{"id":668717,"date":"2021-08-21T10:06:13","date_gmt":"2021-08-21T14:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=668717"},"modified":"2021-08-21T10:06:15","modified_gmt":"2021-08-21T14:06:15","slug":"graham-cowardly-biden-hides-from-the-press-on-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/graham-cowardly-biden-hides-from-the-press-on-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"GRAHAM: Cowardly Biden Hides From The Press On Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgraham-cowardly-biden-hides-from-the-press-on-afghanistan%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=668717&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/C0565A47-CF0C-4880-96F4-7B172754FAE2-scaled-e1629495589380.jpeg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>The very supportive media environment around President Joe Biden has turned suddenly sour over this administration\u2019s shoddy handling of Afghanistan. This debacle shouldn\u2019t be buried and ignored by the press, like they\u2019ve tried to do with the border crisis. But Biden\u2019s gone back to hiding as a strategy, as he did in his 2020 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n<p>For four days, the president disappeared from public view. Then he gave a speech on Aug. 16, took no questions and retreated again. His only engagement with the press in the last week was an interview with ABC\u2019s George Stephanopoulos, best known as a loyal press adviser to former President Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n<p>This is strange behavior in a crisis, but it\u2019s not atypical. Back in May, press secretary Jen Psaki admitted to her pal David Axelrod that Biden \u201ctakes questions nearly every day he\u2019s out from the press. That is not something we recommend. In fact, a lot of times we say, \u2018Don\u2019t take questions.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not like journalists are out to get him, as they obviously were out to destroy former President Donald Trump. But risk avoidance is everything.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Knoller, a former CBS White House reporter, tweeted that Biden\u2019s chat with Stephanopoulos was his ninth news interview over more than 200 days of his presidency. Knoller compared that count to Trump\u2019s 50 interviews and former President Barack Obama\u2019s 113 interviews. You can stipulate that Obama\u2019s \u201cnews interviews\u201d were often soft-serve events, but there\u2019s no question that Biden is remarkably stingy with the access.<\/p>\n<p>Washington Post \u201cfact checker\u201d Glenn Kessler tweeted that Biden had done zero \u201cprint interviews,\u201d and then added that Knoller corrected him: Biden granted interviews to New York Times columnist David Brooks and Atlantic correspondent Edward-Isaac Dovere.<\/p>\n<p>Dovere is the sycophant who asked him in a press conference last September about his magazine\u2019s sleazy story claiming that Trump mocked our war dead as losers. He asked Biden about the dreadful state of Trump\u2019s soul, and quoted Democrat mouthpiece Khizr Khan claiming, \u201cPresident Trump\u2019s life is a testament to selfishness, and his soul is that of a coward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is Biden today who looks like a coward, afraid of a press corps that overwhelmingly voted for him. Democrats don\u2019t like wild speculation about Biden going senile and needing 25th Amendment intervention \u2014 although they energetically pushed that under Trump. Hiding the president behind the curtain isn\u2019t boosting confidence.<\/p>\n<p>Jim Geraghty of National Review had a strong impression after the Stephanopoulos interview hit the airwaves: \u201cThe obvious answer to why Biden rarely appears on camera or takes questions is because every time he does it, he inflicts more damage upon himself and his agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Geraghty found his responses to criticism have sounded like selfishness: \u201cThe president whose empathy is endlessly touted now sounds cold and dismissive when asked about Afghans\u2019 desperately crowding into American planes or falling to their deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Biden expects the media to act like \u201cthe help\u201d and tolerate his press-avoidance strategy, and change the subject to other less disturbing topics. New York Times White House reporter Peter Baker tweeted: \u201cThe Biden team\u2019s cold political calculation is that Americans won\u2019t care what happens in Afghanistan as long as Americans are safe. To their point, today there are no front-page stories on Afghanistan in cities like Boston, Austin, Chicago, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Fresno or Miami.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Every Democrat makes the political calculation that most media outlets will attempt to carefully manage the \u201cnews\u201d into an agreeable shape. And every Republican expects that most media outlets will attempt to sink them. Walking away from the Afghanistan story will make the press look as cold and dismissive as Biden.<\/p>\n<p><i>The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The very supportive media environment around President Joe Biden has turned suddenly sour over this administration\u2019s shoddy handling of Afghanistan. This debacle shouldn\u2019t be buried and ignored by the press, &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1893789,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-668717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1893789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}