On CBS's Sunday Morning, John Dickerson filmed a news segment for the show to discuss Biden's first year in office and how he has done. While filming a segment like this you would expect experts from both sides of the aisle to be interviewed, unfortunately, it appears that never crossed Dickerson's mind.
The first so-called "expert" to give her opinion on the Biden administration and the state of the country at large was Harvard University Historian Jill Lepore. As expected, her opening comments were regarding the January 6 riots at the Capitol:
I in some ways feel like the sun has not set on January 6. That the–the day continues. (...) So long as the idea that an armed insurrection against a democratically-elected President being certified into office, or taking office, is seen as legitimate and defended as legitimate, or not repudiated by so many public figures, I hate to evoke images of such violence, but it just seems to me like its a series of buried landmines.
Predictably, Dickerson doubled down on those comments and offered no pushback. He instead agreed in a voiceover commentary as a bridge to the next leftist guest to heap praise on the Biden administration: "Through the lens of the January 6 convulsion, the Biden administration at the one-year mark is a success merely because it exists at all, democracy held."
Later on, Dickerson talked to former Jimmy Carter speechwriter James Fallows to help reassure CBS viewers that Biden is not going to follow in the footsteps of Carter's disastrous presidency declaring: "the impressions people have one year in very rarely have any bearing on how that President is seen at the end of a first-term or a second term. How that person is seen in history." Meaning Biden's thirty-three percent approval rating won't last forever.
On that topic of abysmal approval ratings, Dickerson went back to Lepore to talk down to the average American by telling them why their judgment of Biden is unfair, "I’m kinda puzzling over this: How do you measure a President? What most of us are measuring day to day are the COVID case numbers," he said.
Dickerson then jumped in to back her up questioning: "Does that basically mean the approval rating is a general thermometer of public feeling, and if the public’s unhappy, the President as the best-known politician is the one that gets blamed?"
In response, Lepore bemoaned:
Yeah. I meant I think that’s what– it’s sort of a proxy for the national mood, rather than an evaluation of the efficacy of an administration. Right? And most of us don't have the ability day to day to evaluate the efficacy of the administration. In a way, with Trump, it was a little different because people did know what he was doing every day, cause he was tweeting all day long.
Next, Fallows was back to lecture viewers on why they should be happy with inflation and be thankful they haven't lost their jobs instead:
I've lived through times of hyperinflation, and I've lived through times of mass layoffs. And let me tell you, mass layoffs are way worse, the trauma to families and to communities and to companies is much worse than the genuine problem of inflation.
Last but not probably least was New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie who gave his best effort to gaslight American consumers into believing this is "probably the strongest economy for workers that the United States has had in some time." Bouie said with a straight face, then in the next breath he whined that "Biden gets no credit for any of this."
Not one Republican was interviewed. And the media wonders why they have no credibility left.
This one-sided segment of three leftists giving Biden a pat on the back for his performance in office was brought to you by Colgate, Progressive, and Centrum. Their information is linked so you can let them know about the biased news they fund.
To read the relevant transcript of this segment click “expand”:
CBS Sunday Morning
1/16/2022
9:07:26 AMJIL LEPORE: I in some ways feel like the sun has not set on January 6. That the–the day continues.
JOHN DICKERSON: Jill Lepore is a Harvard University historian.
LEPORE: So long as the idea that an armed insurrection against a democratically-elected President being certified into office, or taking office, is seen as legitimate and defended as legitimate, or not repudiated by so many public figures, I hate to evoke images of such violence, but it just seems to me like its a series of buried landmines.
DICKERSON: Through the lens of the January 6 convulsion, the Biden administration at the one-year mark is a success merely because it exists at all, democracy held. But presidencies are viewed through many lenses, and anyway you look at it, the first Biden year looks muddy.
DICKERSON: How is Joe Biden doing?
JAMELLE BOUIE: I think Joe Biden is doing okay. He ran for President on this promise of a return to normalcy, a return to America maybe not quite as it was before President Trump, but much less chaotic.
DICKERSON: Jamelle Bouie is a columnist for the "New York Times."
BOUIE: The persistence of the pandemic and the persistence of the pandemic’s disruption of American society I think means that Biden can't really claim that this has been a victorious year. It’s okay. It’s eh.
DICKERSON: This is not the chant Biden wants to hear at the next rally: Four more meh! The bluntest story of the Biden presidency is told in his approval ratings. They started to drop last summer with America’s messy departure from Afghanistan and have continued to fall while COVID cases climb and inflation have been rising. A presidency that started with heady comparisons to F.D.R. now invites the headline it’s not over for Joe Biden. But history tells us that the bluntest story is not always the lasting one. Especially for Presidents in their first year.
JAMES FALLOWS: The impressions people have one year in very rarely have any bearing on how that President is seen at the end of a first-term or a second term. How that person is seen in history.
DICKERSON: Authority James Fallows was a Carter speechwriter.
FALLOWS: Jimmy Carter who as history knows was not reelected, is extremely popular in his first year in office.
DICKERSON: Carter's first-year approval rating was higher than Ronald Reagan’s, and his party lost fewer seats in the midterm House elections than Reagan did. Though Reagan is considered the more successful President. Measuring Presidents in the moment is hard, says Jill Lepore, because people focus only on what’s right in front of them, like a protracted global pandemic.
LEPORE: I’m kinda puzzling over this: How do you measure a President? What most of us are measuring day to day are the COVID case numbers.
DICKERSON: Does that basically mean the approval rating is a general thermometer of public feeling, and if the public’s unhappy, the President as the best-known politician is the one that gets blamed?
LEPORE: Yeah. I meant I think that’s what– it’s sort of a proxy for the national mood, rather than an evaluation of the efficacy of an administration. Right? And most of us don't have the ability day to day to evaluate the efficacy of the administration. In a way, with Trump, it was a little different because people did know what he was doing every day, cause he was tweeting all day long.
(...)
9:11:21 AM
DICKERSON: The withdrawal from Afghanistan fits a similar pattern. Some part of public upset was the inevitable unpleasant result of doing what the public wanted, but it’s also true that the Biden team failed to account for how quickly the country would fall.
FALLOWS: Biden made the decision to leave Afghanistan, so he can be judged up or down based on that decision. I judge him up on that because it is what his predecessors have said and what he promised when he was running. Then there’s the execution. And there is room for fair commentary about whether the human cost was needlessly ungrave. Even if the decision to leave Afghanistan had been carried out in the most perfect possible way, it would have been a tragedy there.
DICKERSON: On the economy, inflation in December rose 7%, a spike that hasn't been seen since 1982, during Ronald Reagan's first term. And that economists in both parties predicted would be caused by Biden's early spending programs.
FALLOWS: I've lived through times of hyperinflation, and I've lived through times of mass layoffs. And let me tell you, mass layoffs are way worse, the trauma to families and to communities and to companies is much worse than the genuine problem of inflation.
DICKERSON: The unemployment rate is moving in a more encouraging direction. Just 3.9%, down from 6.3 at the start of Biden's tenure.
BOUIE: This is probably the strongest economy for workers that the United States has had in some time. But Biden gets no credit for any of this.
DICKERSON: Columnist Jamelle Bouie.
BOUIE: So without credit for a strong economy and with the resistance from Republicans and a Democratic Party that is feeling unenthusiastic, he’s in a tough spot.
DICKERSON: Democrats are unenthusiastic because Biden has not been able to pass the robust social spending legislation he initially proposed or voting rights legislation. Tough to do when Democrats have the thinnest possible majority in the Senate and can only afford to lose three Democrats in the House.
DICKERSON: So as you feel it. Given the margins that Biden faces, has he been stymied or is this just kind of the slow process that it takes when you have these kind of margins?
BOUIE: I think I'm somewhere in between the two. The infrastructure bill, depending on how you count, is either, you know, $600 billion or $1.1 trillion. And the COVID relief bill was $1.9 trillion. In a year, President Biden has signed $3 trillion worth of spending into law, which is, I believe, more than his Democratic predecessor signed in his entire eight years in office. So by that standard, Biden’s doing great. But by the standard of the coalition and the coalition's expectations, and by, I think, the administration's expectations, he is probably behind.
