“If you borrow money from your family, the turkey tastes funny at Thanksgiving.”
That bit of advice comes from Dave Ramsey, one of America’s most popular advisers on finance and life. Ramsey warns people not to borrow money from family members. Even if everyone in your family has the best intentions, and promises that money won’t get in the way of how everyone feels about one another—it can get in the way. If the person passing you the cranberry sauce is your uncle, and also your creditor….well, you see where this is going.
I’m reminded of Dave Ramsey’s warning as I watch this video from the RedState website and read this article from the Powerline blog (links below). Joe Biden and Kamala Harris held an event for the press, where they signed some documents. When the press tried to ask questions, writes Paul Mirengoff of Powerline, they were “only able to get in one question, which was directed to Harris. When reporters started to ask more questions, they were told to leave. ‘Come on guys, let’s go,’ a female staffer said several times.”
And, when told to go, the press went. Quietly. Obediently. “What I find striking,” writes Mirengoff, “was the media’s compliance. When the staffer instructed reporters to leave, the lions of the press shuffled off. No one asked any more questions. At the command of a Biden staffer, the press exited stage right without a murmur. Compare this to the way reporters behave with President Trump. When he leaves press events, reporters shout questions at him until he disappears. To be fair, reporters also did this to past presidents, though not as stridently.
In Biden’s case, however, reporters’ manners are impeccable.“
Why might that be? The press must know that ALL of us can see the double standard they are applying to the Democrat and Republican candidates. With President Trump the press goes for the jugular; with the Democrats the press follows the commands of the campaign staff. You think I’m exaggerating? Watch the video. (The Biden staffer even felt bold enough to shoo them out—“Come on guys, let’s go”—and the press let itself be shooed out.)
Perhaps the reporters covering Biden/Harris remember Dave Ramsey’s warning, and applied it to their own situations.
Your coworkers and bosses can be, in a sense, another “family” for you. (Many people socialize with, and even date and marry, their coworkers.) Also, no one wants to make their coworkers and bosses mad. With that in mind, remember that modern-day American mainstream media is not just liberal, it’s progressive. That’s what the Wall Street Journal said, when some of its staff complained that the paper’s opinion pages were, according to the BizPacReview website (link below)“spreading misinformation.” The Journal’s editorial board pushed back. “It was probably inevitable that the wave of progressive cancel culture would arrive at the Journal, as it has at nearly every other cultural, business, academic and journalistic institution,” the board wrote, in a response to the complaints. [O]ur opinion pages offer an alternative to the uniform progressive views that dominate nearly all of today’s media.”
The uniform progressive views that dominate nearly all of today’s media. Kamala Harris is a progressive. Joe Biden will probably do much of what progressives want, if he wins the presidency. Most likely, those MSM reporters covering Biden/Harris are progressives, too. But, even if they are not, even if they are committed to being objective journalists, they’re not dumb. They know that their newsrooms and bosses’ offices are filled with progressives. Most of whom apparently think Orange Man Is Bad, and are itching to see him lose in November.
Now, imagine you’re a professional, objective reporter at an American MSM outlet. If you ask Biden or Harris questions that make them look bad, or silly, or in any way hurt their electability—what will the atmosphere be like when you return to the office? Will the conversation in the break room pause nervously as you walk to the coffee pot? Will friends glance away, or even give you some hostile stares? Will your editors have to deal with a stream of complaints over your reporting? Did you just damage your chances for promotion? No one wants that.
I’ll bet that’s why these reporters, who represent America’s major media organizations, quickly, quietly and meekly complied when instructed to leave by a Biden/Harris campaign minion. They must know what their coworkers and bosses want in November. They must also know that, if they do anything that might keep their coworkers and bosses from getting what they want, they’re taking a big risk: the coffee in the break room might start to taste funny.
Donald Smith is a Tucson resident.