Like Trump’s loyalty is a one-way street. So is hypocrisy where the press is concerned.
Kevin Kruse, the Princeton historian, caught my attention Monday night when he posted the cancellation of his Washington Post subscription. Kruse posted a screenshot of the Post’s landing page making the Hunter Biden pardon out to be the biggest national story since Nov. 5. In disgust, Kruse threw up his hands and hit “cancel. “
The Post’s front page caught me by surprise because I was otherwise tied up with North Carolina Republicans trying to cancel 60,000 votes, including those of several friends. More on that in a minute.
Marcy Wheeler has an explanation for the blanket coverage of a non-story:
How Jeff Bezos Smothered Pete Hegseth News because Hunter Biden Was Pardoned of Already Declined Charges
Author/journalist Mikel Jollet replied that the focus perfectly encapsulated what’s wrong with American journalism:
Is it a story? Sure.
But every newspaper in America devoting front page headlines to Hunter fucking Biden while Trump appoints a cabal of rapists, racists and con-men to positions of enormous power is MADNESS.
Donald Trump’s plans to spend his second term seeking vengeance against opponents, tanking the economy, ethnically cleansing nonwhite people, lining his pockets, selling out U.S. allies, and cozying up to brutish dictators is now background noise unworthy of the kind of attention the Post just gave the Bidens.
Know why? Because Democrats have a hypocrisy problem.
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes responded: “A thing everyone has forgotten is that Donald Trump basically sprang Roger Stone from prison so he could help with the coup and it was maybe a one day story.”
Josh Marshall of TPM responded: “This is why I seriously don’t want to ever hear from anyone about this pardon. Politico says it’s the most consequential pardon since Richard Nixon.”
You get the point. Had Kamala Harris actually won the presidency last month, the press narrative would be “bad news for Democrats.” As is, losing by a whisker is “bad news for Democrats.”
But back to Republicans backstabbing voters in North Carolina. This deserves headlines it will never get.
While you were inundated with stories about the Biden pardon, Judge Jefferson Griffin (remember him?), the Republican challenger for a North Carolina state Supreme Court seat, is trailing incumbent Democrat Justice Allison Riggs in the ballot counting. Something must be done, amirite?
Griffin trails Riggs by over 600 votes as recounts continue. Desperate, Griffin and GOP attorneys assembled a list of 60,000 voters statewide whose ballots they allege were improperly counted. On the Buncombe list (my county) are several friends who have voted for years: a former president of the local NAACP, a manager at a downtown hotel, a former Asheville talk show host.
Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, tells the Raleigh News and Observer that Griffin’s challenge is “a choose-your-own-adventure” gambit with no penalty for trying. “So the incentive is to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.”
Griffin is not only attempting to stick it to Democrats. His attorneys can read election results. Throwing out 1,600 Buncombe votes in bulk will hurt Riggs more than Griffin. (Riggs won the county 64-36 percent.) Republican and unaffiliated votes Griffin cancels in pursuit of a win by any means necessary are simply collateral damage. They’ll always throw their own under the bus to win.
If you live in North Carolina, is your name on the GOP hit list? Here are the links by county.
UPDATE: Added the link to Marcy Wheeler’s post.