My Two Common Sense
Gary Borders
I’m sure by now you’ve heard or read about the pretty rotten, awful, horrible performance by President Biden during the televised debate. While my previous column dealt with what was said, this will deal with how it was perceived, particularly in the delivery and what it says about the candidates.
We’ll start with the obvious, in that the former president barked and chirped and fired back every time his foibles, both real and perceived, were put on display, because true to form, liberals will attack credibility and propriety when facts just won’t do.
While I don’t begrudge any man for defending himself against baseless accusations, particularly those that were based on fallacious information, wouldn’t the American voters be better served hearing about how their lives will be made better and how problems will be solved?
On the even more obvious side, the sitting president came off like an addled old man, mispronouncing words, jumbling phrases, and claiming accomplishments that were not his while touting victories that didn’t exist.
I’m not going to fact-check every claim, because there isn’t a point. What I will do is point out that the fallout of that debacle, and the subsequent speeches and interviews, has left the national news media, the supposed cream-of-the-information crop, aghast at Biden’s condition.
What has been obvious to many for the last three years has just landed with a wet thump in the laps of the overly paid talking heads and so-called journalists, and that is the commander-in-chief doesn’t really have command of much.
These journalisms are reporting that there are serious issues with the president and are coming off like they’ve been duped for the majority of his presidency and before. They’re also eagerly reporting on how many other similarly uninformed members of both the media and political classes have not only been duped but are now calling for Biden to be replaced.
All of this is being presented to us as if the media has swooped in to be the champions of truth, justice and the American way.
Reporting the truth always was considered a hallmark of government. Even Thomas Jefferson extolled the necessity of a free press, saying that “... were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Essentially, news sources, no matter the size, are the watchdogs of government, and because of that, need to be above reproach. Objectivity is a necessity, and most of all fully as truthful as they may be.
Because the alternative is years of bad decisions and crumbling society while we are told that everything is sunshine and puppy dogs.
Or, as Vladimir Lenin said, “The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator but also a collective organizer of the masses.”
Tony Farkas is editor of the San Jacinto News-Times and the Trinity County News-Standard. He can be reached at tony@polkcountypublishing. com.
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