Joe Concha: Democrats don’t like when the media asks fair questions
The Fox News contributor discusses the mainstream media’s seemingly different standards for Democrats and Republicans
This article is adapted from Joe Concha's video commentary.
Are Democratic lawmakers as thin-skinned as … Alec Baldwin?
To answer that question, one must read journalist Julia Ioffe's compelling piece on PTSD, also known as Post Trump Stress Disorder, among journalists, which explores a White House reporter's job in the Biden era.
In it, we learn President Biden is seen as the most protected president from the press of all time, which makes a reporter's job decidedly more difficult given the lack of access.
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By the way, access was never an issue in the Trump era, when the 45th president took more questions by a country mile than any president in history.
One reporter – speaking anonymously likely out of fear of losing his or her social status for actually being critical of Democrats – also believes Democratic lawmakers are far more thin-skinned than those on the Red team.
The proof is in the pudding and it goes directly to the top of the food chain in the Democratic Party.
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Biden, for example, when remotely challenged or asked a question outside of his list of handpicked friendly reporters, goes into full Grandpa Simpson get-off-my-lawn mode. This is the most scripted president since Martin Sheen on "The West Wing."
Vice President Kamala Harris also gets flabbergasted when remotely challenged on items like the crisis at the border, going full cackle after giving profoundly awkward and inauthentic answers.
They’re both like: Hey, what are you doing? We’re supposed to be on the same team!
But what we're talking about here are the rare exceptions when a non-cotton candy question comes their way.
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Look, the coverage of the Biden-Harris administration has been overwhelmingly positive. Skyrocketing violent crime? On the national broadcast level, you barely hear anything about it. Skyrocketing inflation? It's just a temporary thing. Kids in cages at a border that's seeing a record number of illegal migrants coming in? Nothing to see here. The Taliban is taking back Afghanistan? Why cover that when there's another Trump book based on anonymous sources coming out?
A reporter told Ioffe, "Republicans never expect a fair shake, so if you cover them fairly, you can have a good working relationship with them. Democrats de facto expect you to be on their side and are horrified when you hold them to account."
One would think reporters might want to test thin-skinned Democrats more. They do control the House and the Senate and the White House, after all. That's power.
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Will that happen? If the Obama-Biden years are any indication, we already know the answer to that question.
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