Leftist Media Throws Shade at Biden
CV NEWS FEED // Axios and the Atlantic, left-of-center media engines, published opinion columns strongly criticizing President Joe Biden’s age and disposition.
Some writers suggest that he should drop out of the 2024 Presidential Election altogether.
Axios
Axios, which AllSides gives a media bias rating of “Lean Left”, released an article Monday entitled “Old yeller: Biden’s private fury.”
“Behind closed doors, Biden has such a quick-trigger temper that some aides try to avoid meeting alone with him,” author Alex Thompson says. “Some take a colleague, almost as a shield against a solo blast.”
Thompson says that these “private eruptions paint a more complicated picture of Biden as a manager and president than his carefully cultivated image as a kindly uncle who loves Aviator sunglasses and ice cream.”
Good Ol’ Uncle Joe
The image of Biden as a docile, grandfatherly man was promulgated by much of the media during the lead-up to and the early part of his presidency.
A notable example of this came in an article published by the non-political source E! News four days before his inauguration. Titled “All the Times Joe Biden’s Love for Ice Cream Melted Our Hearts,” the piece opens with the line, “For President-Elect Joe Biden, a day without ice cream is practically un-cone-stitutional.”
In contrast, the Axios article is preceded by an originally-produced graphic of the president wearing his signature aviator sunglasses, with images of flames in each lens.
Long History
Biden has a long history of profane outbursts and incendiary comments, dating back to the start of his long political career.
In 1977, then-junior Senator Biden justified his opposition to school integration legislation by saying that he did not want his own children to “grow up in a racial jungle.” In 2007, he called his future ticket-mate Barack Obama “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean.”
A more recent example of Biden publicly losing his cool came while he was campaigning in Iowa in 2019, and remarked, “Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.” In a radio interview the following year, he said, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.” In 2021, he suggested that some minorities may not know how to use the internet.
The Atlantic
At least two contributing writers for the Atlantic are now on the record saying that they would prefer if the incumbent Democratic president did not seek a second term.
In an op-ed published Friday, political scientist and Atlantic contributor Eliot A. Cohen stated that Biden should “step aside.” He believes Biden “has no business running for president at age 80.”
If Biden were to be elected to and fully served a second four-year term, he would leave office at the age of 86.
Another Atlantic writer echoed similar concerns in opposing a Biden candidacy in June of last year. In “Why Biden Shouldn’t Run in 2024,” Mark Leibovich wrote, “Let me put this bluntly: Joe Biden should not run for reelection in 2024. He is too old.”
He quoted a swing voter from a focus group who said, “It’s not the 82 that’s the problem. It’s the 86.”
Biden announced his campaign for re-election in April despite multiple polls indicating that a vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, do not want him to run.
