On Robert Hur's report, once again corporate media failed miserably

The full transcript showed how the special counsel made up claims about Biden's memory. Determined not to admit failure, the press then reported on Hur's testimony as a "both sides" drama.

The Trump-appointed special counsel, Robert Hur, and the GOP struck out yesterday when Hur testified before Congress about his investigation of President Biden’s retaining classified documents, in which Hur cleared the president completely.

The GOP attempted to force Hur to say he really should have charged the president, since Hur, now shown clearly to be a MAGA opportunist, had left the idea dangling in his report that the president might have been guilty of something but that no jury would convict a “well-meaning” old man with memory problems. This had been rightly slammed last month by legal experts as completely unethical to include in a report in which no one was charged with a crime.

But the full transcript of Hur’s deposition with Biden, released just before the hearing, showed that Hur had not only gratuitously attacked the president’s memory; he actually lied, since in the transcript he compliments Biden’s “photographic” memory while Biden, unlike Hur's statement in the report, did not get the date wrong of his son Beau’s death, stating clearly that it was May 30th. Absolutely appalling.

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From Jamie Raskin and Adam Schiff to Sheila Jackson Lee and Madeleine Dean, Democrats eviscerated Hur point by point.

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal made Hur read out loud his own words about how Donald Trump is guilty of actions far more reckless, dangerous and criminal.

Hur protested reading it at first. But Jayapal made him read it out loud—”It’s your report,” she said, “so read it”—forcing him to state that Trump is charged with “obstructing justice” and “enlisting others to destroy evidence,” a reading that created a perfect ad for Democrats to use. It surely also infuriated Trump, whom Hur is clearly looking for future employment from.

So, as far as political theater, this was another dismal showing for the GOP and another powerful performance by the Democrats. But the entire affair was a failure of the American media—again. CNN media critic Oliver Darcy, who writes the Reliable Sources newsletter, lambasted the press, which would surely include some of CNN’s own anchors:

After spending weeks breathlessly questioning President Joe Biden's mental faculties in the wake of Special Counsel Robert Hur's explosive report, some of America's top news organizations on Tuesday effectively stated that Hur's characterization of the commander-in-chief was off base.

The Wall Street Journal declared that the transcripts of Biden's deposition with Hur released on Tuesday painted "a more nuanced picture" than the report indicated. The New York Times found that Biden appeared "clearheaded," despite having fumbled some dates. And The Washington Post concluded Biden "doesn’t come across as being as absent-minded as Hur has made him out to be."

In other words, the Hur report offered a misleading view of the president's mental state. That's a significant problem for news organizations, given that much of their recent coverage about Biden's age was derived from that very report where Hur offered a wince-inducing depiction of the president as a "sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory."

He is so right, and the thrashing is well-deserved. The corporate media was easily sucked into the narrative that Hur put forth—a narrative that inflicted political damage that took an enormous amount of capital to battle against. Darcy continues:

The deposition transcripts not only indicated that Biden appeared fairly sharp during his testimony, joking with investigators and retelling stories with granular detail, but that Hur was misleading in how he presented some of the information included in his report.

Particularly jarring, was that at another point during the depositions, Hur actually went out of his way to praise Biden's memory. "You have — appear to have a photographic understanding and, and recall of the house," Hur told Biden, referencing the president's Wilmington home.

Darcy notes that “the acknowledgement from some, but not all, news outlets on Tuesday about the true nature of Biden's deposition marked another embarrassing moment for the national press, which has floundered at pivotal moments in the lead up to the crucial 2024 presidential election.”

I would like to add, however, that the acknowledgement was nothing even remotely akin to an apology for their sensationalism or even an admission that they’d been misled. In fact, the coverage of the hearing yesterday, which, after the release of the deposition transcript, should have had the media excoriating Hur and the GOP, was pathetic. They presented it as a “both sides” drama, as indicated by this screenshot from the New York Times coverage.

The Hur report spurred hundreds of stories about Biden’s age and the impact on the election. When it turned out that the report had distorted the issue and the deposition transcript showed there wasn’t any memory problem at all, the press had every opportunity to use the hearing to show how much Hur is a MAGA hack and that, no, this is not a "both sides" story.

Instead, they reported on the drama of the hearing—like gossip columnists—focusing on the heat, offering little light. It’s another terrible example of how most of the media has learned nothing—or rather doesn’t want to learn anything—from all the bad election coverage they’ve foisted on us in the past.