As Ed noted earlier, CBS News has stumbled onto a big scoop: Hunter Biden left a laptop behind at a computer repair shop, and it has a bunch of salacious and potentially damning documents on it.

They even verified that the laptop is Hunter’s! What a scoop! I wonder if other media outlets will pick up the story and run with it? This could be Joe Biden’s downfall, since the rumor is that there are lots of documents stored on the laptop that make it appear that Hunter was influence peddling, and Joe was collecting money through the back door for making policy decisions!

Not to mention tax evasion, drugs, hookers, lots of nudity, and even evidence of human trafficking. This story could be huge!

Woodward and Bernstein stuff, I tell you. This could be bigger than Watergate!

OK, enough with the sarcasm.

CBS News is of course over 2 years behind The New York Post, and even behind The New York Times, which only took more than a year to grudgingly acknowledge the facts deep inside a story on another topic.

The interesting point is not that they “discovered” the story, but why they decided to report on it now.

After COVID disagreement, the Hunter Biden laptop story is probably the most censored news in the 21st century. Mainstream media outlets “debunked” it, The New York Post was censored on Facebook and Twitter, the only mention of the story for months outside conservative circles was ridicule and disinformation coming from the Establishment™, especially the Intelligence “Community.”

It was a full blown propaganda campaign complete with fake narrative, coordinated talking points, targeted censorship, and punishments for not complying with The Narrative™.

Flashback SUPERCUT!

Media regurgitate CIA lie that Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation pic.twitter.com/cmG6enu1sQ

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) November 21, 2022

You can find lots of supercuts of similar BS being marketed. “Journalists” pooh-poohed anybody raising the laptop story, and gave us lots of assurances that this was Russian disinformation. It is almost as if they wanted to make us believe what they thought we should, instead of report the truth. But, obviously not, because…they care about democracy.

This was a masterclass in Orwellian “history” shaping.

This was American disinformation, straight from the “reliable, fact checked” mainstream media. Russians were not involved a bit. Americans–just the “right” ones–were the people lying to you.

Are you as shocked as I? Yeah, sure.

"That doesn't answer the poeple who say it's still completely unfair to not have looked at the laptop in a timely way. That's just a left wing conspiracy to deny the presidency to Donald Trump. Absolutely it was. Absolutely. But I think it was warranted." -Sam Harris pic.twitter.com/sTMuGvb6Ck

— Simply4Truth 🇺🇸 (@SimpIy4Truth) November 21, 2022

The MSM might explain that they could not verify the contents, and as responsible journalists they couldn’t repeat unverified information. This is a generous–very generous–interpretation of CBS’ hesitance for reporting on the laptop story.

This ignores the facts: the media reports unverified–in fact just plain false–information all the time. All. The. Time.

How many stories have you seen where the facts seemingly change by the minute? How many disasters have you seen covered where the media rushes out stories that turn out to be false?

Rumors, speculation, pundits mouthing BS. It is constant on the MSM. Getting a story right is a miracle for the MSM. We all know this. Wait 3 days for facts is almost a rule.

We all know that the MSM reports mistakes. What about total lies?

The Washington Post and The New York Times shared a Pulitzer for their coverage of the Steele Dossier, and that turned out to be complete bullsh$t. Even today many people believe allegations from the dossier because they were repeated endlessly by the media and jerks like Adam Schiff. Cruise Twitter and you will still find people repeating lies based upon media reports. That was an intended result of repeating these lies ad nauseam.

We all know that, and know how ridiculous and propagandistic the MSM can be. In fact, Sam Harris  (a popular philosopher and propaganda proponent) and Bill Maher discuss the dissonance between the news that liberals get and the news conservatives get.

Harris, above, already admitted the left covered the laptop story up and believes that is a good thing. He believes that a Left-wing conspiracy is real, but a good thing. He backtracks a bit, but Maher presses–the New York Post got the story right, after all. But…so what? Letting Trump win is unacceptable. So lying to people seems A-OK.

We know the Left covered up the truth. So the real question is: why is CBS reporting any of it now? Why come out with a dramatic 6 minute story–an eternity in Network News, on the Biden laptop now?

We can only speculate, of course. I can’t get into the minds of CBS reporters and producers, and neither can you. But since most of what you see on the “news” is speculation, speculate I will. In the spirit of punditry.

I think the media expects a lot of damaging stuff to come out over the next year, and they may even be fine with that. Joe Biden is old, in failing mental health, and a large proportion of the Elite™ has signaled that perhaps somebody else should pick up the presidential baton. Ever since the midterms there has been a lot of discussion regarding old Joe’s age, some defending him, some hinting that it is time to go. (John wrote about the NYT defense of Biden’s age, for instance). Slate has a point of view from an anti-Biden running again Leftist. These sides will duke it out, just as the pro-/anti-Trump folks will.

The preference polls for who should be the Democrat candidate are not especially favorable to Biden, although if he were renominated most Democrat voters would fall in line and support him. Still, given a choice, vast numbers would rather support somebody else. Names have been floated, and Gavin Newsom clearly wants a shot at a 2024 campaign.

So the Hunter Biden laptop story might give ol’ Joe a nudge, especially if the topic suddenly became hot.

Am I right about this? Who knows. As I said, I can’t mind read. It makes sense to me, but without real data it is spitballing.

However…that data will be coming in the next few months to a year, as the media is forced to cover the Republican investigations into Biden corruption. How will the MSM spin it? Will there be competing narratives from pro- and anti-Biden camps within the liberal ecosphere?

That will be fun to watch–how this plays out among liberals.

Conservatives already know what we think. We saw the evidence two years ago. Most liberals will get it shoved in their faces over the next year. So the liberal reaction is the thing that is worth following.

So that’s my 2 cents.

Extra, humor at CBS’ expense:

CBS took 768 days to acknowledge Hunter Biden's laptop. That's longer than:

🔴 Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s marriage
🔴 A round trip to Mars and back
🔴 Donald Trump’s Twitter ban https://t.co/ptK5zqH82X

— NewsBusters (@newsbusters) November 21, 2022