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It’s a fairly common practice for mainstream media journalists, especially those who work for national news outlets, to just come out of nowhere with hot takes that bear no resemblance to the facts on the ground. Oftentimes those hot takes reveal more about the sorry state of journalism in America than they do the subject matter on which they’re opining.

Such was the case on both counts with Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel. Earlier today, Weigel took to the Twitter machine to weigh in on another journalist’s story about how there is debate on whether or not Joe Biden is responsible for his “popularity” or if it has more to do with “running against this unique president.” Weigel’s response, in part, was to claim that Biden had “so successfully refuted a #MeToo accusation that nobody talks about it anymore”:

Biden so successfully refuted a #MeToo accusation that nobody talks about it anymore, and for whatever reason the CW is still that the *other* candidate is teflon, can win by firing up his base, etc https://t.co/c7Hv8bFQoe

— Dave Weigel, Re-Animator (@daveweigel) October 20, 2020

This was news on multiple levels to people reading his tweet who understand that, in reality, Biden has done no such thing. Rather, the media has done a masterful job of squelching Tara Reade’s sexual-assault allegation by 1) allowing Joe Biden to skate by this story by way of giving merely one interview about it and 2) waiting to file reports on Reade’s allegation until several weeks after she went public with it, giving themselves time to try and discredit her in a way they wouldn’t ever do had she been accusing a Republican:

“successfully refuted a MeToo accusation” = did one interview in which he said it wasn’t true, never released corresponding documents which could dispute the claims, the disinterested media just moved on… https://t.co/XOcoVNpQKS

— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) October 20, 2020

“Refuted” more like benefited from a hostile media response. The double standards applied to that accusation were insane

— real hugh mann being (@realhughmann) October 20, 2020

refuted? more like denied long enough that everyone got too anxious about losing to trump that they abandoned it

— mary mustard 🌹🍄 (@themaryrand) October 20, 2020

"nobody talks about it anymore" = "…the monoculture media environment, of which I Dave Weigel am a member, spiked and didnt want to present to the public"

Brilliant.

— Tardigrade Bio Diversity Advocate (@ManofillRepute) October 20, 2020

Refuted a me too allegation? Really? Cause in reality it just seems like the dems don’t give a shit about victims as long as a dem is the accused and it’s politically convenient.

— Teege (@Teegetweet) October 20, 2020

Biden so successfully refuted it that despite all of the contemporary corroboration of the allegations you guys just gave up on the story because he’s the nominee!

— Christopher Woods (@kingcwoods) October 20, 2020

Bingo.

As I wrote yesterday in a related story, Biden’s lead is not being “protected” by Biden but instead by “news” outlets like CNN and the WaPo who either ignore or downplay shocking stories that are damaging to Biden’s faux “decent guy” image by keeping the focus on Trump and off of Biden’s flubs, gaffes, stumbles and negative news stories that have the potential to swing voters in Trump’s direction.

It took both CNN, the NYT, and the WaPo several WEEKS before they first reported on Reade’s allegations, and even when they did, CNN admitted that their reporting relied mostly on what the New York Times and the Washington Post had dug up in an attempt to discredit Reade.

So, no, Biden did not “successfully” refute Reade’s allegations. The media has successfully kept the story from gaining the kind of traction it would have had it been about Trump. Their purpose for dragging their feet on this story is so obvious that even a caveman could figure out it: to drag Biden over the finish line in the same way they tried to do with Hillary Clinton in 2016.