Michael Goodwin: Washington media mob shows its true colors as Jake Tapper breaks ranks with Biden book

New York Post

2 days ago

The late Irving Kristol defined a neoconservative 'as a liberal who got mugged by reality.'
It turns out the process was not limited to people of an earlier era, as the ongoing saga of Jake Tapper illustrates.
The CNN anchor has been a reliable cheerleader for all things Democrat and a snide anti-Trumper, but dramatically broke ranks by daring to co-author a book about Joe Biden's cognitive decline and the White House cabal that tried to conceal it from the public.
For his trouble, Tapper is being mocked by former allies and labeled a traitor, proving that telling the truth about the left is seen as a subversive act by the Washington media mob.
His regular CNN viewers apparently don't want to hear the unpleasant facts either.
They're used to being spoon-fed a feast of anti-Trump bile, and they appear to be punishing Tapper for going rogue by boycotting his show.
Reports say the audience has plunged by 25%, taking it back to where it was a decade ago.
Even more fascinating is Tapper's response to the attacks.
Mugged by his own team simply for doing his job, he is defending himself by hitting back in ways that make him sound decidedly like a… . . . conservative!
He blasted the entire Democratic Party after 'left-leaning' podcasters made fun of his teenage son for wanting to be a cop.
'They asked me about my son and I said he's a football player, and he wants to be a policeman and their joke was, 'Oh, how does he feel about minorities?' Tapper said on a podcast with NYU professor Scott Galloway.
'Like, the idea that he wants to be a policeman, therefore, he's racist… . . . this is why you f—–kers are losing elections,' Tapper told his lefty tormentors.
He added: 'That's how the Democratic Party talks to men, not just white men, but men… . . . it has no entrée into his world.'
Whoa, Nellie.
Showed some balance
Tapper, 56, has long been a card-carrying member of the Washington press corps, where good standing requires a hard tilt toward Democrats.
He got his DC start as a press secretary for a Dem House member, a rite of passage that proved he belonged.
Although he did on occasion show more balance than most of the media Praetorian Guard, ever since Donald Trump entered the arena, Tapper's work demonstrates that he suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome.
In that, he was following the CNN party line, which mindlessly parroted the Dem claims that Trump is a threat to democracy and that the unprecedented efforts to prosecute and bankrupt him were warranted.
Because Tapper always appeared comfortable being part of that chorus, his decision to blow the lid off of the Biden coverup is all the more shocking.
Where was he hiding his passion for an inconvenient truth all these years?
Another mystery is why nobody else in Washington beat him to it.
After all, even as Biden slipped deeper into la-la land and aides hid him as much as possible from the public, the stage managers weren't able to hide the fact that his stumbles and mumbles were growing worse.
He often couldn't string two sentences together and displayed a glassy, far-away look, as if he didn't know where he was.
The falls and extended hands to invisible people were other big giveaways.
'Apologies to Don'
The disturbing scenes were obvious signs of something amiss, but merely pointing them out might have helped Trump, and so the legacy media stayed silent.
His condition certainly made the prospect of Biden serving a second term preposterous, yet there was no sign his family or party leaders were willing to tell him so.
Despite the silence of most media, the vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, repeatedly told pollsters that Biden was over the hill and should not seek a second term.
The charade collapsed in the debate with Trump last June, an event where Tapper happened to be a moderator.
Until that point, he had been a solid Dem team member, even slamming Lara Trump on air over her claim that Biden was suffering from cognitive decline.
Tapper, with a sneer, accused her of mocking Biden's stutter.
But with the pending publication of 'Original Sin,' which he wrote with Alex Thompson of Axios, Tapper called Trump to apologize.
As she put it, 'Jake Tapper called me and said, 'I have this book coming out, and I know everybody's saying that I should apologize to you. I plan whenever the book comes out, to go on TV, and I will say you were right and I was wrong,' ' she said.
'And I guess, to Jake's credit, he did that,' she told Laura Ingraham.
Thanks in part to Tapper's conversion, there is a renewed energy about addressing long-standing doubts about who was making decisions and running the Biden White House.
As Tapper put it, a source 'told us that the presidency was, at best, a five-person board with Joe Biden as chairman of the board.'
Evidence of that, with examples, will need to be flushed out, as will the question of whether Biden was so disabled that the 25th Amendment should have been invoked to sideline him.
The fact that Biden, in a single term, issued more than 4,200 pardons and commutations– — far above any other recent president — is already fodder for a House GOP probe.
Medical concerns
A related issue involves the use of an autopen for Biden's signature on many leniency orders and other decisions.
Did he give approval or did aides act without his knowledge?
The House panel, led by Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, has invited former White House aides to testify voluntarily, including top physician Dr. Kevin O'Connor.
If they refuse, Comer vows to issue subpoenas.
'We're going to bring Dr. O'Connor in because he definitely was not telling the truth about Joe Biden's health,' Comer has said.
In addition to Biden's cognitive decline, the fact that he recently announced he is being treated for an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones provokes concerns about why he never disclosed that illness while in office.
Some doctors say he must have had the cancer for years for it to be so serious now.
In a better world, such revelations would cause serious soul-searching in legacy newsrooms.
Why did the same outlets that now produce seven or eight stories a day about everything Trump says and does allow the Biden White House to get away with hiding the former president's decline and sickness?
In any other business, such a monumental failure by industry leaders would spark major personnel changes and reforms designed to prevent a repeat.
But with the Washington press corps, there is no soul-searching and there will be no changes.
The reason is as repugnant as it is obvious.
The press hates Trump more than it loves the truth.