‘Original Sin’ and the Media’s Deathbed Biden Cover-Up Conversion

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

It’s a bittersweet time for those who told the truth about former President Joe Biden from the beginning.

Jaw-dropping revelations from Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s forthcoming book, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, are being circulated in the media in advance of its highly-anticipated release — and they’re more than a little damning.

The former president, whom many in the press insisted was at the top of his game right up until he turned in the single worst performance in presidential debate history, was being hid from his own staff, didn’t recognize George Clooney at a fundraiser the world-famous actor was throwing for him, and might have been confined to a wheelchair if he fell one more time.

All this should be a cathartic for Biden’s longtime critics in conservative media. But the open discussion about Biden’s obvious inability to carry out his duties as president now only underscores the scorn that much of the press heaped upon those engaged in one back when it mattered most.

Biden’s decline was readily apparent by 2023, and the release of former special counsel Robert Hur’s report in February of last year ought to have ended his 2024 campaign then and there. According to Hur, Biden, while still in control of the United States’ nuclear arsenal, couldn’t recall the timeframe during which he served as Barack Obama’s vice president.

For the crime of reporting this finding to the American people, he was pilloried in the press.

Joe Scarborough called Hur a “Trumper,”

CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin called his report a “disgrace.”

Columnist Matthew Yglesias fumed that it was “fucking bullshit.”

Official Biden spokeswoman turned better-compensated, de facto Biden spokeswoman Jen Psaki wondered if Hur himself ought to be investigated on MSNBC

CBS News’ Weijia Jiang erroneously reported on the transcript of the Biden-Hur interview in a rather pathetic attempt at covering for the president.

And Anderson Cooper and Evan Osnos dutifully parroted Jiang’s faulty talking points.

All that’s to say nothing, of course, of the “cheap fake” news cycle and general scorn with which Biden’s critics were treated — before and after the Hur Report — by haughty bigwigs who continue to collect fat paychecks for blowing hot air in front a camera to this very day.

To make matters worse, while Thompson doggedly stayed on the Biden age beat even as as his peers scoffed at it, Tapper has a mixed record on the issue.

While some sizzle reels circulating online demonstrate that he covered the story in certain instances, there are also those that show he seemingly tried to suffocate it at other times.

Tapper recently expressed his support for the authors of a June 2024 Wall Street Journal story that “people worked hard to try to discredit.” Critics are seizing upon a comment he made at the time, where he said that the Journal “is owned by NewsCorp, which is run by the Murdochs.” Yet a full review of the segment in question showed Tapper was cited a criticism from the Biden camp, not making the insinuation himself.

And so, as the hype train around Original Sin gains steam, many on the Right are training their fire on the CNN anchor.

On the other hand, though, all indications are that Tapper and Thompson have done yeomen’s work (that others could have, but haven’t) documenting the selfish lies that Biden, his enablers, and professional Democrats in government and the press told to the American people. God-willing, it ends some careers.

Moreover, Tapper himself has admitted to fault.

“I think some of the criticism is fair, to be honest. Of me, certainly,” Tapper told his colleague John Berman earlier this week. “I look back at my coverage during the Biden years — and I did cover some of these issues, but not enough. I look back on it with humility.”

Did he fall on his knees and ask for forgiveness? Did he muster any tears? Did he don a dunce cap? No, and he doesn’t have to. If it fulfills its promise, Original Sin is penance enough.

Indeed, it’s not Tapper making money off of his own good work that should vex conservatives; it’s the larger media industry’s apparent inability to learn from its world historical failure.

Consider, for one example, the behavior of Puck’s Peter Hamby, whose contribution to the extended Original Sin news cycle was this snarky tweet taking a victory lap over a 2020 interview with Biden in which he asked how the then-candidate might “fight back” against the perception that he’s old.

And how did the oh-so-intrepid Hamby react to the Hur report? As it turns out, by describing it as a “bitter, 345-page screed” and resorting to whataboutism.

Is Hamby really that unaware of how his biases cloud his judgment? Or does he think his audience is too stupid or too partisan to care?

In any case, his denial of his past mistakes is a denial of the core problem with the American political press: it is composed almost entirely of ideologically liberal people who often produce work that reflects those leanings.

That’s why when Biden told them not to believe their lying eyes, they complied so instinctively.

And why when Hur kept them open, they raged at him for disobeying.

Hamby and his ilk seem content to deny yet another reality in service of the same people who betrayed them — and so thoroughly embarrassed them — just a few short months ago.

For some, even rock bottom isn’t enough.

Correction: A previous version of this story cited comments made by Tapper referring to the ownership of the Journal. This story has been updated to note that he was citing a criticism from the Biden camp, not endorsing the claim himself.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.