Hey Charlie (and Tim). I really have to push back on the whole "Biden lied about the laptop (and the media suppressed the story)" narrative. Please feel free to correct if I'm getting anything wrong.
Firstly, Joe Biden's statements regarding the laptop were made, as Tim acknowledged, *during the campaign*. If those statements were bein…
Hey Charlie (and Tim). I really have to push back on the whole "Biden lied about the laptop (and the media suppressed the story)" narrative. Please feel free to correct if I'm getting anything wrong.
Firstly, Joe Biden's statements regarding the laptop were made, as Tim acknowledged, *during the campaign*. If those statements were being made now that Biden has access to Justice Department information, then I'd agree that he was lying.
But there's no reason to think that Joe Biden would be able to authenticate Hunter Biden's emails any better than anyone else - especially if Joe really did keep his distance from Hunter's business dealings and Hunter wasn't completely honest with his Dad. We don't know this to be the case, of course, but it's certainly no stretch to imagine that Hunter wouldn't be entirely forthcoming, or at the very least would be willing to feign the same ignorance that he did with the general public regarding the laptop.
Also, recall that the notion of Russian disinformation wasn't something Joe Biden pulled out of the back of his khakis. Remember that there were *50 former national security officials* who signed an open letter saying that they *suspected* Russian disinformation. Fifty! While they were careful to note in their letter that it was only a suspicion, before they transparently laid out their argument so that it could be fairly evaluated for what it was, that sort of thing is easily perceived by the general public as "50 experts say it's true, therefore it is". It is not hard to imagine someone in Joe Biden's position coming to the conclusion at the time that it was indeed Russian disinformation. Tim made the claim on Friday's podcast that anyone who evaluated it objectively or fairly would have concluded it obviously wasn't Russian disinformation. Not sure I agree, but in any case, the last person I'd expect to be able to evaluate the issue objectively and fairly would be Hunter Biden's father.
Also, with regard to the culpability of "the media", or "the MSM" as the feudal lords of the Substack like to call it, it needs to be said that *actual media outlets* (like the NYT, Wapo, and WSJ) didn't suppress this story. They reported on it for what it was - an unconfirmed report being distributed by a highly biased and partisan source in the immediate period before an election. And the source (Rudy Giuliani) actually *had been* a conduit for previous Russian disinformation about Ukraine conspiracy theories. Even the NY Post wouldn't publish it under the names of their own reporters, and Giuliani refused repeated requests by some mainstream outlets to give them access to the same hard drives he gave the Post. Nothing suspicious there. Given what happened in 2016 with Jim Comey's inadvertently instigated abundance-of-caution "scandal", which the Times embraced with relish, responsible media was quite understandably hesitant to play the dupe in another bogus Trump October surprise. So they gave it muted, yet ultimately fair, coverage. Not treating something as front page news isn't being dishonest or even unfair, especially considering the circumstances.
But wait - didn't the media actually *kill* the story? Only if you consider Twitter (and other social media outlets) to be "the media". And only if you consider an ill-fated overreaction that blew up in their face to be "killing" a story. The last time I checked, Jack Dorsey wasn't a newspaper editor or network news chief, and Twitter's forum moderators aren't journalists. They're at best amateur fact-checkers for a social media giant who, by law, is *not* a publisher and therefore *not* responsible for what gets pushed out on their platform. The fact that they've been making good faith attempts to be somewhat responsible for disinformation, and to do so in real time no less, is actually quite admirable. Mistakes are to be expected, and the fact that those mistakes are rather quickly acknowledged and corrected is hardly a cause for losing faith in "the media" - quite the opposite, in fact.
Hey Charlie (and Tim). I really have to push back on the whole "Biden lied about the laptop (and the media suppressed the story)" narrative. Please feel free to correct if I'm getting anything wrong.
Firstly, Joe Biden's statements regarding the laptop were made, as Tim acknowledged, *during the campaign*. If those statements were being made now that Biden has access to Justice Department information, then I'd agree that he was lying.
But there's no reason to think that Joe Biden would be able to authenticate Hunter Biden's emails any better than anyone else - especially if Joe really did keep his distance from Hunter's business dealings and Hunter wasn't completely honest with his Dad. We don't know this to be the case, of course, but it's certainly no stretch to imagine that Hunter wouldn't be entirely forthcoming, or at the very least would be willing to feign the same ignorance that he did with the general public regarding the laptop.
Also, recall that the notion of Russian disinformation wasn't something Joe Biden pulled out of the back of his khakis. Remember that there were *50 former national security officials* who signed an open letter saying that they *suspected* Russian disinformation. Fifty! While they were careful to note in their letter that it was only a suspicion, before they transparently laid out their argument so that it could be fairly evaluated for what it was, that sort of thing is easily perceived by the general public as "50 experts say it's true, therefore it is". It is not hard to imagine someone in Joe Biden's position coming to the conclusion at the time that it was indeed Russian disinformation. Tim made the claim on Friday's podcast that anyone who evaluated it objectively or fairly would have concluded it obviously wasn't Russian disinformation. Not sure I agree, but in any case, the last person I'd expect to be able to evaluate the issue objectively and fairly would be Hunter Biden's father.
Also, with regard to the culpability of "the media", or "the MSM" as the feudal lords of the Substack like to call it, it needs to be said that *actual media outlets* (like the NYT, Wapo, and WSJ) didn't suppress this story. They reported on it for what it was - an unconfirmed report being distributed by a highly biased and partisan source in the immediate period before an election. And the source (Rudy Giuliani) actually *had been* a conduit for previous Russian disinformation about Ukraine conspiracy theories. Even the NY Post wouldn't publish it under the names of their own reporters, and Giuliani refused repeated requests by some mainstream outlets to give them access to the same hard drives he gave the Post. Nothing suspicious there. Given what happened in 2016 with Jim Comey's inadvertently instigated abundance-of-caution "scandal", which the Times embraced with relish, responsible media was quite understandably hesitant to play the dupe in another bogus Trump October surprise. So they gave it muted, yet ultimately fair, coverage. Not treating something as front page news isn't being dishonest or even unfair, especially considering the circumstances.
But wait - didn't the media actually *kill* the story? Only if you consider Twitter (and other social media outlets) to be "the media". And only if you consider an ill-fated overreaction that blew up in their face to be "killing" a story. The last time I checked, Jack Dorsey wasn't a newspaper editor or network news chief, and Twitter's forum moderators aren't journalists. They're at best amateur fact-checkers for a social media giant who, by law, is *not* a publisher and therefore *not* responsible for what gets pushed out on their platform. The fact that they've been making good faith attempts to be somewhat responsible for disinformation, and to do so in real time no less, is actually quite admirable. Mistakes are to be expected, and the fact that those mistakes are rather quickly acknowledged and corrected is hardly a cause for losing faith in "the media" - quite the opposite, in fact.