Timothy P. Carney
Three years ago, Donald Trump had a nice turn of phrase when explaining why he would reject the Paris climate accord and instead defend U.S. industry. “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” the president said.
It was an alliterative synecdoche — a literary device in a speech. Predictably, though, every major liberal media outlet had to “fact-check” Trump’s words.
Vox was tickled that “Trump decided to invoke the name of a city that voted overwhelmingly for Clinton.” The New York Times blasted Trump’s “rusty metaphor,” pointing out “75 percent of voters in Pittsburgh voted for Hillary Clinton.” The Washington Post carried at least three “ACTUALLY Pittsburgh isn’t with Trump pieces,” plus an item in a fact check.
So how did the media react this week when Joe Biden used his own synecdoche-dichotomy?
The New York Times mentions the quip prominently in two stories, but no fact check. CNN credulously carries the line. The Washington Post doesn’t fact-check it.
What is there to fact-check, you ask?
Well, you could start where my brother John Carney at Breitbart started and see who Park Avenue is actually supporting. By an 8-to-1 margin, Park Avenue is behind Biden.
“Biden’s campaign has raised over $1 million from donors living on Park Avenue, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings,” my brother writes. “That is more than eight times the $127,000 raised by the Trump campaign from the same area.”
And Biden has raised far more from Park Avenue than he has from Scranton. And Trump? He’s raised more from Scranton than from Park Avenue.
Yet while dozens of mainstream reporters marveled over the Biden line, none thought to check his facts and download some FEC data. It takes alternative and conservative media to check Biden.
This isn’t surprising. Barack Obama was able to get away with all sorts of falsehoods and misleading statements when he was the nominee and when he was in office. Biden will enjoy the same.