Even before Joe Biden’s diagnosis of prostate cancer, made public on Sunday, we were uncomfortable with the post-facto dissections of the events leading up to the former president’s late withdrawal from his campaign for a second term. There are many reasons why, not the least being the attempts by many in the media to claim they were “misled” about the president’s condition when they were the ones doing much of the misleading.
We could fill this page with evidence thereof. Any number of left-leaning columnists at prestigious media outlets tried to bat down the rumors that Biden’s visible aging (as manifested both physically and mentally) was compromising his credibility as a viable candidate for perhaps the most demanding job in the world. We even ran a couple of those pieces ourselves. In recent days, as books have come out claiming a White House “cover-up” and placing the blame far from the writers of said books, it has been easy for Republicans to post two column headlines side by side — an old one, insisting Biden was doing fine and that all protestations to the contrary were fake news, and a new one, wherein the writer claimed to be shocked to finally have learned the truth.
Please. Let’s just be honest.
Biden and his wife, Jill, wished to continue as president and first lady. Their handlers, who had a vested interest in that continuance, did all they could to minimize what became obvious during Biden’s June 2024 debate with (then former) President Donald Trump. There is room for debate as to whether the minimization of Biden’s age-related limitations was simply their political job as loyal aides or an example of epic moral malfeasance that put the country at risk. The truth likely is somewhere in between.
But the media should have known better. Alas, too many outlets were blinded by their desire to see the Democrats win. And thus the first lesson of this situation presents itself: It is always preferable for reporters and columnists to tell the truth, rather than put their thumbs on the scale to try and influence events. You can have an opinion, a strong opinion, and still stick to the truth. In this case, too many famous media names did not. And falsehoods can be expressed through omissions.
We all make mistakes. But what is most galling about this situation is the media’s new blame-deflection game, with only a few exceptions. There is something especially egregious about making money from a book wherein you accuse others of doing something you also did yourself. Most Americans can see that.
Most voters also saw the issues with Biden. But some made the decision that even a less-than-capable president who matched their values was a better choice than his opponent because we all know that most of the actions of a White House come from staffers, not one individual with an impossibly massive workload. That was not an illogical or a stupid choice. But it doesn’t absolve either the Biden White House or the fourth estate, whose job was supposed to be the provision of the full and actual facts so that citizens can make as informed a choice as possible, even if that choice was to vote for him anyway.
That brings us to Biden’s cancer, a diagnosis that surely cast a pall over the various book tours and panel discussions on what the Bidens and their handlers did or did not obscure.
On the far right, the general assumption was that the Stage 4 prostate cancer diagnosis must have been made a long time ago and known by Biden’s personal physician, given that presidents do not have to wait weeks for medical appointments. Some referenced Biden apparently referring to having cancer in 2022 in a Delaware speech, although his aides at the time walked that back and said he was referring to a more benign skin cancer. In this telling, the prostate cancer was all part of the cover-up and the choice to release the information now was timed to boost Biden as a sympathetic figure and deflate chatter about the other cover-ups.
If so, it was effective. On Sunday, media outlets found themselves in the uncomfortable position of reporting a president’s cancer diagnosis on the same homepage as columns and news stories that were claiming he, his wife and their aides were either lying or in a state of deep denial.
We simply do not know, and may never know, if the cancer conspiracy theories are true, even if we think asking questions of Biden’s personal physician, Kevin O’Connor, are legitimate. After all, history is filled with other such examples. The late Queen Elizabeth II had late-in-life cancer, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed in his book, and he was in a position to know. Unlike the public, told only of persistent “mobility problems.”
But ceremonial monarchs and U.S. presidents are different categories.
Sunday’s news was uncomfortable and depressing, given that Biden had a long career of public service and that advanced cancer diagnoses often hit families without warning, sparking the chaos that invariably accompanies such news. For decent Americans, the vast majority of this nation, simple human concerns for Biden and his loving family eclipsed political considerations (and someone else’s book sales). As well they should.
What might the Democratic establishment take from this? Cover-ups are inadvisable, however well meant, because the erosion of trust only compounds. A typical result is the opposite of the original intent.
And the media? Reporters and editors have to be more aware of personal biases and the sins of omission. Many of those who reported and commented on the news of the last presidential election had a deeply felt stake in the result. That’s natural. Reporters are people too. But the place for that expression is the voting booth. Outside that anonymous act, the job is to report the truth, whatever the likely consequences.
We wish President Biden a long life yet to come and we surely join with our readers in hoping his condition responds well to treatment.
— Chicago Tribune via TNS
