Jeff Zucker may be gone, but CNN still can uncork editorials that sound like speeches by Democrat politicians on the floor of the House or Senate. On his Sunday show, CNN host Fareed Zakaria began by offering deep appreciation of President Biden, followed by a warning that Donald Trump should not return to the presidency.
The joke is "Did Fareed plagiarize a Democrat politician for this speech?"
Domestically, Zakaria weirdly proclaimed that our times have been defined by tax cuts. It's amazing how the Clinton and Obama presidencies are treated as insignificant so that Biden's Carteresque turn can be hailed:
ZAKARIA: President Reagan, Bush and Trump all enacted large tax cuts that broadly benefited the rich. America that can be characterized by private opulence and public decay. $100 million homes in a country where the roads are scarred by potholes and children die at higher rates than any other country in the industrialized world. These tax cuts, by the way, along with spending on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, are responsible for much of America's enormous federal debt.
Biden changed this narrative. He used the resources of the federal government to make large investments in infrastructure, child care, manufacturing, and energy.
Just like during the Reagan years, liberal commentators blame deficits only on tax cuts and defense spending, and burgeoning entitlements never matter.
Then Zakaria hailed Biden's feckless foreign policy: "He has addressed the challenges presented by the return of Russia and a rising China, but done it not through solo actions or one-shot deals. The administration has strengthened America's alliance system, bolstering NATO and adding two new members to it, Sweden and Finland. Similarly in the Indo-Pacific, it has built new structures of cooperation and deterrence with Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, and others."
Biden strengthened NATO mainly by letting Russia invade Ukraine again, which did not happen on Trump's watch. Ukraine is on fire and Hamas attacked Israel, and we're handing out laurels to Biden? He didn't even touch on the Afghanistan withdrawal fiasco. Once again, it's like hailing the new Jimmy Carter.
Then came the final flagrant flourish about "decency and dignity," as Biden accused his opponents of being "Jim Crow 2.0," or more flagrant segregationists than the Democrat segregationists that he palled around with in the Senate in the 1970s.
On his Sunday CNN show, @FareedZakaria hailed: “The final legacy of Biden is that he has returned the presidency to an office of sanity decency, and dignity” and to “close the chapter on Trump” he decided to not run “which will also earn him a special place in the history books.” pic.twitter.com/IWEn2FHOJb
— Brent Baker 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) July 28, 2024
ZAKARIA: The final legacy of Biden is that he has returned the presidency to an office of sanity, decency, and dignity, ushering out the dangerous demagoguery and anti-democratic rhetoric and behavior that preceded him. But for that legacy to endure and for Biden's term not to simply be a moment in time, he needed to ensure that the United States actually closes the chapter on Donald Trump and to help make this more likely, he made the painful decision not to run for the presidency, which will also earn him a special place in the history books. Joe Biden has felt that he has been underestimated all his life. Judging by his tenure in the White House, he's right.
CNN or Zakaria should really be paid for this endorsement speech.
