Even for Americans who long ago lost faith in “journalism” as practiced by CNN, “journalist” M.J. Lee just managed to come up with a surprise.
The network’s White House correspondent had an opportunity to put a question to President Joe Biden on Monday that not only failed in its obvious mission of making Republicans look bad.
It also managed to take CNN’s reputation down a notch lower than it already was.
The moment came on the South Lawn of the White House, as a White House transcript noted, when Biden strolled over to reporters for what looked like an impromptu chat.
And what he got was the kind of softball question Democratic presidents — and only Democratic presidents — can dream of.
On the topic of the death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny — which amounts to a murder by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his regime — Lee asked if House Republicans were actually the responsible parties.
“REPORTER”: “Would you go so far as to say that Alexei Navalny’s blood is on the hands of House Republicans right now?”
BIDEN: “I wouldn’t use that term, but they’re making a big mistake not responding” pic.twitter.com/ir3qhw5ejT
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 19, 2024
“Mr. President, would you go so far as to say that Alexei Navalny’s blood is on the hands of House Republicans right now?” Lee asked.
Do you still watch CNN?
He wasn’t asked if his obvious weakness in the face of Russian aggression in the months leading up to the invasion of Ukraine two years ago had encouraged Russian Presidnt Vladimir Putin’s dictatorial tendencies.
He wasn’t asked if Putin had shown Biden up by ignoring Biden’s face-to-face threat in 2021 (as reported by Lee’s own CNN) that Russia would face “devastating consequences” if Navalny died in a Russian prison.
He wasn’t even asked what he might be considering in response to Russia’s obvious contempt for tough words followed by no action.
Nope. The president was asked if House Republicans bore the blood of the Russian dissident on their hands.
Magnanimously, Biden replied they did not — not quite.
“I wouldn’t use that term,” he said. “They’re making a big mistake not responding. Look, the way they’re walking away from the threat of Russia, the way they’re walking away from NATO, the way they’re walking away from meeting our obligations — it’s just stunning. I mean … I’ve never seen anything like this.”
For Biden, it’s the usual gibberish. No one is walking away from international threats, nor international obligations. (Though Biden himself appears perilously close to abandoning Israel, one of the United States strongest allies.)
The fact that he has abrogated his constitutional responsibility to enforce the law of the United States when it comes to the southern border doesn’t give him any moral high ground either.
But for CNN it was even worse. The network’s credibility as a news source was already nonexistent. Lee’s question took it over the line into outright propaganda for the administration — “Would you say the Republicans are terrible for the American people? Or are they just really bad?”
And social media users noticed:
Reporter? More like a pathetic propagandist.
— Rob Alberts (@robertjalberts) February 19, 2024
Even literal elected Democrats are sometimes less hacktastically partisan than journos https://t.co/P3TY2lv4L1
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) February 19, 2024
The next “reporter” will change that to: “Many have said that Alexei Navalny’s blood is on the hands of House Republicans, how are they wrong President Biden.”
– As Biden isn’t good with subtle improv.— Constance Underfoot (@ConstanceProse) February 19, 2024
And some noted, that given the political warfare being waged against former President Donald Trump by Biden’s political allies, Putin might have gotten a message that the United States now thinks its A-OK to be doing away with political opponents.
If anything Putin was emboldened because Biden normalized criminalizing people daring to be political opposition to him in the United States.
— Justine (@BruinJustine) February 19, 2024
That might or might not be so. What is unquestionably true is that Vladimir Putin — along with every other enemy and would-be enemy of the United States — has had three years to watch as Joe Biden demonstrated weakness after weakness after weakness.
He humiliated the country with the Afghanistan withdrawal. He’s allowed his diplomats to be bullied by China, on American soil no less, and he’s letting his own administration at home be frightened by ignorant Jew-hating bullies in Congress, on the campuses, and in the streets because his hold on the presidency is so tenuous it could be decided by a handful of voters in a handful of counties in a handful of swing states.
Biden is simply not to be taken seriously, and the world knows it — friend and foe alike.
For friends, it’s likely just a question of hoping for the best until the United States regains its senses. For foes, it’s a time to strike — as Putin has done in Ukraine, as Hamas has done in Israel, as China could well be doing in Taiwan before too long.
And for the American people, it’s a time to realize that they will never, ever get a straight story from a media so biased a reporter would even consider asking a question like the one Lee tossed Biden’s way on Monday.
As for CNN, its reputation was bad already — this is the network that plagued the Trump White House and the American people with Jim Acosta after all.
Somehow, by asking a question so inane even Biden wasn’t having it, M.J. Lee just lowered it even more.
