As hot mic moments go it’s undeniably a classic, even by Biden’s own standards , but as a measure of the breakdown of civility in American life, it’s pretty weak stuff.
This sort of generosity is extremely off-brand for Fox News, a network whose on-air faces are hardly given to accepting apologies of any kind.
The urge to show contrition, in Trump-era right-wing logic, is a weakness to be resisted, just like excessive empathy, pragmatism or introspection.
But what isn’t a weakness, apparently, is the remarkable fragility that immediately starts to show whenever someone treats Fox News the way it treats its opponents.
What they do share with the likes of Carlson and his coterie is an extremely loose relationship with accountability.
The monster that Fox News has become is not just some out-of-control genetic experiment gone awry.
That it’s been this easily triggered by a president it portrays as a weak, senile fool says it all. »