlers don’t even have to lure “journalists” to the White House press briefings with bags of cocaine. Hunter is more than able to leave samples behind
Meanwhile the United Nations has declared the US Southern Border as the most dangerous immigrant route in the world, surpassing all others on the planet, with corpses strewn everywhere. The estimate of dead corpses recorded is quite low given many have not been reported.
US-Mexico border, ‘world’s deadliest’ overland migration route
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/09/1140622
Joe Biden: I did that!
Leftists: There is no evidence of Biden doing anything wrong!
There is no evidence the Left have a soul.
” The estimate of dead corpses recorded is quite low given many have not been reported.”
Tom Homan reported that the vast majority of children dying in the desert can never be found. Their bodies were eaten by the wildlife living there.
Leftists don’t care about those children because the world is over populated? Global Warming? Misanthropy?
Looks like a conspiracy to me, people working together to form a narrative for the WH and the Biden Crime Family. Could we see RICO charges against them all? Biden’s for sure, now maybe some smart ass lawyers and some “journalists” can all go down that RICO Road with the next DOJ!
and the GOP will do nothing but Defend Democrats and give them MORE trillions
What is the NEXT state to arrest Trump? Do we even grow bananas in this republic?
I am beginning to wonder if GOP actually stands for geriatric old pundits.
I’ve come to the conclusion that there remains no means by which you can deal with the prog/left in a civilized, lawful, or gentle nature. Like talking to a wall in order to get it to move; there is only one effective measure to make it go away.
Democrats lots their last Civil War…they are fighting their Second! GOP…has not yet begun to fight. Sad
That is a nice analogy but times have changed and while the dems have command over so much within the education/media industries at this time, the Republicans have developed a subspecies known as a Rino, that is an extreme hindrance to their overall political health and zeal. I think that the Republicans need to work on their own house before attempting the destruction of an opponent’s.
Pravda has received its Dictate. Welcome to open Fascism!