#Tom Friedman’s ‘oops,’ the WaPo’s stump and more

Diary of disturbing disinformation and dangerous delusions

Flashback:

“If Vladimir Putin opts to back away from invading Ukraine, even temporarily, it’s because Joe Biden . . . has matched every Putin chess move with an effective counter of his own.”

— Three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Thomas Friedman, Feb. 15

We say: Oops. With Putin launching a full-scale invasion, it looks like Biden’s “chess moves” weren’t quite as “effective” as famed columnist Thomas Friedman suggested . . .

Spot the difference:

“Look into my eyes: I guarantee you . . . we are going to end fossil fuel.” – Joe Biden, Sept. 2019

“I will do everything in my power to limit the pain . . . at the gas pump.” – President Joe Biden, Feb. 24, 2022

We say: Everything to limit the pain? Even promoting fossil fuels? If only.

This claim:

We say: In his New Yorker interview, New York Times editor Dean Baquet claims his paper works to present the “best version of the truth” — with “political opinion held in check by editors and editing.” Yet the Gray Lady’s “news” stories offer nothing but political bias. Indeed, it seemed every national story during the Trump presidency included an obligatory slam against the president. Even when Times editors try to be truthful, they wind up succumbing to pressure from their own reporters, readers and left-wing allies — as in 2019, when they changed a headline about a Trump speech from “Trump Urges Unity Vs. Racism” to “Assailing Hate But Not Guns.”

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This column:

We say: Now that Joe Biden is president, Vladimir Putin is bombing Ukraine, killing scores of innocents, moving to conquer a sovereign neighbor and igniting the biggest war in Europe in decades. But, hey, argues Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, President Donald Trump divided NATO, and Biden has unified it. That’s actually far from true, but more important: Has there ever been a worse case of missing the point?

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board