TOM CLANCY COULDN'T IMAGINE DEMENTIA JOE.

I've been re-reading his The Bear and the Dragon, in part to refresh my memory about how the Chinese balance of payments went sideways in a hurry (not because of any special tariffs, mind you) and came across accidental president Jack Ryan musing, at page 540, about a press conference.

His eyes were scanning his briefing sheets for the mini-press conference.  The likely questions and the better sorts of answers to give to them.  It seemed very dishonest to do it this way, but some foreign heads of government had the questions prescreened so that the answers could be properly canned.  Not a bad idea in the abstract, Jack thought, but the American media would spring for that about as quickly as a coyote would chase after a whale.

Tom Clancy was seriously skeptical of the press, and of Democrats.  But the idea of the Easter Bunny serving as impromptu press secretary was too much even for him.

Members of the press behaving like Democrat operative with bylines, though?  Yes, from the very beginning of the Ryan presidency.  And Jack Ryan could talk smack to the journos way better than either Donald Trump or Karoline Leavitt.