The U.S. media played a key role in Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat, Kimberley Strassel wrote. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Strassel feels "the most damaging of these fantasies was the four-year press assurance that Joe Biden was sharp as a tack," and noted that the journalists who insisted "video evidence in June of a confused president wandering aimlessly" was edited, misleading or lacking context were part of the problem.
"Only when the Trump-Biden debate made Mr. Biden’s decline undeniable did the media drop the charade," Strassel wrote.
Once Biden was pushed aside, the press worked to recast Harris "as a political genius and the obvious savior of the Democratic Party" despite her record as a "primary loser turned unpopular vice president."
"How’d that work out?" Strassel asked.
Democrats who want to point fingers for President-elect Trump’s Election Day thumping of Vice President Kamala Harris should look directly at the mainstream media, according to a scathing Wall Street Journal column. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
She wrote that "Biden’s failing constitution would have been front-page news in time for Democrats to confront the unpleasant (yet manageable) reality of needed change" if the press were actually competent.
"A primary would have produced a tested nominee, likely one less encumbered by the Biden record. As Harris adviser (and Obama veteran) David Plouffe complains that Team Biden created a ‘hole’ too ‘deep’ for his sidekick to dig out of, don’t forget the industry whose job it is to call out political fiction, but instead wrote the ‘Joe Is Fine’ novel," Strassel wrote.
"Of course Democrats are shocked that they lost," she added. "In a world with a functioning press, the politician who tries to make lemonade out of inflation, crime or border chaos, is slapped as out of touch. In Biden-Harris world, the press printed their spin as gospel."
