by Alex Berenson, Unreported Truths:
For a decade, reporters have happily called Donald Trump a liar. Biden just pardoned his son Hunter after repeatedly promising he would not. Yet even now the media protects him.
On Sunday night, Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter for gun- and tax-related felonies – undoing both a jury verdict in Delaware and Hunter’s own guilty plea in California.
The pardon is extraordinary and dangerous, especially at a time when both parties are playing a game of chicken with the open politicization of law enforcement. More on that issue soon.
But first it’s vital to point out the hypocrisy not just in what Biden did but in how the media is covering it.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
Biden promised he would not pardon Hunter. Unequivocally. Without exception. To take just one example, in June, ABC News anchor David Muir asked Biden directly:
“Have you ruled out a pardon for your son?”
“Yes,” Biden answered.
Give Biden the benefit of the doubt for a moment. Assume he wasn’t planning to pardon Hunter all along. Biden’s still lying. He gives himself no wriggle room in his answer, presumably because he knew anything but a flat denial would hurt him politically. (The interview occurred before his disastrous June 27 debate, when he was still running for a second term. Or, more accurately, shuffling for it.)
At best, Biden was unsure of what he might do – while claiming he was.
There’s a word for saying something that you know is not true.
That word is lie.
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(One’s a born liar, the other’s convicted. With apologies to Billy Martin.)
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For almost a decade now, top news outlets have openly called Donald Trump a liar.
“Lie” and “liar” are strong words, and journalists generally avoid them. As the Washington Post explained in a 2016 piece about the New York Times’s decision to use the word with Trump:
“Lie” is a very strong term — stronger than “false statement” or “factual inaccuracy” or just about any other way of saying something is untrue. News outlets generally avoid labeling even the most galling distortion or fabrication a “lie” because the word suggests that the person who spread the incorrect information was not merely mistaken, but did so intentionally.
That’s a very hard thing to prove, so journalists almost always figure it is better to just call out what is wrong and let readers/viewers/listeners judge for themselves how to label it.
But once the Times decided it was okay to call Trump a liar, it and other outlets did so eagerly – even gleefully. And not just in opinion pieces, but in what the good ol’ days was called “straight news.”
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(Liar liar newspaper on fire!)
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Does Donald Trump exaggerate? Yes? Does he tell tall tales? Yes. (I don’t think I will ever forget his speculations about what he would do if he was in an electric boat that started to sink in water full of sharks.)
Does he mislead? Yes. Does he elide the truth? Yes. All politicians do.
Does Trump willfully misspeak and say things he knows are untrue?
That is, does he lie?
Read More @ alexberenson.substack.com
