Media, Politics

The Art of Being Eternally Shocked: How the Press and Pundits are Again Mystified by the Obvious

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

The press and pundits are coming off an embarrassing 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 massive 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 who suggested that Covid 19 escaped from a Chinese lab. The New York Times reporter covering the area called it “racist” and implausible.  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 hundreds 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 whipping migrants in Texas or the photo op claim in Lafayette Park, false stories were disproven only to have a collective shrug from those who spread them.

For years, the press and pundits have repeated like gospel that Trump had called neo-Nazis “fine people.” At the time, most of us noted that Trump 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, Snopes finally decided to do a fact check and, surprise, found that Trump never praised neo-Nazis as fine people. The only person not surprised was Biden who repeated the false story on 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 classified material.

On MSNBC, Joe Scarborough stated “start 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, analytically, 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 staff, tens of millions of people watched the president struggle to stay focused and responsive.

After the debate, there was total surprise, if not shock, 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 how Biden was being wrongly portrayed. The day after the debate, it was calling for him to withdraw from the race after expressing shock at his appearance.

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

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

Washington is now full of surprises. It is a city of people who display that practiced faux shock 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:

The laptop is real, the President is really old, and Washington is really really phony.

The only thing that would be more surprising is if pundits and the press started being a lot less shocked and more honest.

 

365 thoughts on “The Art of Being Eternally Shocked: How the Press and Pundits are Again Mystified by the Obvious”

  1. The alternative to “lab leak” was “wet market”, the early-days consensus, but it was quickly abandoned, not because it was proven false, or even improbable, but because it was xenophobic, implying that the Chinese eat unsavory food in unsanitary conditions, which they do

  2. Are we now allowed to presume the inaccuracy of alleged fact generated from within the beltway?

  3. The swamp is very real. People like Menendez and Biden are just the top of the iceberg. For sure everybody in DC knows what’s going on. But like the maffia, the omertá can keep the system working. Trump was attacked by the DC-mob and the full weight of the press, the judicial system, the dems and many gops was unleashed. I think the scheme of selling influence is so wide spread that once the first domino falls, the rest will fall also. Basically the US is in a full blown civil war now. Scary!!!

  4. OK, who are you really, and what have you done with the real Jonathan Turley?

  5. The problem occurs when you tell lies continuously, after awhile you start believing your own lies. Biden has been trapped in this Circle of Hell since he was a young man. Nothing will change him now…not even reality.

    1. I was always told that a lie told often enough becomes truth. The media knows that all to well.

  6. They have know for 4 years that Biden was a demented fossil, who was getting gradually worse. But because most media are left wing activists, they knew it was their duty to protect him and lie to the country about his mental health. Now that the cat is out of the bag, they are all faking shock and surprise to try and save face….it won’t work. These traitors are by far the biggest threat to our democracy.

    1. I thought Joe Biden was exhibiting cognitive decline during his 2020 presidential campaign, but I hadn’t realized how much worse he is today until watching videos from the 2020 debate compared with the debate this month. He’s lost more every day, so that 4 years later he’s in a comparative cognitive free fall.

      Not only is having a dementia patient as President of the United States extremely dangerous, as it emboldens terrorists and adversarial foreign governments, but it was frankly excruciating to watch. It’s unethical for his handlers to have put him in this position, and actually prop him up for reelection. He’s confused all the time now, and sometimes his eyes look scared. Joe Biden has spent a lot of time in front of cameras in his decades in politics, and I’ve never seen him wear that expression in public. This is awful to witness.

      Who in the world has been running the Executive Branch, because it most certainly is not anyone elected. Joe Biden has lost the plot, so who’s running the show?

        1. Keep in mind how much Barry was shackled to his own teleprompter back in the day, and how fast he went to pieces without one. It’s more likely that both puppets were dancing to the same strings.

      2. Karen S.: you are stunningly low information. You simply make up lies. Biden is NOT confused–YOU ARE. What’s truly “awful to witness” is the depth of discipleship of people like you who not only disbelieve reality, but feel compelled to write about it. You don’t know what “cognitive failure” is, what dementia is, and you believe endless lying from a felonious narcissitic sociopath because you rely on MAGA media that endlessly feeds you lies, downplays Trump’s failures, lies and criminality and attacks Joe Biden. Joe Biden has earned the respect of the world. Trump is an international joke–our allies know he’s weak and stupid and people like Putin and Kim Jong-Un know how to manipulate him–just flatter him. Every Republican candidate for potential VP has criticized him in the past, but they fall into line at the prospect of power. Despite endless hours and millions of dollars of taxpayer money spent to try to find criminality of Joe Biden, to offset Trump’s actual criminality, Republicans keep coming up short–yet you STILL believe there’s a “Biden Crime Family”. No facts necessary–Hannity just has to say so and keep harping on it–you believe. Granted, Biden did not perform well on the debate stage–but accomplishments speak louder than words. He turned around our economy, got bills passed, got public health under control, and got America back to work, school and businesses opened up again. He repaired the damage done by Trump to relations with our allies. He spent the previous couple of weeks in Europe at the G-7 and working to try to resolve the Israel-Hamas war. Trump hones his lie festival performances before cheering audiences of racist MAGAts like you who believe whatever he says. You elevate form over substance because you’ve been proselytyed to do so. You are a MAGAt, and you’ve been led to believe that you just so much smarter than the “libtards”.

        WHAT MAGA media fed you the lie that Biden isn’t running the Executive Branch? WHERE is the proof? Oh, I forgot–you are a MAGAt. No proof necessary.

        1. Gigi: You are stunningly packaged-information, lifted and pasted from leftist sites, especially MSNBC. You constantly use terms like, “who are you to question the…” or, “what gives you the authority to….” blah blah, in reality, and yet everyday you take up space pretending your UNQUALIFIED opinions are your own

  7. Re: “massive influence peddling scheme”. I chafe when the Biden (and Clinton) family crimes are soft-served as influence peddling. Is influence peddling even illegal? Isn’t that what lobbyists do? Isn’t what we are really talking about here better described as bribery? Or treason? Betraying the best interests of your country for the interests of another country in exchange for large sums of money? Underselling the true nature and great harms of these crimes is why they always get away with it. We are not talking about zero-sum political games; people have been genuinely harmed. It wouldn’t be hard to make the case that people have even died because of Biden family “influence peddling”.

  8. Mika: “Everybody calm down, it’s fine to not spin what happened last night.”

    Joe: “By the way Mika, everybody’s calm here, you’re the only one raising your voice…I said these were questions… pic.twitter.com/vTyPQoQWQH
    — Eddie (@Eddies_X) June 28, 2024

    Note she said, spin.

  9. So for all the open mouth droolers that still can’t connect the dots. They stole the election, they lied to everyone and now as it unravels they are scrambling to save their sorry treasonous asses. It won’t work, they are toast.

    1. Traveler,
      Despite all their lies for years, this being The Big Lie, now it is being reported of a family get together at Camp David to discuss if Biden stays in the race, or steps down. Some are reporting it is all up to Jill Biden.
      Again, who is running the country?

      1. You know who! The unelected Socialist dolts from the Obama-Clinton cabal. It’s over for them, lies and fraud have a way of piling up. Biden has to bow out so Harris can get the campaign money. I can see Biden bowing out naming another as VP, as Harris moves to short term President, DEI prize of the day. If the argument of Harris eligibility surfaces then the new VP slides into a short term Presidency. The DNC and campaign monies follow them, still won’t matter, people are now paying attention.

  10. Axois, is now reporting the WH is telling them Biden is “engaged” between the hours of 10am and 4pm.
    So, who is running the country?

      1. The Presidency was intended by the Founders to be a temporary, part time job, releasing the office holders to return to their free enterprises and private lives after 4 years.

        Elected and appointed officials were ensconced merely to keep America on the Constitution and Bill of Rights – a mission not complex or difficult.

        Americans were to be free including: Freedom, free enterprise, free markets, and free self-regulation (read Art 1, Sec 8 which limits taxation and regulation).

        Individuals were to enjoy maximal freedom while government was to be severely limited and restricted.

        That all changed in 1860 when Karl Marx began to “fundamentally transform the United Sates of America” and commenced the “Progressive” march to the “RECONSTRUCTION OF A SOCIAL WORLD” with his fellow traveler, Abraham Lincoln.

        1. George, our resident Kluxxer “Constitutionalist” tried this lie:
          The Presidency was intended by the Founders to be a temporary, part time job, releasing the office holders to return to their free enterprises and private lives after 4 years.

          There is absolutely NOTHING EVEN CLOSE to that claim the Founders ever said anything at the Constitutional convention about limiting the presidency to four years. The only thing remotely close is that one person at the Convention proposed one term of seven years – same person who wanted presidents to be appointed, not elected. That was rejected out of hand.

          Statements that the Founders suggested and supported a single term of four years is nothing more than a bald faced lie from the twisted racist mind of George, who has wet dreams each night of every single black American being expelled from the USA.

          Madison’s Notes – George should actually read it some time before he posts his fantasies as fact. All 665 pages…

  11. So, now the Big Lie is the WH and MSM lying to us how sharp, focused, Biden is.
    The Big Lie is Biden is not mentally on the decline.
    And they have been telling us this, Big Lie, since 2020.

    1. Bonus $$ for using the term ‘the Big Lie’ today?
      It’s not breaking news/a revelation since it’s been four years already.
      BTW there are even bigger lies. This is another distraction.

  12. Warren Buffett has a great saying that applies in this case: “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked….” A lot of the left’s advocates in the press have been swimming naked and are now exposed.

    The early comments on this site are usually pretty smart but as the day goes on, multiple spam posters take over. Apparently, a lot of folks have too much time on their hands or are paid contributors. An ignore function would be a serious addition to the site. Otherwise, I’ll keep scrolling down.

    1. Regular boards have mods who kick the creeps out. So here they land.

  13. “Remarkable monologue from David Sacks:

    “The Democratic party is a collection of interests who want to remain in power. The Democratic Party is the party of government. Its goal is to allocate money and power from the government to the collection of interests who back the Democratic Party. In other words, it’s basically a collection of interests who want to loot the Republic.

    Well obviously, no one’s going to vote for that. So they have to make it about something else. They choose a figurehead, they talk about how this is about saving democracy. They basically invent, hoax after hoax, lie after lie to basically maintain their power.

    And I think what’s happened is, the mask has come off, the whole shell game has been revealed. It’s obvious that Biden was always a puppet for these interests who were hiding behind him. And now, it’s all being exposed.””

    https://x.com/RevolverNewsUSA/status/1807106743601705463

  14. Just like a bunch of bratty kids calling each other names. Very infantile, and that’s being kind.
    There are about 390 comments on this topic, but you could delete about 1/2 of them and improve the conversation a whole lot. Aside from the personal attacks, is there much at all to read? I think NOT. Good Grief.

    1. Well when you come to a blog at midnight pacific time looking for something intelligent to read and post ^^^^^that, does it say much for you?

      1. And what does it say about you when you do the same thing, only stupidly. Why do you think you make points by being a jerk? With a capital JERK?

  15. 18 Ridgewood Rd, Willington, CT 06279

    Wanna go for the email and phone numbers?

    1. That’s not him. This guys name is no more David Benson than mine is Waters. He knows that I know who he really is.

      Don’t post crap like that. Not cool.

      1. i see. Waters, USN, is a fiction.
        I assure you that my name is actual.

        1. You see that now, after I told you the name was six hours ago??? LMAO you gotta be punking us.

          Really, because you can’t seem to recall the correct dates of your degrees.

        2. And again here, in plain language

          Waters says:June 29, 2024 at 11:21 PM
          And here earlier when you apologized i thought you had found me and were classy enough to keep your mouth shut about it.
          I guess you’re not as smart or as classy as i thought you might be.

          Before i give you a clue, ya goodam idiot, do you think I am dumb enough to let some doddering old fool doxx me on this libtard infested website?

          You got some crazy named GIgi here that wont admit the sky is blue.

          Keep looking. Not one LOM. Three. Also 2 meritorious service medals. 4 navy commendation medals 1 enlisted, 3 officer and 3 navy achievement medals enlisted.

          You just proved why i would never.

          By the way, you’re really cold looking in .org

        3. Dum Dum

          I gave you the only clue you needed to figure out my real name and to easily find me.

          But you couldn’t even find your way back to the original thread earlier, where you ran your fat mouth and got raped, so I’m not surprised you didn’t pick up on it. I thought a Philosophy of Engineering guy would be smart enough. I’m kinda glad you weren’t. You seem psychotic.

        4. “I assure you that my name is actual.”

          How about a link to any David B. Benson PhD Professor Emeritus

          1. LOL, no, I know this guy. I’ve met a hundred of him.

            Some liberal elitist know it all, who abhors the idea that some dirt poor kid from Georgia (ask me how I know he’s from Georgia, douchebag) could make good and join the ranks of the elite. So he points his boney finger to a sailors rough treatment as proof that the trash doesn’t belong in his circles.

    2. Waters says:June 29, 2024 at 11:21 PM
      And here earlier when you apologized i thought you had found me and were classy enough to keep your mouth shut about it.
      I guess you’re not as smart or as classy as i thought you might be.

      Before i give you a clue, ya goodam idiot, do you think I am dumb enough to let some doddering old fool doxx me on this libtard infested website?

      You got some crazy named GIgi here that wont admit the sky is blue.

      Keep looking. Not one LOM. Three. Also 2 meritorious service medals. 4 navy commendation medals 1 enlisted, 3 officer and 3 navy achievement medals enlisted.

      You just proved why i would never.

      By the way, you’re really cold looking in .org

    3. How about a link to any David B. Benson PhD Professor Emeritus

      Are you this guy?

      https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-benson-35769b262?challengeId=AQEadR27GNRF3AAAAZBnWxC7-eYAD6aGDXxDGprT-l7gyQ9u-vkx3iLptX3k_hbbCEH5ttZSz9iNR4svOffMkI2R46kWE4umJg&submissionId=7a53f838-15ad-dd17-ef0e-b7272b6c813e&challengeSource=AgH9qabinz2FeAAAAZBnWxrQy8BHXDyGLfMgveKkWEkjPdRU3txkD70IDGGypSk&challegeType=AgEx7Y0v1m8ckQAAAZBnWxrTmRXFWf_aL0G2Ycod3GdYIQ-XSkFrBLw&memberId=AgFu7z5sSZaceQAAAZBnWxrXCqHN3VKeFPjEjIiO5SPl6e8&recognizeDevice=AgHTM7f1Py1jYgAAAZBnWxrbOl-EB9RQmq0EqSFs8ISMbO3kMzQO

      1. Waters says:June 29, 2024 at 11:21 PM
        And here earlier when you apologized i thought you had found me and were classy enough to keep your mouth shut about it.
        I guess you’re not as smart or as classy as i thought you might be.

        Before i give you a clue, ya goodam idiot, do you think I am dumb enough to let some doddering old fool doxx me on this libtard infested website?

        You got some crazy named GIgi here that wont admit the sky is blue.

        Keep looking. Not one LOM. Three. Also 2 meritorious service medals. 4 navy commendation medals 1 enlisted, 3 officer and 3 navy achievement medals enlisted.

        You just proved why i would never.

        By the way, you’re really cold looking in .org

    5. Waters says:June 30, 2024 at 12:26 AM
      Easy guys, he isn’t bothering me. He’s just upset that he was ignorant, and then I made him look stupid as well.

      He doesn’t get the clue I gave him, so it’s all good.

      I seriously don’t think that is him, anyway. Be pretty dumb if it was.

      1. LMAO there are 156 names on that list. And he already told you his name isn’t Waters. I believe it may be a play on his real name.

        But I love that you’re wasting so much time. It’s quite funny.

  17. This is a pretty slow-witted, stupid country. I’ll give a couple of examples from the debate.

    Those cringey moments when Biden loses track — those are called seizures. Anybody caring to notice saw Biden suffering seizures of this type when he came back into politics to run in 2020. They look the same every time.
    They last about 20 sec. then pass. Yet for all the supposedly smart people in the media, nobody can put word to pattern. Seizure.

    The summary of Trump’s performance is that he stood there and spouted his usual barrage of lies (it’s actually a mixture of truths, wild exaggerations with a grain of truth, and lies). But the talking heads don’t go any deeper.
    Why does Trump lie? Why does he scapegoat whenever something goes bad (yes, “I did nothing wrong”….
    “Did you see where Nancy Pelosi took responsibility for January 6th?” Trump is simply unwilling to take responsibility for anything that goes sideways. Not one pundit can put words to pattern. Trump refuses to take responsibility except for things that are working OK. Unwilling to take responsibility.

    In both cases, journalists show they are superficial. They really don’t understand what they are looking at, and that’s because shallow observations will do.

    2. Are they seizures or does he lose track bc of a bodily function? Before my kids were potty trained – they’d filll the diaper – and stop to do it. This is all so sad. And Jon Stewart is right – “this can’t be real” – we are america’!

    3. pbinca… posing and flexing he cares about lies.

      BUT WAIT! in pbinca’s world… you’ll never once catch him admitting that Bribery Biden (the guy who graduated with two degrees at the top of his class, who doesn’t know and never spoke to his family’s customers, and wasn’t advised by his generals to leave a security force in Afghanistan) has been spouting the well known usual barrage of Biden lies. Lies that he was regularly telling BEFORE Trump ever entered politics and cause pbinca to suddenly be triggered by lies when he wasn’t bothered by them before.

      No… bpinca wants us to do what he does about Biden’s lies: don’t believe our lying eyes.

      It’s one thing for pbinca to lie to himself to justify the years he’s supported pathological liars like Obama and Biden while claiming that it’s Trump – and only Trump – who lies. Obama didn’t lie to us about Obamacare, promising us that if we liked our doctor and our health care plan we could keep them. Obama didn’t lie to us when he said he didn’t have a clue that his SecState Clinton was exclusively using illegal and unsecured private email and cellphones – until he learned about it in the news like everybody else.

      Nah… Obama and Biden were straight arrow truth tellers about everything. Presidential lying for pbinca only began when Trump entered politics.

      But for pbinca to come here to lie to us about Trump while providing cover for The Big Guy, who apparently was a truck driver at some point or other (before he fit in eight years of teaching constitutional law as a college professor)… it’s insulting for pbinca to assume we’re just as stupid as he is as he tries to lie to us.

      1. Pea brain in california might be the most disingenuous commenter on this blog.

        The others are at least proud of their colors. This douche pretends to be some sort of moderate when he is nothing but a trump hating marxist.

        More tort!!! Is his battle cry

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