CNN and MSNBC Shamelessly Ignore Sexual Allegations Against Joe Biden
Despite his party’s lurch to the left, Joe Biden remains the odds-on favorite to win the Democrat nomination in 2020. I don’t know whether I ought to be using the present or past tense of “remain,” granted, given that Biden was accused of improper behavior toward a female candidate back in 2014, but the point is that he’s still the most likely name to end up on your general election ballot.
If one was to judge by the reception the news got on liberaldom’s two official cable news outlets — CNN and MSNBC — Biden needn’t be worried about tense switches. Because the thing is, despite the fact that it was inarguably the biggest news story on Friday, neither network seemed particularly concerned with covering it.
According to Fox News, not a single minute of airtime on either channel was devoted to the piece published by New York Magazine’s The Cut in which Lucy Flores alleged the former vice president held her by the shoulders and kissed her hair at an event during the 2014 midterm campaign.
Flores, then 35, was the Democrat candidate for attorney general in Nevada. Biden had flown into Las Vegas for a rally with the Democrats when, according to Flores, the incident occurred.
“Just before the speeches, we were ushered to the side of the stage where we were lined up by order of introduction. As I was taking deep breaths and preparing myself to make my case to the crowd, I felt two hands on my shoulders. I froze. ‘Why is the vice-president of the United States touching me?'” Flores wrote.
“I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified. I thought to myself, ‘I didn’t wash my hair today and the vice-president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual f—? Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?’ He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head. My brain couldn’t process what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused.”
“Even if his behavior wasn’t violent or sexual, it was demeaning and disrespectful. I wasn’t attending the rally as his mentee or even his friend; I was there as the most qualified person for the job,” she wrote later in the piece.
The accusation, for many, brought up incidents in the past where Biden had been caught on camera in similar situations.
Former VP Joe Biden doesn’t just target little girls. Watch as he grabs onto the shoulder’s of Ashton Carter’s wife, Stephanie, smelling her hair. She’s clearly surprised by his awkward behavior. pic.twitter.com/nerOikRQcZ
— Richard Armande Mills (RAM) (@RAMRANTS) November 13, 2017
And for some — namely, those in the employ of CNN and MSNBC — it didn’t bring up anything at all.
“In the five hours of programming that aired since Flores’s op-ed was published, the liberal cable outlets failed to allot any time to report the Biden news,” Fox News reported.
“Dominating the coverage was Attorney General Bill Barr’s new letter to Congress, informing them that the release of the Mueller Report could come mid-April. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes hosted a town hall-styled special with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, to discuss the Green New Deal.”
“Both CNN and NBC News did publish articles on their website late Friday night.”
The story had been published on Friday afternoon, mind you, giving them plenty of time to get the story up on their respective websites. And, as of Saturday morning, here’s how important CNN thought it was:
If one is to judge by positioning, the 2020 Democrat frontrunner’s alleged improper behavior toward a female candidate for office — compounded with similar incidents caught on camera throughout the years — is less important than former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake’s opinion on whether Trump or a Democrat should win the 2020 election and Anderson Cooper poking fun at Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
Meanwhile, remember how they breathlessly covered new accounts about how much Brett Kavanaugh did or did not like beer after he was accused of sexual misconduct?
At least other liberal outlets carried the news, although current evidence suggests they might not have come to the right conclusions — as evinced by this Vox sub-headline:
Are we, um, certain about that one yet, folks?
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