Biden's Baghdad Bob administration

 Charles Lipson:

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How effective was this disinformation blitz by federal bureaucrats, the Democratic Party, and their friends in the media? Very effective, according to polls reported by Tom Bevan of RealClearPolitics. The lies and suppression not only helped Biden win, they have taken root in the public as truthful accounts. Fully half of Democrats and 47% of independents still believe the Hunter Biden laptop story was simply “Russian disinformation.” It wasn’t.

Since this deceit worked in the election, why not keep it up? That seems to be the White House’s P.R. strategy to deal with soaring inflation and record numbers of illegal immigrants.

The current disinformation strategy is unlikely to work for two reasons. First, the public didn’t have direct knowledge of Hunter’s computer, but it has plenty of first-hand knowledge about inflation and some about illegal immigration. Voters can see rising prices all around them. They know their incomes are falling behind those prices. They don’t need a newspaper or newscast to tell them. They don’t need to read tweets. Immigration problems are harder to see unless you live near the border, but the bad news has gradually seeped out, even on progressive outlets. Busing some of those immigrants to “sanctuary cities” such as New York, D.C., and Chicago, and now flying some to Martha’s Vineyard has underscored the problem. And it is a big problem to which the Biden administration has no solution. Huge numbers of people are streaming illegally across the Rio Grande Valley every day. Mexican drug cartels are exploiting the open border to ship vast quantities of fentanyl to communities across the U.S.

Second, many media outlets are less protective of Joe Biden as president than they were of Joe Biden as Donald Trump’s opponent. President Biden is harmed still more by his dreadful spin team. He is an inept speaker – he shouts but cannot rally the crowds – and he’s even worse when he strays from his speechwriters’ script on the teleprompter. But he is a veritable Demosthenes compared to his two main surrogates, Vice President Kamala Harris and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

“The border is secure,” the vice president told Americans last Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. That’s not just false. It is painfully, obviously false. A competent news program would have immediately confronted her with the numbers, particularly the astonishing 2 million expected to cross illegally this year. They didn’t. Nor is Harris alone in repeating that fairy tale. Her colleagues, including Secretary of Homeland Security Alexandro Mayorkas, blow the same smoke. Surely Harris and Mayorkas know the numbers. Surely, they know they are lying. Deceit this blatant seldom works in democracies, although it helps to have a biased media downplay the story, as they did with Hunter’s laptop.

It may be hard to fool Americans about illegal immigration, but it’s even harder to fool them about inflation. They can see it for themselves. A month ago, President Biden said at a press conference, “Our economy had zero percent inflation in the month of July [2022]. Zero percent.” Those were prepared remarks, and they were flatly false. The real story is that inflation, which reached a 40-year record in June, remained at the same high level in July. It’s unclear whether Biden was trying to hoodwink voters or simply doesn’t understand the difference between high inflation and rising inflation. Neither is a happy prospect.

The administration continues to sweep bad news under the carpet and congratulate itself over cherry-picked news about inflation and the economy. Last Tuesday, in a spectacularly ill-timed event, the White House held a major celebration of the recently passed “Inflation Reduction Act.” That was also the day the government reported its latest inflation numbers: a painful 8.3%.

Larry Summers, a Democrat and former secretary of the treasury, summarized the grim news, “Today’s CPI [Consumer Price Index] report confirms that the U.S. has a serious inflation problem. Core inflation is higher this month than for the quarter, higher this quarter than last quarter, higher this half of the year than the previous one, and higher last year than the previous one. Median inflation used to be a favorite indicator for team transitory. This month it was at its highest ever reading.”

Investors reacted by dumping stocks, anticipating the Federal Reserve would continue to raise interest rates to choke off inflation before it became firmly embedded. Higher rates may lessen inflation, but they also mean higher unemployment, lower corporate profits, and a greater chance of continuing recession. They also mean a tighter squeeze for families. Polls show those families are very worried about their prospects and consider the economy their number one voting issue this November. (77% percent of registered voters consider it “very important” to their November vote.)
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It is hard to contemplate an administration so blatantly dishonest and a media that lets them get away with it because its members hate Trump and the GOP.  The Baghdad Bobs of this administration are basically saying "Are you going to believe us, or your lying eyes?"