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Sunday, November 1, 2020
MRC's Double Standard On Presidential Candidates' Alleged Cognitive Decline
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center, like its "news" division CNSNews.com, loves to question whether Joe Biden is all there mentally:

  • Tim Graham complained: "Just as CNN's Brian Stelter lurched from attacking President Trump's "mental fitness" to defending Joe Biden's, Yahoo News politics editor David Knowles located three Trump-bashing psychologists to demonstrate the same partisan reflexes. The March 5 article was headlined 'Trump's mental state — not Biden's — is the real concern, mental health professionals say.'"
  • Mark Finkelstein declared that a "more balanced view would be that Biden's recent outbursts against voters are indicative of someone who—lacking the cognitive resources to respond substantively when challenged—resorts to schoolyard slurs."
  • Nicholas Fondacaro insisted that questions about Biden's cognitive state are "a serious concern for a man Biden’s age" and declared that a Fox News reporter was "fair enough" in asking Biden about it.
  • Jeffrey Lord hyped "the constant stories of Biden experiencing “cognitive decline” -- aka dementia."
  • Michael Dellano huffed of MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell and Joy Reid: "The fact that Reid and O’Donnell just glossed over Biden’s obvious cognitive decline is sickening."
  • Christian Toto asserted that "Biden’s own cognitive skills are clearly in decline, another subject comics are loath to mention, let alone mock."
  • When Biden gave an answer to a question about cognitive decline that the MRC didn't like, Scott Whitlock retorted that "journalists have a responsibility to follow up on this and ask more questions about Biden and cognitive decline."
  • Fondacaro grumbled that a reporter "did his job of defending Biden from accusations of cognitive decline by ignoring how Biden had misremembered how many grandkids he had."

But, like CNS, they get really mad when President Trump's mental state is question. In July, Duncan Schroeder was mad that "CNN co-hosts John Berman and Alisyn Camerota shed their poor guise of being objective journalists in order to seek political revenge against President Trump and deflect questions about Joe Biden's cognitive ability," ranting that minor verbal taffes showed that Biden was the real candidate in cognitive decline:

If Berman cared about being a journalist and not just campaigning for Biden, he would have discussed Trump’s very reasonable concerns about Biden’s cognitive state. He forgot the words to the Declaration of Independence, twice said that the long-deceased Margaret Thatcher condemned Trump, said that “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids,” couldn't even remember the number for donating to his campaign, told an autoworker that he was “full of s***” and that he did not need an “AR-14,” said that “you ain’t black” if black Americans do not vote for him, said that coronavirus has killed 120 million Americans, and that gun violence has killed another 150 million.

In an Oct. 9 post, Kyle Drennen ranted that questions about cognitive decline are politically motivated ... when they're made about Trump:

On Friday, all three network morning shows decided to do the Democratic Party’s dirty work as they hyped House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s wild claims that President Trump was in an “altered state” due to coronavirus medication and her push to create a so-called “Commission on Presidential Capacity” to promote the false partisan narrative.

NBC’s Today show co-host Craig Melvin touted the attack line as he spoke to White House correspondent Hallie Jackson: “...the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, she’s also making some headlines this morning, bringing up the 25th Amendment.” Jackson eagerly touted the ridiculous and blatantly political stunt:

[...]

As much as left-wing politicians and media activists claim they believe in science, they’re happy to push wild, fact-free claims about the President’s health if they think it will hurt him in the upcoming election.

Needless to say, Drennen did not admit that his co-workers' repeated questioning of Biden's mental state was similarly "sleazy" and "false" just as much of a "ridiculous and blatantly political stunt."


Posted by Terry K. at 4:32 PM EDT
Updated: Sunday, November 1, 2020 7:23 PM EDT

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