Snark hunt coming up empty
When then-President Trump vowed last year all Americans could get the coronavirus vaccine by April 2021, he was greeted with snarky skepticism by the Washington Post which sniffed that he made the prediction “without evidence.”
So where’s the snarkiness now?
President Biden made similar boasts about the vaccine being available by April but not once was he questioned about the prediction or treated with skepticism.
The long-held dirty little secret is out — the American media is unabashedly and unapologetically liberal.
Now that Biden is in office, leaks and critical stories that dominated Trump’s presidency have virtually stopped.
It’s actually boring. No doubt there are critical stories out there, but the press is too lazy or unmotivated to dig them up.
One of the few aggressive reporters, Fox News’s Peter Doocy, is treated as a rightwing stooge.
When CNN’s Jim Acosta played a similar role with Trump, he was treated as a hero by liberals. Acosta, firmly in the Biden tank, now has almost nothing to do but take the administration spin on everything.
It’s become essentially stenographer reporting — dutifully doling out whatever press release or news of the day the Biden administration is plugging. No critical analysis.
The opposite was true when Trump was in the Oval Office. The former president was forced to back up every statement he made — not always a bad thing, by the way.
But it would be good if every president was held to the same standard.
The Washington Post story last September alleged that Trump contradicted his own health team which said the general public was unlikely to get the vaccine until the second and third quarters of 2021.
Here’s what Trump said: “Hundreds of millions of doses will be available every month, and we expect to have enough vaccines for every American by April.”
This statement wasn’t far off from reality — in fact, the general public will be able to get vaccines later this month and some states are actually ahead of that timeline.
But because this was Trump and the Post, the headline scoffed that he made the claim “without evidence.”
In fact the Trump administration had already set in motion plans to buy hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine, which would be enough to cover every American. Not sure what evidence the Post was looking for.
This week Biden made the not-so-bold declaration that all adults will become eligible for the vaccine by April 19. This was actual earlier than Biden had initially predicted — he moved up the timeline.
So when Biden makes a bold prediction that’s leadership. When Trump does it he’s a farce.