Clay Travis was the first we happened to see with the news:
What a cover. pic.twitter.com/kslgGeBV44
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) July 4, 2024
And, if you have any doubt, it is real and it is spectacular:
The presidential debate was awful for Joe Biden, but the cover-up has been worse. The dishonesty of his campaign provokes contempt. He must withdraw https://t.co/RijgS4gDI2 pic.twitter.com/NcsrEVPwdx
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) July 4, 2024
Now, the obvious joke on this Independence Day is to point out that we have fought two wars so that no British magazine has a say in our politics. But in truth, a person should always be open to other people’s ideas, even from foreigners who can’t vote, from a country we rebelled against.
And as a point of order, we don’t think walking is bona fide occupational qualification to be President. We have a lot of problems with the job Franklin D. Roosevelt did as President of the United States—his subversion of the separation of powers, his enlargement of the power of the Federal Government and the executive branch, his bullying of the Supreme Court and, related to the foregoing, his attempt to lock up an entire ethnicity. We wouldn’t have voted for him. But we don’t think his disabilities disqualified him from holding office. And as you will see, the Economist has opened themselves up to charges of ableism. But this disabled author will defend the Economist’s cover as a visual shorthand for the mental problems Joe Biden displayed at the debate (and elsewhere).
And the Economist put its finger on another point, that Professor Adler talked about just after the debate:
It's not just that viewers were disheartened by Biden's performance last night. People feel lied to. https://t.co/TAEnIx8Ag8
— Jonathan H. Adler (@jadler1969) June 28, 2024
The reality is that some people are super-engaged in politics. That obviously includes this author, all of Twitchy’s staff, and probably most of our regular readers. But many Americans are not that focused on politics. We don’t say this to say one group is better, just that they are different in this respect and one should always try to understand how people who are different from you think.
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So, we think that if you are conservative and you have been paying close attention to politics, it is absolutely not a surprise that Joe Biden has a significantly diminished capacity. On the other hand, if you weren’t paying much attention to politics, and you just tuned in for the debate, what you saw was not only sad: It was a shock. And in that shock, you are likely to actually get angry that somehow you were not being told that the President is this feeble before you saw it for yourself. A person like that is likely to ask, why weren’t all the people who are supposed to tell us these things telling us these things? Why was the government covering this up? Why wasn’t the press uncovering it?
So this is a White House scandal, because they were obviously covering this up as best they could. For instance, Merrick Garland continues to hold back the tapes of prosecutor Robert Hur’s interview of Joe Biden in relation to his mishandling of secret documents—the same type of conduct Trump is facing criminal charges for.
House Judiciary Committee sues Garland for Biden audio tapes https://t.co/DAONeuqX6g pic.twitter.com/j1L2Yq07lU
— Inty News (@inty_news) July 1, 2024
Based on that interview, Hur concluded that a jury would be unlikely to convict Biden of any intentional conduct because they would be convinced that he was a doddering old man who would forget his own head if it wasn’t stapled on.
Garland’s argument for withholding the audio is so specious it can’t be seen as anything but bad faith. We would go so far to say that if he tries it in federal court, he should be sanctioned. Garland had already released the transcript, so he couldn’t allege any kind of privilege related to the substance of of the conversation. Instead, he claimed that if you released audio of Joe Bide, then someone could use that to create a vocal ‘deep fake’ of Biden and engage in all kinds of mischief.
Do we have to explain to you how pathetic that argument is? This is THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES that we are talking about and the man already has literally hundreds of recordings of his voice floating around, spanning this author’s entire lifetime. Garland is not actually stupid enough to believe this is a valid argument—there’s a lot wrong with Garland, but stupidity is not one of his problems. Instead, he is unethically withholding that recording because he knows it is politically deadly—which is not a valid legal excuse.
Seriously, we thank G-d on a regular basis that Garland is not a Supreme Court justice. He and every White House official who has not called for at least an examination of Biden’s mental capacity is part of that cover up.
But it is worse than that. As we said on Twitter/X earlier:
This is easily the worst journalistic scandal since Rathergate, and I can’t see how anyone can claim it isn’t 1000 times worse. The entire mainstream of journalism failed at the very least, and was actively involved in the cover up at worst.
— (((Aaron Walker))) (@AaronWorthing) July 4, 2024
They keep saying that we have to… https://t.co/f6acfaN1JK
The cut off text reads:
They keep saying that we have to protect democracy. But they let the American people vote for Joe Biden when he has not been of sound mind throughout his entire presidency. They FDR’ed this bastard. And by that I mean that just as the press hid FDR’s profound disability through multiple elections, the press has hidden Joe Biden’s disability. Mind you, I don’t think FDR should have been prevented from being president because of his disability, but it’s not for the press to make these decisions. And with Joe Biden I believe he was removable under the 25th amendment on day one.
The press at the very least allowed a fraud to be carried out on the American people. At the very worst they helped to commit that fraud
Remember that the next time they claim that the American people need to hear the truth in order to protect democracy.
Seriously, we don’t want to hear another word from these schmucks about how we have to fight misinformation in order to protect democracy.
Predictably, there were reactions to the Economist’s cover:
Cover of The Economist. Holy cr*p pic.twitter.com/4gd33JSjQR
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 4, 2024
Come to think of it, if they really wanted to get this image right, they would have replaced the back rubber ‘feet’ with tennis balls that had been cut open.
If you know, you know.
The Economist was part of the coverup. Biden was a dottering old senile grandpa for years. They’re pretending to be shocked by it and by the coverup now.
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 4, 2024
They knew all along and were complicit in the coverup. pic.twitter.com/9Uqt927o5O
The cover of the Economist...Damn... pic.twitter.com/jwUQH3Y6yY
— Raylan Givens (@JewishWarrior13) July 4, 2024
Poor choice of image, in the light of Roosevelt.
— David Deutsch (@DavidDeutschOxf) July 4, 2024
Like we said, it opens them up to claims of ableism, but we defend it as visual shorthand.
Suddenly everyone sees... the obvious. pic.twitter.com/KH3v4zGRdC
— גי דוד - Super Free Man (@DBCWriter) July 4, 2024
We would rather mangle that immortal line from Casablanca: ‘I'm shocked, shocked, to find that dementia is going on in here.’
(To be fair, we won’t say it is definitely dementia. We aren’t doctors. But you don’t have to be a doctor to know something ain’t right.)
@TheEconomist 2 weeks ago: pic.twitter.com/3yUi2mvoj9
— David Reidy (@dr_firstgrowth) July 4, 2024
The tide has turned?
— Colin Kingsmill (@colin_kingsmill) July 4, 2024
We think the tide has turned in the media. But will it be enough to get Biden out of the race and out of the White House? We shall see. Not that we relish the thought of a President Harris—though Trump seems eager to run against her—but this author has this crazy belief that we should follow the Constitution for its own sake.
Just remember this was fine with the corporate press for years until it looked like it didn't benefit the Dems and the narrative was allowed to change. The MSM is complicit. https://t.co/Wxuc4QfWBQ
— Carol Roth (@caroljsroth) July 4, 2024
For those of you who are unaware…
— Marty (@martyguthrie) July 4, 2024
The Economist is basically Socialist Weekly for Wall Street.
This was not easy for them. https://t.co/aCfxnfJBFf
If I may put on my cloak of pedantry … the president doesn’t “run the country” — he runs the 2nd of 3 branches of the federal govt. Our view that he does “run the country,” and our expectation he solve all its problems, are one of the main sources of our present unhappiness. https://t.co/PNiSbyWDDl
— ⚓️ Geoff 🔱 (@GeoffNotJeff_12) July 4, 2024
That’s a sneakily profound point.
I’m old enough to remember when we made fun of the Soviet Politburo for being full of decrepit old men.
— LordoftheThumbs (@lordofthethumbs) July 4, 2024
Right before they collapsed! https://t.co/8buxNYY3Lg
We have been thinking a lot of a bit from Don Henley’s song The End of the Innocence: ‘this tired old man that we elected king.’ He wrote when Joe Biden was only around 47 years old, so clearly it wasn’t about him. But the shoe fits.
The reactions directly addressed to the Economist were particularly interesting:
Honestly, I'm not even that mad that you got this idea from the WALK FORCE ONE meme I posted 13 months ago.
— Brick Suit (@Brick_Suit) July 4, 2024
Happy 4th of July chaps!https://t.co/rVXDCKKwI1
True. Biden would get one of those fancy walkers with four wheels attached and a seat in the middle, because he's the president.
I’ll be purchasing my first Economist Magazine in 12 years.
— 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗠𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 (@txsalth2o) July 4, 2024
I canceled my subscription in 2012 when you endorsed Obama over Romney.
Reporting only now on what everyone knew was a problem years ago also provokes contempt.
— Daily Gondor (@DailyGondor) July 4, 2024
You won't escape it until you start doing proper journalism. Can you?
You guys were a part of the coverup
— Soledad Ursua (@SoledadUrsua) July 4, 2024
Your choice of cover was beyond tasteless and disrespectful. My goodness, how could you?
— Marita Graça (@maritagraca) July 4, 2024
This is actually pretty mild on the scale of things. We have seen editorial cartoons about Andrew Jackson that would make her toes curl.
The comments on this are absolute gold
— Erich Hartmann (@erichhartmann) July 4, 2024
I'm still a little shocked that the Democrats were this dishonest.
— Daniel Spenrath (@Daniel_Spenrath) July 4, 2024
We’ve lost our way.
— Susie (@SoCalSister22) July 4, 2024
You expect people to believe that you found this out last Thursday? 🤡
— slyventure (@slyventure771) July 4, 2024
Do you think this is organic, like salmon swimming upstream, or is it coordinated? https://t.co/ReOlwdyquf
— FilmLadd (@FilmLadd) July 4, 2024
Enough! Stop blaming the scorpion! Campaign dishonesty is a given. Always.
— Noam Dworman (@noam_dworman) July 4, 2024
The problem was the press. They knew, or didn't want to know. They suspended all professional skepticism even in the face of in-our-face evidence. They found experts to tell us he was a "super-ager." https://t.co/yFWjMbTK64 pic.twitter.com/RMaoDVAMxH
A human is not an unthinking bug like a scorpion. Yes, you shouldn’t expect a campaign or presidential administration to be honest, but you still condemn the dishonesty. You can condemn both the liars and the people who should have exposed those lies, and didn’t.
May the democrats who allowed this nightmare to happen never find a job running a hotdog cart ever again. https://t.co/OZER8c4qFZ
— Breathtaking Inanity (@breathtkinan) July 4, 2024
Certainly, we won’t cry any tears the next time someone in the leftist media loses their jobs.
Finally, are we the only ones who were reminded of this bit from Saturday Night Live?
We don’t think Bill Murray did a lot of impersonations back in his SNL days, but this one is excellent.
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