The Wall Street JournalĀ owes its readers āĀ and the public ā better.
The business broadsheetĀ published and hyped a storyĀ Wednesday declaring that ābehind closed doors,āĀ President Joe BidenĀ has shown āsigns of slipping.ā The story questioned Bidenās mental acuity, playing into a GOP-propelled narrative that the 81-year-old president lacks the fitness to hold the nationās highest office.
But an examination of the report reveals a glaring problem: Most of the sources reportersĀ Annie LinskeyĀ andĀ Siobhan HughesĀ relied on were Republicans. In fact, buried in the story, the reporters themselves acknowledged that they had drawn their sweeping conclusion based on GOP sources who, obviously, have an incentive to make comments that will damage Bidenās candidacy.
āMost of those who said Biden performed poorly were Republicans, but some Democrats said that he showed his age in several of the exchanges,ā Linskey and Hughes conceded. The duo also noted that they had spoken to sources in the administration āwho found no faultā with the way Biden conducted himself in meetings for which they were present.
I noted this in the thread on the article itself:
āaccording to six people told at the time about what (Mike) Johnson said had happened.ā
The sources werenāt even first hand sources. They were sources who were told what happened by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.
This NEVER should have made it to the level of reporting. It fails every single smell test.
It passes the ādoes it smell bad enough to spread on my neighbors yardā testā¦.
What? Nobody likes that guy.