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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBREAKING NEWS: WHCA to bestow special award on entire membership for its role in breaking the news that Biden was old
In a stunning decision, the White House Correspondents Associationthe leading organization of journalists and members of the press charged with covering the executive branchannounced today that all 900+ of its members would be jointly awarded its prestigious Excellence in Presidential News Coverage honors.
As justification for this unprecedented decision, WHCA President Eugene Daniels cited the presss unparalleled bravery in the face of overwhelming adversity relating to its shocking June 2024 revelation that then-President Joe Biden was, in fact, 81 years old.
The vast majority of American voters who went to the polls in 2020 had no idea whatsoever that Joe Biden was in reality a 78-year-old man, Daniels explained. Nor was the general public ever completely aware of President Bidens age throughout the majority of his administration. Most people fully assumed Joe Biden was a strapping young 25-year-old man at the peak of his physical stamina and virility.
That false perception radically changed after events unfolded in Summer 2024, to which Daniels fully credits the media.
After a subpar debate performance by President Biden, our journalists immediately sprung to work to uncover the shocking truth that the sitting Commander-in-Chief was in fact a wizened senior citizen whose gait and speech patterns were fairly appropriate for a person of his age, Daniels said. They were then able to disseminate this previously obscured fact to the public with a single-minded level of obsession paralleled only perhaps by Swifties debating as to which of Taylors Eras reigns supreme.
Daniels believes members of the Biden administration had engaged in a cover-up regarding the Presidents true age on a level not seen since the days of Watergate.
The implications of obscuring Joe Bidens age ran deep and put the American people in needless jeopardy, Daniels explained. For what would happen if President Biden were to walk by a tree with a cat trapped in its branches, and yet he would be unable to so adeptly climb up its trunk and free it from its arboreal captor? What would happen if Air Force One were to suffer an unexpected mechanical breakdown, requiring the President to instead jog across the nation from appearance to appearance? Only then would the public suddenly realize that its President was lacking the age-related fitness required for his most essential duties in office.
Daniels bristled against accusations of false equivalence, soundly rejecting the argument that members of the media may have felt pressured to play up concerns about Bidens age as a means to avoid claims of left-wing bias when it came to raising similar questions about now-President Donald Trumps mental acuity and qualifications to hold office.
Yes, Donald Trump is in fact a convicted felon who--while in office--was impeached an unprecedented two times, Daniels said. He also has been found civilly liable for fraud, defamation and sexual assault, as well as being criminally charged for schemes ranging from refusing to return highly classified materials to attempting to subvert the electoral process and encouraging a violent insurrection against the US Capitol. And we all heard him repeat blatant falsehoods about Haitian immigrants supposedly eating peoples pets in Ohio, as well as his bizarre musings about the size of golfing legend Arnold Palmers manhood. But the bottom line about Donald Trump is that we already knew all of those things and have fully accepted them as being part of the greater mosaic of his total being. Whereas virtually nobody knew that Joe Biden was both a grandfather and a card-carrying member of the AARP.
Also, someone who is 78 is younger than someone who is 81, Daniels added. I mean, come on. Thats just basic arithmetic.
Daniels credits his fellow journalists for uncovering perhaps the single greatest act of White House obfuscation we have seen in at least the past century, if not longer.
Did you hear all that, Donald? Daniels quickly remarked, seemingly to no one. Please dont hurt us, okay?
DETAILS AT ELEVEN

UpInArms
(52,712 posts)
Tommy Carcetti
(43,876 posts)For Democrats, regardless of whether or not they wanted Biden to run for a second term, everyone already knew he was old. To quote Donald Rumsfeld, it was a "known known." That fact was shocking absolutely no one.
Meanwhile, there are crazy Trumpists who think the media was somehow complicit in covering up some sort of alternate reality where Biden was not only old, but supposedly mentally incompetent. Throw a bunch of conspiracy theories about body doubles and what not. They aren't going to be placated by any of that.
So exactly what do the members of the media who insist on rehashing and relitigating this story think they trying to achieve here, and who is actually interested in buying their story?
senseandsensibility
(21,876 posts)Did you write it yourself?
Tommy Carcetti
(43,876 posts)Writing, along with swimming, is one of my favorite therapeutic hobbies.
senseandsensibility
(21,876 posts)Very amusing, but depressing too, of course. Thanks, and get thee to the greatest page!
malaise
(283,598 posts)Look it up
senseandsensibility
(21,876 posts)It takes patience and talent to do what he does, but this one really did it for me. That WHCA dinner was a disgrace.
malaise
(283,598 posts)Rec
Tommy Carcetti
(43,876 posts)MustBeTheBooz
(325 posts)