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As Brandon Morse reported yesterday, broadcast news networks predictably pivoted into damage control for Joe Biden not long after videos circulated Thursday of him responding to a Tuesday interview question by saying in so many words that all black people think alike.

For those who missed it, here’s the transcript of Biden’s remarks:

“And by the way, what you all know but most people don’t know – unlike the African-American community with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community, with incredibly different attitudes about different things. You to go Florida you find a very different attitude about immigration in certain places than you do when you’re in Arizona. So it’s a very different, very diverse community.”

Print media outlets like the Washington Post fell in line as well on running interference for Biden, as demonstrated by fact-checker Glenn Kessler in a tweet where he claimed the Trump campaign’s interpretation of Joe Biden’s remarks was wrong:

If you listen to the clip, he didn’t actually say this. https://t.co/sU7XeCuHim

— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) August 6, 2020

There were three big problems with Kessler’s defense of Biden, though:

1) He is unquestionably wrong, because when you watch the clip – even the longer version that shows the comments “in context”, there is no other interpretation to draw from it other than him suggesting that all black people think alike.

2) Biden actually doubled down during a Thursday afternoon roundtable discussion by saying the same thing about Hispanic diversity versus African-American diversity. Seriously, that’s exactly what he did.

3) The third – and arguably the biggest problem with Kessler’s defense – was that Biden himself (or most likely his handlers) took to the Twitter machine late Thursday night to acknowledge what he said and clarify his comments:

Earlier today, I made some comments about diversity in the African American and Latino communities that I want to clarify. In no way did I mean to suggest the African American community is a monolith—not by identity, not on issues, not at all.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 7, 2020

Throughout my career I've witnessed the diversity of thought, background, and sentiment within the African American community. It's this diversity that makes our workplaces, communities, and country a better place.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 7, 2020

Gee, that’s an awful lot of backtracking on Biden’s part for something he, according to Kessler, didn’t say.

Kessler’s white knighting for Biden shouldn’t come as a surprise for anyone, though, not when you consider his history of attempted dunks on Republicans and covering for Democrats, including more recently when he field-tested another excuse for why Biden shouldn’t participate in the fall presidential debates (as a growing number of Democats have suggested).

These people are nothing if not predictable.