Since Joe Biden has left the White House, we have seen a steady stream of politicians and media pundits who had previously denied Biden’s mental health decline—at best—come to the realization that they had been duped, and at worst, now have to answer for a cover-up. Of course, any sane person who had seen Biden speak over the course of his presidency, and certainly over the last year and a half of it, could tell that the man was not the same mentally. There was a reason he never spoke to the press. There was a reason he was done working every day by 6 p.m. There was a reason he looked horrible during his debate with Donald Trump. And obviously, this wasn’t because he had a bad night. It was because he was having a bad four years.
And of course, there will have to be investigations into what Biden knew was going on while he was officially in charge. We need to know who the Commander in Chief of the United States military actually was. We need to know who was calling the shots. And perhaps most importantly, we need to know who knew what—and when did they know it? We should be confident that, in due time, we will know all of these things, and those who kept this insane scandal from the American people are due a day of reckoning.
But all of that is immaterial right now. What actually matters is the broader implication of this cover-up. Think about it. The only reason why the traditional press is reporting on this now is because: A) Biden is out of office, and nobody from his family will ever be in a position of power again. Even Kamala Harris is going to have a difficult time getting back into any office. Therefore, there will be no blowback against anyone coming out hard against the Bidens or their administration.
And B) There is an added incentive to be honest now if any media personality has any hope of regaining credibility with the American public.
What I am more concerned about is the legacy media covering up significant news stories that they have no incentive to cover. It is no secret that traditionally, the media tends to lean left. (I will pause here to give you ample time to pick your jaws up off the floor.) So, if they happen upon a story that makes their preferred party look bad, they would have no reason to report it. Firstly, it harms the side of the aisle they want to win. Secondly, there could be significant blowback from those in power should a reporter decide to report it and possibly alienate their friends.
In case you haven’t figured it out by now, the politicians that fit this description the most are the Obamas. It’s been a minute since Barack Obama was officially the President of the United States (though we may find out in the coming months that he may have been running things more recently than January 2017). Who can forget the former president’s immortal words the month after his final term ended? “We didn’t have a scandal that embarrassed us,” the president lied.
Firstly, if we’ve learned anything from the last few months, the chances that the Obama administration had no scandals (aside from the ones we know about) are slim to none. The probability is more along the lines that the Obama administration had loads of scandals, but the media had no reason to report them when they came across one. Barack Obama was the golden child. The media had chosen its darling—a once-in-a-generation politician who could unite the Democratic Party and enact all sorts of progressive wish-list items. If a reporter happened upon a potential scandal that would derail this progressive bullet train, it should now be obvious to us that somehow that story would go away. My hypothesis is that it would vanish via one of three methods:
The reporter would be silenced by his or her outlet.
The reporter would alert the Obama administration, and they would smooth out any way of the story getting out.
The reporter would be blacklisted from any outlet that would hire them.
So where is the proof of any of this, you ask? That’s the great thing about this Joe Biden story. We do not have to have any proof. All of this speculation is based on the fact that the media covered up this scandal (one that Barack Obama certainly knew all about) until it was no longer convenient. It is still inconvenient to tell the dirty little secrets about the Obama administration because Barack still holds quite a bit of clout in the Democratic Party. Nobody wants to lose their standing by attacking the Obamas. And the further away from the Obama administration we get, the less interest the public will have in learning the truth.
“But, Izzo,” I hear you calling. “What about the right-wing media outlets? Wouldn’t they have held the Obama administration to account?” To that I say, no. Firstly, the only right-wing outlets with any real clout during the Obama administration were Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post. Breitbart was just getting started, The Daily Wire was a few years away from becoming a juggernaut, and all the others weren’t really doing all that much. In fact, none of these outlets did much investigative journalism back then. And to be honest, they don’t do all that much now. Sure, right-wing media has added more investigative journalism than they used to have, but it’s still tiny in comparison to their left-wing counterparts. In short, nobody was holding the Obamas to account.
So when Barack Obama claimed that there were no scandals, what he really meant was that they were able to successfully shield the public from any scandals that would make them look bad. That is, until the third Obama term with Joe Biden in the Oval Office. Even the powerful Obamas weren’t able to keep the story quiet. Or maybe they were—and only let it reach the public when it was convenient for them to allow it.
Izzo Zwiren is the former host of the Jewish Living Podcast. Follow him and his brothers on their health journey on their YouTube Channel, Brotherly Lovehandles. Izzo lives on Long Island with his wife and three adorable, hilarious children.
