Just remember: When Republicans fail, that's the story the mainstream media reports. When Democrats fail, the MSM's story is how Republicans will exploit it. 

Every. Single. Time.

Axios provides the latest case in point today. A special counsel just concluded that President Joe Biden's cognition has declined so significantly that he can no longer recall when he served as Vice President, the year "within several years" when his son died, or details of his position and allies on the Afghanistan issue during Obama's presidency. On three occasions in four days prior to that release, Biden asserted that he'd had conversations as president in 2021 with two world leaders about the January 6 riot -- both of whom had been dead for years. A poll taken over the weekend by ABC News and Ipsos shows that eighty-six percent of Americans think Biden is too old to be president -- and that includes 73% of the voters in Biden's own party.

How often does 86% of the American public agree on anything? Jonathan Turley offers an amusing comparison:

New polling shows that 86 percent of the public now views Biden as too old to serve as president. https://t.co/iygjgevO8b
As a point of comparison, only 82 percent of the public can agree that the Earth is round. https://t.co/PGA6NoxowU

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) February 12, 2024

And yet, with the nation potentially at risk by an incapacitated president, Axios focuses on ... how Republicans will use this to attack Biden. 

Inside the article, Axios' Mike Allen relates how the House GOP caucus is "activivating a plan" to, er ... investigate the allegations that the president is no longer competent for office:

House Republicans are activating a weekslong, perhaps monthslong, plan to keep questions about President Biden's mental state in the spotlight, Axios has learned.

The big picture: The GOP planning includes hearings and possibly even subpoenas for documents and recordings.

Why it matters: Sources close to House GOP leaders are blunt that they don't think it even matters what they find. These sources think that any fight will make the White House look bad — and keep a huge Biden vulnerability in the headlines.

Three House committee chairs wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland last evening to demand a transcript — plus any recordings — of Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur.

Question: Isn't that their job? Biden's own DoJ appointee provided detailed observations from interviews with the president that concluded Biden wouldn't be found competent enough to be held responsible for crimes he committed in keeping classified material at his home. Congress has not just legitimate oversight over matters concerning a president's capacity to function when such evidence emerges, but a positive duty to exercise that oversight. And to do that, they will need to see the evidence on which Hur relied, and interview Hur and other witnesses to determine whether an incapacity exists that's profound enough to risk the country's security.

We also have the 25th Amendment, some will say, but that is a secondary process at best tailored for an emergency incapacitation. It is also an action necessarily initiated by the executive branch as a check on the chief executive. Constitutionally speaking, that kind of self-check can never be primary, let alone exclusive. This is Congress' job, not the exclusive jurisdiction of Biden's executive-branch appointees.

As far as "activating" a grand strategy, that's nonsense. Republicans and some Democrats (notably Rep. Dean Phillips) have raised questions about Biden's obvious cognitive decline for three years. And yet, Republicans refrained from "activating a plan" to force an inquiry into it, even though that's been a legitimate issue at least since Biden's disgraceful Afghanistan bug-out. Even before last week, polls since Afghanistan routinely showed majorities of voters agreeing that Biden was too old for the job. 

Will such an investigation into Biden be politically charged? Will it embarrass Democrats? Yes, it likely will, but Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for pushing a clearly declining Biden into the White House in 2020, and then pretending nothing was amiss. They're attacking Robert Hur this week for exposing Biden and confirming what almost nine out of ten Americans already knew -- that Biden's unfit for office now, let alone unfit for another four-year term. 

And Democrats won't be the only ones with egg on their face. Mainstream media outlets have regurgitated the Democrats' bizarre defenses of a doddering president that can't find his way off a stage without help. Almost two years ago, the White House Easter Bunny blocked Biden from approaching reporters on his own, and few 'news' outlets asked how a costumed performer had the authority to corral a president. Biden won't do interviews any longer and rarely holds pressers, which barely merits a whimper from the same Protection Racket Media that complained when George W. Bush went without a presser every week. And when he does hold pressers, they turn into disasters in which Biden confuses Egypt for Mexico, Hamas with political "opposition," and rants semi-coherently from the podium at reporters for daring to ask questions.

Why will the media make Republicans Pounce!® the narrative? Because if they report on Biden's cognitive crisis with any honesty, they will have to account for their own efforts to propagandize Biden as vital and up to the job.

That's why our nation and its security cannot be left to the Protection Racket Media, and why we need independent media to hold all of our institutions accountable -- including the so-called Fourth Estate.

This brings me to how we can support free and independent voices and exercise such vigilance. Many of our readers have joined the fight as part of our VIP and VIP Gold membership, and they have been crucial to our operations as an independent platform and the ability to debate all of the issues honestly. We also produce some great exclusive content for our members:

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On this same topic, the latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up! Today's show features:

•  Joe Biden had a very bad week, but did Robert Hur's report do more to indict the media? 
• Andrew Malcolm and I debate who's actually wearing fewer clothes -- the emperor or his court jesters. 
• This all feeds into a sense of impending doom, as Andrew discusses in his latest column. Plus, we both salute Taylor Swift on her first Super Bowl win.

The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!