Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com is very much into advancing the right-wing narrative that President Biden is, or is going, senile. It has continued to do that over the past few months. One way it does that is by cherry-picking remarks out of context and putting them in the headline to make him sound crazy:
- Biden: 'How Do I Cross a Bridge in a Snowstorm?'
- Biden: 'I Was Raised on Cars. And I Have a 1967 Corvette...Hells Bells, Man'
- Biden to CEOs: 'If I Can Get My Pages Unstuck Here, We’re Ready'
- Biden Rambles On About Valentine's Day in Visit to Troops, Then Wonders, 'Now Where Am I Supposed to Go?'
- Biden: If I Told You Omicron Would Spread by 50%, 100%, 200%, You Would Have Looked at Me and Said, ‘Biden, What Are You Drinking?’
- Biden's Odd Remark to WH COVID Coordinator: 'More Times Than I've Seen You'
- Biden: 'There's a Lot of Reason to Be Hopeful in 2020' (in which Susan Jones asserted, "President Joe Biden has troubled [sic] expressing himself")
- Biden Isn't Sure How to Say 'Inglesby,' the Name of His New COVID Testing Czar
CNS also hypes explicit attacks on Biden's mental health, like this Nov. 23 article by Megan Williams:
Veteran journalist and commentator Brit Hume said it is a “far cry from certain” that President Joe Biden will run for reelection in 2024, and added that, health-wise, Biden is “clearly deteriorating, he’s clearly senile.”
On Monday’s Special Report w/Brett Baier, Hume was asked about Biden’s comment that he plans to run again in 2024.
“I don’t think it’s at all clear that he intends to run again, but I do think that as a political matter, you have to say that,” replied Hume.
[...]
“He’s clearly deteriorating, he’s clearly senile, and his health is -- despite his doctor’s comments to the contrary,” said Hume. “When you’re falling down stairs and so on, as he did climbing the stairs to Air Force One, that’s worrisome.”
Williams made no effort to balance her article with the point of view of a medical expert.
Columnist Pat Buchanan -- for whom CNS editor Terry Jeffrey during both of his 1990s presidential campaigns -- has gotten into the act as well. In his Dec. 17 column, he sneered at the idea of Biden running for re-election: "Does Biden look like a signal-calling quarterback with seven years of playing days ahead of him?" He then added:
When one views his diminished mental capacities and the issues menu before him, it seems a certainty that we are not looking at a two-term president.
[...]
So where will we and Biden be at New Year's Eve 2023?
We will have an octogenarian president, in even more visible cognitive decline, faced with intractable issues of crime, a bleeding border, a pandemic and an inflation with which he has been unable to cope.
Buchanan similarly wrote in his Dec. 31 column:
Hovering over all of the above is the gnawing and growing concern among the American people about the physical and mental capacities of their president.
A month ago, a Politico poll found that while 46% of Americans believe Biden is mentally fit for his office, 48% disagree. In the same poll, only about one-half of all Americans felt Biden was "in good health."
That's how CNS helps to keep malicious right-wing narratives going.
