Biden Camp Demands Networks Stop Giving Airtime to Giuliani
This is way beyond working the refs.
In a cultural environment where President Donald Trump and his supporters have virtually every major media outlet stacked against them, Democrats enjoy a natural home-field advantage when it comes to appearances on the network news.
But that’s not enough for the Joe Biden campaign – they don’t want the other team to even be allowed to play.
In a startling letter to major networks and network personalities on Sunday, top campaign advisers to the former vice president issued a blunt “demand” that Trump attorney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani no longer be invited onto programs to defend the president to the nation he leads, according to The New York Times.
His criticisms of Biden — taking the lead role in attacking Biden in the current Ukraine controversy — have clearly touched a nerve.
“We write to demand that in service to the facts, you no longer book Rudy Giuliani, a surrogate for Donald Trump who has demonstrated that he will knowingly and willingly lie in order to advance his own narrative,” the Biden campaign’s letter states. (The paragraph is bold in the original letter.)
Here’s the Biden campaign letter to the networks. pic.twitter.com/elvb1uehIC
— Ted Johnson (@tedstew) September 29, 2019
Toward the bottom of the letter, its writers allow for the idea that if Giuliani must be allowed on television, he needs to be balanced by a Biden campaign surrogate — not just any Democrat, but a Democrat specifically speaking on Biden’s behalf.
The imperious tone is almost as stunning as the hypocrisy.
Of course, arrogance is to be expected from any Democratic campaign honchos.
The Biden letter was penned by Anita Dunn, a veteran of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns who served as White House communications director in 2009, and Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager.
To know that two women who are veterans of Democratic politics and political communications think they can dictate to ostensibly independent American news media on behalf of a presidential campaign should tell Americans everything they need to know about Democratic respect for press freedom.
(It also gives a good idea of where the country would be if Hillary Clinton had won in 2016.)
The Democrat diktat was not well received on social media.
BREAKING U.S. POLITICAL NEWS — DESPERATE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES DO DESPERATE THINGS!https://t.co/fpQdaBwHRp
— Soupcoff Report 3 (@MurraySoupcoff) September 30, 2019
Creepy Joe’s campaign is so scared that the American people will find out more about his crimes with his son in the Ukraine and China that they sent out a letter asking the networks to keep people off the air that are pointing out creepy Joe’s crimes looks like you’re scared Joe
— Eric Holzman (@eric47_holzman) September 30, 2019
UM, WOULDN’T THIS QUALIFY AS COLLUDING WITH THE MEDIA TO DENY FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS? Joe Biden Campaign Demands Media Censor Rudy Giuliani https://t.co/OtQOg5RejP via @BreitbartNews
— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) September 30, 2019
??? nothing like banning the opposition to make people believe you
— ariel jones ? (@arieljones411) September 29, 2019
RIDICULOUS! @JOEBIDEN is afraid of Americans finding out the TRUTH. He sold OUR country to Ukraine and China
— christian baldwin (@christianbal4) September 29, 2019
What’s the big deal?! It’s just a boss telling his employees what to do.
— Andrew McLain (@andrewmclainwho) September 30, 2019
That last one might be truer than most people realize — which brings up the hypocrisy of the letter in the first place.
Democrats criticizing anyone for lying on network interviews to “advance his own agenda” is a new level of shamelessness for a party that’s already plumbed the depths.
What has the Democratic Party been doing since at least the Bill Clinton presidency if it wasn’t using sympathetic network interviews by sympathetic network liberals to lie to advance the party’s agenda?
From the current brouhaha over Ukraine and the Russia “collusion” hoax to “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” to “hands up, don’t shoot,” to the unforgettable “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” Democratic television appearances have been a virtually unbroken string of lies for more than a generation.
This isn’t to say Republicans are squeaky clean, of course. They’re not.
What it is to say is that American politics is an affair for grown-ups, men and women who are, or should be, capable of discerning truth from lies.
That they fail to do so a fair amount of the time — witness the Clinton and Obama presidencies for instance — is one of the risks that come with living in a democratic republic.
One of the reasons for that failure is the fact that network news divisions are run by liberals, for the benefit of liberal political candidates — to the extent that literally any television appearance for a Republican in American politics outside of Fox News is a game being played in a hostile arena with an officiating crew that has a bet on the other team winning.
But even that’s not enough for the Joe Biden campaign apparently.
They don’t just want home-field advantage, they don’t just want the refs on their side.
They want the other team to be unable to even take the field.
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