Two weeks ago Politico reported that vice president Joe Biden said tea party Republicans “acted like terrorists” in the debt talks. Since then, the activist old media has been relatively silent on the story.
This is a big ‘effing deal.
This White House, that preached civility, has shown it can be brutal and viscous towards average citizens. President Obama has called Republicans his “enemies” and suggested his supporters take guns to a knife fight. Representatives of the administration have suggested they “destroy” and “kill” Mitt Romney and “punch back twice as hard” against political opponents.
Barack Obama denied Biden used those words when he spoke with tea party activist Ryan Rhodes. Obama was not in the private meeting, but he has gone on the record and taken a position. He said it did not happen. Certainly, it’s interesting that the media has not asked Obama about this, a private citizen has to bring up this issue and pull a denial out of the media’s Dear Leader.
Politico is standing solidly behind its story and has now taken the time to explain how the story came together.
Politico points out that they had numerous sources confirm the Biden statement and that his denials have been lacking.
I know how these stories work. I did one myself years ago when I heard that an athletic director at a major university was using racist terms in staff meetings. This was easy to confirm. I called many of those in the meetings that I trusted and they all confirmed the veracity of the story and I went with it, despite the threat of legal action from the athletic director’s attorney. After my story, the rest of the Las Vegas media followed and the truth of the story was easily established. That’s how journalism works. Usually media outlets work as hard as they can to get their own sources and confirm the story themselves. This could be easily done in this case if the rest of the media wanted to.
In the Politico case, it’s interesting to note that other media outlets are working to discredit their story. The Washington Post has already questioned their reporting (that’s also fascinating because many of the founders of Politico came from the WaPo.)
This is a story that the rest of the media is going to be pulled kicking and screaming into doing. It has been two weeks running now since the story was first reported and we have a “citizen journalist” finally with the courage to confront the president and at least one other outlet trying to destroy the story. Biden denied to CBS that he used the terrorist word, but as of the writing of this story, CBS has still not aired the interview. They have it. Perhaps they don’t want to air the verbal record of Biden’s denial. Who knows?
You wouldn’t know it by the lack of serious media attention to this story, but it is a big ‘effing deal. The public knows it, and the writers at the Politico know it. They are also getting a little taste of what it’s like when you go against the Regime.
Posted by Ron Futrell
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