Politico hit piece accuses Bden of "strutting" and "chest thumping" -- pure malarkey

[highplainsdem]

I don't think anyone who's at all familiar with Biden would consider him the strutting, chest-thumping type.

But this is the headline and subhead from Politico:

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/03/biden-2020-rivals-074987


Biden struts as his rivals bite the dust

The former VP is talking like the nomination is his to lose.


That's an inaccurate and hyperbolic headline worthy of the National Enquirer. Anyone at Politico connected with this should be ashamed.

MASON CITY, Iowa — Joe Biden’s feeling awfully confident these days.

The former vice president thinks he doesn't need Barack Obama to win the primary. He seemed to mock the idea that there's enthusiasm for Elizabeth Warren or that Pete Buttigieg came up with his own plans. And he professed to be untroubled by the possibility of Mike Bloomberg dropping $1 billion to beat him out for the nomination.

Biden is dripping with confidence as he tours through Iowa two months before the state’s caucuses, after endless predictions his candidacy would crumble by now. Instead, the candidates who pitched themselves as Biden alternatives are the ones dropping.

On Tuesday, it was Kamala Harris, who just this summer had so humiliated Biden on the national debate stage that analysts questioned whether black supporters would ditch the former vice president in droves. Instead, as Biden exited an event in north central Iowa, reporters shouted questions at him about whether he’d still consider Harris as his running mate.

Earlier this week, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, who joined the primary with the promise of capturing moderate voters who believed Biden was too old and out of touch, folded his presidential campaign.

The chest-thumping two months before the Feb. 3 caucuses is a risky approach for Biden, given the fluidity of the race, especially in Iowa, where Biden has steadily lost ground in polling since January....

This is so laughable when everyone knows Biden's spending all this time in Iowa because he knows he has to work harder to reach the electorate there.

But according to Politico, Biden's not only confident, but awfully confident. Dripping with confidence.

How dare Biden be at all confident when some of his rivals are dropping out of the race? OMG OMG OMG that's chest thumping!!!

In fact, by putting the accusation of chest-thumping after paragraphs about Biden's rivals dropping out, Politico seems to be trying to imply that Biden's somehow gloating about having fewer rivals.

This is despicable faux journalism.

Shame on Politico.

[George II]

1. Fully in character for Politico, however. They're on 24/7 attack mode against Biden.....

....we'll see this one two or three more times in the next day.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Meh, Marc Caputo.

In 2016, Politico Senior Writer Marc Caputo was tipped off by a Republican operative to a cache of hacked DCCC documents, stolen by Russian GRU agents and published on a blog under the now-infamous moniker Guccifer 2.0. Among those documents, which were never intended to be seen by the public, were compromising dossiers that included the scandals, indiscretions and political vulnerabilities of the Democratic Party's own candidates in Florida races.

Even though Russian intelligence was suspected to be behind the hack, many in the mainstream media used the stolen material. Politico's Caputo used excerpts from the dossiers in one report, published just a few months before the vote, titled, "Hacked DCCC docs dish on strategy and scandal for Florida congressional candidates."

In an interview with 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker, Caputo says the source of the information was "right at the edge of being unusable," but that he and his editors ultimately decided to publish. "This tells voters 'Here's what the Democratic Party actually thinks about Democratic candidates, despite what the Democratic Party says,'" he said, "and we think ultimately that if the information is true, voters have a right to that information," he said.

Asked by Whitaker if it felt unfair to publish information that only damaged one side of the political spectrum, Caputo said, "Well, life is unfair. And politics is unfair. My job is not to sit there and decide, 'this is fair, and this is not.' My job is to cover the news. And wherever the news leads, we follow." He says their standards are, "It has to be true. And it has to be newsworthy."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/journalist-marc-caputo-defends-reporting-that-used-russia-hacked-documents-60-minutes-2019-11-24/

[JoeOtterbein]

3. "strutting"...Maybe they meant this from the article?...

snip

“You don’t see that [enthusiasm] with Warren, stop kidding a kidder, okay? Come on, man. Give me a break,” Biden said. At first Biden said the enthusiasm for Warren was lacking in Iowa but then he added: “And everywhere, look at the polling everywhere. Tell me. Tell me, where this great enthusiasm has manifested itself?”

snip

[highplainsdem]

5. So it's "strutting" to remind that reporter of national polling? Yeah, right...

[TidalWave46]

13. That sums up the "intellect" at Politico.

Well done highlighting the mental gymnastics they do at Politico.

[JoeOtterbein]

15. As if!

[LanternWaste]

14. I hope the straws you're grasping at are paper and not the plastic ones.

Much more environmentally friendly as you'll be going through so many of them.

(this post was written by this poster)

[sop]

4. Strutting? Chest-thumping? He's been watching Trump, right?

[Demsrule86]

6. They have been really awful...but looks like Politico is trying to divide Democrats to help Trump.

[MustLoveBeagles]

7. Seriously Politico?

Some examples of Joe being a chest thumping jerk

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[Cha]

9. Thanks for posting all those tweets from Biden, Beagles!

I just posted the one to Gov Bullock.. you got the whole lot!

[Cha]

8. Biden on Gov Bullock's suspension..

Link to tweet

Poor fucking politico can't stand Biden having "confidence" so they accuse him of "dripping" with it.

Thanks for exposing this bullshit, hpd

[Scurrilous]

10. ...

[Sloumeau]

11. highplainsdem, thanks for posting this. :)

I remember when Politico first came online. They were shilling for the Republicans--finding any way they could to criticize the Democrats. I've never completely trusted them since that time. Sometimes they are good, and sometimes they run hit pieces on Democrats. They expect Biden to be strutting, so they assume he is strutting. Biden does not enjoy the misfortune of others. He just doesn't like false narratives. He's been hearing that "Biden fans aren't enthusiastic, but Warren fans are" nonsense for months now. He's probably as sick of it as I am.

[TidalWave46]

12. Politico is a shit show.

From top to bottom. It’s also why you will see so many “journalists” with very little experience writing many of their opinion pieces. Looks like they do as told just to get their names published.

[Gothmog]

16. Given the fact that Biden has survived all of trump's attacks I have no problem

Link to tweet

[Gothmog]

17. I was on the organizational call for Lawyers for Biden yesterday

Joe was on the call and told us that he was feeling good about the campaign.

[treestar]

18. I thought being confident was supposed to be a good thing

It is really needed when running against Donnie the Dotard.