It's hard to watch Joe Biden make the media rounds without thinking of A&E's DAVID CASSIDY: THE LAST SESSION. For any who missed it, the project was supposed to revolve around David's last days as he battled dementia. Early on, we see him with one of his doctors and he explains to her that he hasn't done drugs in years or even had a drink in over five. Then his doctor sends him for testing and there he shares that he hasn't had a drink in months. Then, at the end, we learn that the reality was that he had been drinking the entire time and didn't have dementia.
The producers had filmed him over a period of time but condensed this all into one two-hour special. Can America wait for so-called journalists to start doing their jobs?
Joe and Jill Biden showed up last week on ABC's ridiculous gab-fest THE VIEW and all the hosts fawned. Joe's got a long history of trying to cut and gut Social Security. Is there a reason that not one of the hosts could raise that issue?
Joe wanted to talk about the kind of gay man that they didn't like in Delaware at one point and even Joe grasped that was a story he better not share ("I shouldn't say it"). The hosts should have called him out but didn't.
Instead, as
Matt Wilstein (THE DAILY BEAST) pointed out, they offered nonsense:
"We get it, we understand," Goldberg said as the other co-hosts laughed nervously. Did they really?
Where were the hard questions? Where was any rush to offer support for LGBT rights or, for that matter, support for 21st century values?
No where to be found. The hosts weren't there to interview, they were there to coddle.
Into this environment sailed Jill Biden. We try to avoid criticizing Jill but it gets harder and harder.
Bad enough that Joe was telling the hosts about his son Hunter, "This is a guy who has done nothing but good things his whole life, my
son. He ran a food program WFP USA, a whole range of things." But to then hear Jill lament that children should be off limits?
Grow the hell up, Jill.
Hunter Biden is 50 years old.
This isn't Amy Carter being a kid in the White House while her father's president.
Hunter's a grown ass adult and, with his actions, you damn well better believe he is fair game.
Joe says, "This is a guy who has done nothing but good things his whole life, my son."
The crack addict Hunter Biden was kicked out of the reserves for using drugs.
The crack addict Hunter Biden left his wife Kathleen and their three children to shack up with the widow of his brother Beau. He couldn't keep it in his pants with the widow which is how he ended up with his fourth child. This is the 18-month old that Hunter has insisted wasn't his, couldn't be his because he never slept with the mother. DNA said otherwise and now, this month, he's finally paying some form of child support.
"This is a guy who has done nothing but good things his whole life, my son."
The hosts just ignored the obvious. What they should have done is ask when grandparents Joe and Jill plan to meet their newest grandchild -- the one they've ignored all these months?
Don't go grandstanding on family when you're ignoring your own grandchild. That's trash and while Joe's not above it, Jill used to be.
Anytime the press covers the Bidens, you have to wonder, "Where the hell are the grown ups?''
Over the weekend, Joe did campaign events with 'celebrity' Sully Sullenberger. You remember Sully, right? The captain of the soccer team who, when there was a problem on a plane, managed to -- What's that? Sully's a pilot?
Sully's a pilot. Who landed a plane. And the media made him a hero? He's a pilot who landed a plane. And he's a hero and a celebrity?
That's the kind of crazy world we live in these days.
LITTLE WOMEN is a bad movie. It's a book that's been filmed way too many times and this go round it was worse than anyone could expect. Amy Pascal produced the film and decided to market it by saying that men not wanting to see it was sexism.
First off, some men did go to see the film. Some boys as well. But, yes, a lot did not. A lot aren't movie goers. And there's the reality, which Amy knows, that men like action films and a boring tale of growing up centuries ago that has no sex in it isn't going to interest most men. It's not going to interest a lot of women either.
But that didn't stop Amy from screaming sexism.
The same ridiculous press that lets Joe get away with pretending to be all about the family let Amy get away with pretending to be someone who fought sexism. When Amy ran SONY, actresses were paid less than actors. And when confronted on that, after the e-mail leak, Amy's response was that actresses should know how much to ask for and it wasn't her job to ask them if they wanted more money. Not only were actresses paid less, female execs working under Amy were paid less than male counterparts. And there was the attitude, remember, that female superheroes couldn't have movies built around them because there was no audience for them.
All of that and so much more while Amy headed SONY PICTURES and now she wants to pose as a feminist concerned about sexism?
And the press has let her.
She's stated that men have "an unconscious bias" against LITTLE WOMEN. And the press doesn't turn around and ask, "What about your conscious bias against women when you paid them less than their male counterparts?"
Time and again, the press refuses to do its job.
Which is how you get NBC's MEET THE PRESS airing their interview with Joe Biden. And Joe gets to say that Bernie's never accomplished anything and Chuck doesn't bother to challenge it.
Others weren't so scared of Joe Biden.
Why is Chuck even there if he's not going to challenge? If Joe can say whatever he wants, just put on an empty stage with a microphone.
We also got this nonsense.
Joe Biden: There's a lot to talk about with Michael Bloomberg. You all are going to
start focusing on him like you have on me, which I'm not complaining,
like you have on me the last six months. You're going to focus on him.
"I'm not complaining"? All Joe has done is try to bully the press. "
Why! Why! Why!" Anyone remember the way he exploded at Ed O'Keefe. Or when
he snarled at the reporter who asked about Hunter Biden's child that Hunter wasn't claiming? Or when
Savanah Guthrie -- or anyone really -- dared to ask about Hunter? Or how he and his campaign tried to tell the press how to cover anything to do with Ukraine?
"I'm not complaing"? All Joe has done is bitch.
On MEET THE PRESS, we also got Joe in a tizzy over Tweets that some people supporting Bernie posted.
Tweets.
Yet, two Fridays ago, in the televised New Hampshire debate, Tom Steyer raised the remarks made by Joe's personal friend Dick Harpootlian that a number of South Carolina lawmakers found to be racist. Joe refused to denounce the remarks or Dick.
That somehow flew over Chuck Todd's head as he let Joe rail against Bernie over . . . Tweets.
Again, is there a point to the press these days. They just sit there and nod along as a liar says anything? They don't question, they don't offer perspective, they just sit there doing nothing that remotely resembles journalism.
