The New York Times tried to tell us about Joe Biden's age problems

And got blasted for it.

The dumbest take I’ve heard on the 2024 election is that the New York Times actually, secretly wants Donald Trump to win the election.

It’s a take I see pop up on social media — occasionally from a pretty smart person — mostly whenever the Times does a story that’s mildly critical of the president, or whenever it prints a story about Trump and uses the word “misleading” to describe his lies instead of saying “lies.”

And it’s a take I’ve seen pushed most furiously when the Times does stories about Joe Biden’s aging. Which — to be fair — it’s done an awful lot. Especially in February after a special counsel said he wouldn’t bring charges against Biden for keeping some classified docs in his garage because a jury would find Biden “a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory."

Here’s what the NYT opinion section looked like soon after:

Margaret Sullivan, one of the better media observers of our age, was angry.

Biden’s advanced age is, granted, far from ideal for a president seeking a second term, even the very effective president that he has been. Yes, he’s old; and, never a gifted public speaker, he makes cringe-inducing mistakes. It would be great if he were 20 years younger. His age really is a legitimate concern for many voters.

But for the media to make this the overarching issue of the campaign is nothing short of journalistic malpractice.

Here’s Media Matters, a progressive outfit:

Stories about Biden’s mental state are clearly catnip for political journalists. They can demonstrate how “fair” they are by providing negative coverage of Biden to balance their treatment of his likely opponent Donald Trump, who is an unhinged authoritarian facing scores of federal and state criminal charges, including for attempting to subvert the 2020 presidential election. And they don’t need to bone up on policy nuances separating the candidates — “is the president addled” is an easy venue for hot takes.

And here’s media critic Dan Froomkin:

Has there ever been a screaming front-page headline about Trump’s abundant mental deficiencies? His repeated displays of memory loss and confusion are actually among the least concerning of his mental problems, which include paranoia, incoherence, narcissism, and sociopathy.

There are way more important questions the political press corps should be obsessing over than how Biden presents himself, namely: How is Biden governing? How would Trump govern? And which man is more dangerous?

Some of this is fair. Some of it less so. But it certainly reflected a broader sense among Democrats and left-of-center folks that the New York Times actively harming democracy with its overwhelming focus on Biden’s age following the special counsel report. There was a lot of “but her emails” kind of commentary going on. (For what it’s worth, I thought the Times’ coverage of Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2016 was fine — she was under investigation by the FBI! That was a big deal for a presidential candidate back then!)

Anyway, Joe Biden and Donald Trump debated last night. Here’s the headlines this morning:

Joe Biden looked very much like an old man who isn’t up to the task of being president another four years. The whole country saw it. And the Politico headline is right: There is no way to spin it.

I hate that, because I think a Donald Trump presidency will be disastrous for the country.

But the questions about Biden’s age were legit. The New York Times tried to tell us. And it got blasted for it.