On Barack Obama’s visit to the White House this week, Fox News underscored its gaffe by calling the current president a “vice president” and then trying to justify it as “a joke.” Fox also exploited Joe Biden’s isolation, with the spotlight on the former president.
But it wasn’t just the pro-Republican channel. The most pro-Democrat of US talk show hosts, Stephen Colbert, of the CBS network, gloated, questioning whether it was a joke or if it was to show that it is not just Biden who commits gaffes non-stop.
The visit came “at a time when Biden is in need of a boost,” the New York Times had noted.
But Colbert again challenged that description, asking sarcastically, “Isn’t that like trying to light the flames with your wife inviting your sexy ex-boyfriend to her birthday dinner?” The studio audience laughed wildly.
Colbert went further, for more laughter: “And then, I hope, they locked the doors to keep [Obama na Casa Branca]. He will only be able to leave after the elections.”
Outside of talk shows, Democrats aren’t laughing. In an extensive report on Washington’s The Hill website, party marketers were “increasingly concerned” about Biden’s fall, seven months before Congress’ renewal.
“We’re going to be slaughtered,” said one. “You have a crippling energy crisis, the highest inflation in 40 years, and we are heading into recession,” added another. “The American people simply lost confidence in him.”
On Fox News itself, a marketer for former Democratic President Bill Clinton described:
“The president has lost his main attribute, which was always being liked. He had this likeable ‘Uncle Joe’ image. But it was replaced by a stern, angry figure, who now generates these numbers. The polls are all concurring. Time is running out.”
The war in Ukraine has not given the president the expected “impulse” and is unlikely to do so until the vote, according to a Gallup executive, because of “the high degree of polarization in the electorate” – moreover, more concerned about the price of Gasoline.
MICROSOFT FOLDS
In the NYT, “In Brazil, companies were looking for black workers. Then LinkedIn got involved.” The platform took down the ads, but activists “fought” and made the American company, part of Microsoft, “change its global policy”.
