This political consultant and former HRC aide at State just nailed it

[highplainsdem]

Tweet from Philippe Reines:

Link to tweet

Compare:

• Biden slips up
• trump: ‘Sleepy Joe lost it’
• Dems: OMG WHATS WRONG WITH JOE
• Media: ‘Panicky Dems ask: is Joe ok?’
___

• trump’s insane; can’t speak English
• trump: ‘I’m a stable genius’
• Rs: trump’s being trump
• Media: ’Panicky Dems ask: is Joe ok?’

[dalton99a]

1. "Members of the Press, What The Fuck?"

[Cha]

2. The US m$$$media is part

of the reason we even have trump.. They act like they want to keep him from what I've read about them on DU.

Mahalo to Philippe Reines.. the more who speak out about the "media" the better.

Thank you, !

[IADEMO2004]

3. Every mouth saying Biden gaff should be stuffed with Hillary's e-mails.

Lazy lazy lazy time filling.

[PatSeg]

4. Yep

Bringing back unpleasant memories of 2016. They'll never learn.

[Hortensis]

24. Not lazy for some who are hard at work. We're in an enormous

battle for power, and much of the media is anything but neutral. It might seem less than sensible to work to reelect a president who wants to shut down the press and arrest journalists, but what's new about personal and national self destruction?

[progressoid]

5. Uh...duh. And this is going to continue untlil next November.

If Democrats think whining about the media is a winning strategy, we've already lost.

[tblue37]

7. That's part of why the GOP gets soft glove press--they worked the refs by whining about

the "liberal media."

[Cosmocat]

21. Y E P

Its like vintage Georgetown basketball in the Big East w John Thompson menacing refs while his players are ripping arms off on the court.

[oasis]

6. Sounds like the recipe that brought us Trump's first term. nt

[Butterflylady]

8. Joe is just fine.

Remember when the right said what they liked about Bush was he was the kind of guy one could have beer with, well Joe is like the the rest of us, we all at one time or another say something that others take the wrong way. In otherwards he's human just like the rest of us. Joe talks to us not at us.

[loyalsister]

10. Yeah

That's exactly the frustrating argument I had with Bush supporters. I can see the impulse for a hint of Bush nostalgia when I think of how much farther we've fallen, but still would rather not adopt the low expectations and standards for verbal presentation held by people who will support any fool over a Democratic president.

[ancianita]

9. Thank heaven only 700 people are "talking about this."

[highplainsdem]

11. ??? That tweet has nearly 800 retweets and nearly 4,000 likes in only a few hours. And this

thread has 82 recs and over 4,000 views in three hours.

Reines nailed it, and people agree.

[ancianita]

12. I'm fine with that. I was just reading the original tweet bottom line. Media won't pick it up, tho'.

This tail doesn't look big enough to wag the media dog yet.

[Cosmocat]

22. I tend to agree

Because the other factor is, 45 is a 5 alarm stooge. There's a lot they can scream about the cover-up his many loathsome qualities, but every day he walks out and is a babbling buffoon. So it's going to be hard to turn away malleable middle votes by trying to make Biden out to be soft headed.

That said, on social media this absolutely can be driven effectively by the army of Russian Bots, and other conservative social media manipulators. And, the quote liberal unquote media does nothing if not bring to life tge false equivalencies Republicans create to handicap Democrats. I mean, they spent almost two months babbling about the damn flag pin when BHO was running the first time.

[ancianita]

28. True dat. It's all up and running.

[Gothmog]

16. I'm still trying to figure out what covfefe is'

Do you really think that this will be an issue in a general election contest vs. trump?

Link to tweet

[UniteFightBack]

13. Most Americans don't even know about these supposed 'gaffes'. nt

[ancianita]

14. Nope. And it's not our job to help media convey alleged "gaffes," either.

[Gothmog]

15. Opinion: @Paulwaldman1 thinks everyone should lay off Joe Biden's gaffes

Link to tweet

I would challenge anyone to try to explain how the number of gaffes a candidate utters actually tells us something meaningful about his or her prospective presidency. The argument that some number of gaffes suggests cognitive problems that could affect Biden’s performance doesn’t hold water. There are legitimate questions about whether someone Biden’s age — he’ll be 78 at the start of the next presidential term — can handle the rigors of the presidency. But Biden made these kinds of embarrassing statements in his 60s and his 50s, and even his 40s. It’s not a product of age; it’s just who he is.

Besides, we make demands of politicians that no ordinary person would be able to satisfy. I can promise you that if I hired a team of people to follow you around for a week (let alone a year) recording every word that came out of your mouth, there would be some things you’d want to take back.

When a theme like “Joe Biden, gaffe machine” gets locked in, it becomes a frame through which the media view the events of the campaign, leading to profoundly different standards by which each candidate is judged. In its most twisted form, you get something like the 2000 election, in which reporters decided that Al Gore was a liar and George W. Bush was dumb, the consequence of which was that Bush could lie without reporters taking any particular notice even as they pored over every word that left Gore’s mouth to see if under some interpretation it strayed from perfect factual accuracy.

As a similar kind of frame takes hold in this election, other candidates will be allowed to say something unintentionally offensive, garble a URL or otherwise misspeak, with only mild punishment. But when Biden does it, the alarms will go off, and the keyboards will begin clacking.

The cynical expectation is that whether it’s right or not, the gaffe coverage will probably continue: Biden will keep saying cringe-worthy things, and the news media will continue to treat them as newsworthy. And much of Biden’s appeal to Democratic voters is about “electability,” its own bit of campaign pathology that no one should waste time on.

[live love laugh]

17. Yep "it's the (complicit) media stupid." nt

[Cha]

18. Kick!

[Gothmog]

19. Symone Sanders-"I want to be very clear: this is a press narrative, not a voter narrative."

Link to tweet

[Hortensis]

25. THIS. Meanwhile, our voters are smiling and saying "That's Joe."

We KNOW him, and that's a real problem for MSM and private swiftboaters, but they'll keep hitting.

[Skittles]

20. OR

how about we just go with someone who is not insane AND not gaffe-prone? It can be done.

[Cosmocat]

23. I personally would prefer that BUT

It's not the world we live in. At least currently. Biden is sitting back where he was pretty much all along, and as much as I would prefer a sharper candidate, I understand that there are a lot of older, and not as Progressive Democratic voters who have coalesced around Biden and good chance he's going to be our nominee.

[Skittles]

32. I am still hoping for better

[BeyondGeography]

27. It'll happen

Front runners going for not-Trump riffs at this point are like jockeys whipping the horse before the first turn.

[ancianita]

29. What makes you think ANY candidate wouldn't gaffe and media jump on that -- and MF45? Forever.

The biggest blunderer in history would never let go of the Big Double Standard whoppers they love to fling at any Dem.

It's really not a matter of who we just go with. We gotta grow thick skins about each and every candidate cuz they're all targets.

[Skittles]

31. well all our candidates are human

but some certainly gaffe more than others

[ancianita]

33. Even one gaffe puts them all in the same attack zone cuz that's how our opposition thinks.

We really need to take the same lines they do: let Biden be Biden.

[Skittles]

34. LOL

not exactly a ringing endorsement

over and out

[sharedvalues]

26. Reines is good.

[Gothmog]

30. Opinion: There are more important things to worry about than Biden's gaffes

Link to tweet

My response to both was the same, as it was when I was asked about the Biden issue on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports.” There is a racist sitting in the Oval Office implementing a white supremacist policy agenda. So, you focus on Biden’s mouth marbles, and I’ll keep my eyes on the prize. The prize being the eviction of Trump from the White House.

As Waldman also wrote, Trump “is waging a reelection campaign based on racism and fear,” not to mention being “the most prolific liar in American political history (he just passed 12,000 false or misleading claims).” And what makes the focus on Biden’s mouth extra aggravating is how it wipes our memories of the moronic things said by this president, as my follower @absolut_irish was so kind to remind Biden’s critics.

Link to tweet

Some of these are funny. Some are worthy of a cocked eyebrow. But they are not nearly as consequential as the racist and white supremacist beliefs parroted by Trump and the right-wing echo chamber that found their way into the manifesto of the suspect in the El Paso mass shooting, who told police his target was "Mexicans.” The atmosphere of menace and danger is now indisputable. Your time would be better spent worrying about the shredding of our values, ideals and the rule of law than the flubs of a particular candidate who would put an end to this shameful chapter.