In a feature it calls the Morning Newsletter, the Times asked if Biden’s age, 80, will “prevent him from winning a second term” after he announced a re-election bid just days earlier.
“Strange as it may sound,” the Times somehow reasoned, “the American government can function without a healthy president.”
Curtis Houck of Media Research Center says The New York Times seems mighty concerned about a Republican becoming the next occupant of the White House. After all, he points out, the article congratulates Biden for not calling the Times and other national media the “enemy” of the American people like Donald Trump did.
In the story, Times writer David Leonhardt makes excuse after excuse for Biden: He says the wrong words when speaking because of his stuttering problem, and his lack of press conferences is because of his White House staff.
The article goes on to suggest White House aides, Cabinet secretaries and military leaders will “bail the president out” if Biden wins a second term, but Houck says they have been bailing him out his entire presidency, and that's a problem.
“That kind of negates the whole point of having an elective representative to begin with that has to answer to the people,” he reasons. “When voters go in and fill in the bubble, you're doing it for a person and their policies.”
Houck summarizes the Times article like this: Trump is living rent free in the minds of the reporters and editors, who fear his return to the White House and are ignoring Biden’s problems.
“If Trump weren't running,” Houck says, “it would be an open question as to whether Biden would run again, if he would see the need for it.”
