Biden Once Again Defies Expectations

Jennifer Rubin: “The Senate on Tuesday passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal with 19 Republican votes. Had someone polled the White House press corps a month ago, few would have expected any bipartisan deal possible.”

“Too many reporters, despite Biden’s success in delivering hundreds of millions of vaccines to Americans and passing a $2 trillion rescue plan, have maintained a default setting in their reporting in which Biden struggles to make good on his plans or underestimates his abilities to enact them. The administration, in this telling, is forever in some sort of ‘crisis,’ and negotiations are always on the verge of failure.

“Whether this ‘Perils of Pauline’ narrative is a deliberate effort to build drama into news or whether journalists fail to comprehend the complexity and dynamics of legislative negotiations, the result is coverage that leaves readers and viewers nearly certain Biden will fail.”