If Politico had been trying to smear Jill Biden, it might not have been so bad.

But the inside-the-Beltway bible of liberal politics published a nearly 1,100-word profile on the first lady on Monday with the apparent aim of canonizing St. Jill of Wilmington just as her husband's re-election campaign begins its first full week.

And as the social media blowback showed, it had exactly the opposite effect.

Politico portrays Jill Biden in a heroic light while completely ignoring a much darker flipside. pic.twitter.com/dwSTqpJdkz

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) May 1, 2023

Chalk it up to the treacly writing. Or the blatantly propagandistic tone. Or the way the piece ignores the obvious downsides of a president who's showing the downside of every day of his 80-odd years in ways that would embarrass a family with any decency.

But the piece by White House correspondent Eugene Daniels -- whose bio boasts of his posts as an MSNBC political analyst and contributor to MSNBC's "Morning Joe" -- made Joe Biden, Jill Biden and the entire first family just look worse.

Honest, critical thinking and Twitter reactions don't always have a lot in common, but in this case they track pretty much perfectly -- and the backfire was brutal.

With more than 46,000 views on Twitter as of early afternoon Monday, the article's posting had attracted only 76 "likes" (with all of them probably coming from the White House or the Democratic National Committee).

In the comments, however, there were just a handful that were favorable. The vast majority were critical, and many were scathing.

So she has no reservations about him running again? This really is elder abuse on her part.

— Kelkat (@Tweetytweeter63) May 1, 2023

All "GOOD" journalists should be truthful, objective, fair, diligent and accountable for their actions and inaccuracies. Politico refuses to call out Jill for elder abuse on her dementia addled pathological liar husband.

— Marie's Haint (@FlaRenegade) May 1, 2023

"journalism'

pic.twitter.com/zQZD1PNRwt

— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) May 1, 2023

The piece attempts to gloss over the troubles that are rising around the Biden family even as the establishment media does its best to provide protection.

President Biden's cognitive problems -- already apparent during the 2020 campaign -- are getting worse and so common that it's almost news when he makes it through a public appearance without a humiliating gaffe.

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And when he does -- such in the February State of the Union address (almost) or Saturday night's talk at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, he's shown a perkiness that, compared with Biden's customary plodding uncertainty lately, can't help but foster suspicion that the lucidity might be the result of chemical help from the White House medicine cabinet (or maybe one of Hunter's old connections) temporarily boosting the presidential awareness.

The sole nod in the piece to that painful reality: It says Jill Biden "can be defensive" of her husband, "bristling at the criticisms that he has lost a step." He's lost a lot more than "a step," and any look at a video of Biden from, say, 2018 compared with today will show it.

Shame, shame on Jill Biden to keep her ill husband on the national stage. We know what we see on tv, Jill. Your husband has no idea what day it is, where he has been, or what he has to do for his job. SHAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

— Maria Cook (@MariaCo72813423) May 1, 2023

Nothing wrong with Biden:

Everyone talks to dead people, shakes hands with invisible people, falls walking up stairs, can't remember where they were 2 weeks ago, and has the Easter bunny as their companion.

— truthisreal (@realtruthisgood) May 1, 2023

The legal and ethical problems surrounding first son Hunter Biden keep bubbling just beneath the surface, breaking out periodically with another headline about his abandonment of his own daughter or House Republicans finding a new angle about his career peddling the influence of his father's name in various foreign governments.

The piece takes that into account with a political spin: "Advisers are envisioning a role for Jill Biden on the campaign in which she serves as a character witness for her family — especially Hunter Biden — and a conduit to suburban swing voters who, they believe, relate to her."

Sure, all the women out there who've acted as stepmothers to boys who grew up to be drug-addicted, adulterous, lecherous, possibly traitorous men should be able to see the first lady as one of their own.

And as to Jill Biden herself, the article wasn't much more successful.

The beginning tried to paint her as a caring matriarch worried about the effect a Biden presidential run in 2020 would have on her husband and her family.

Today? Lady Macbeth leaps to mind, somehow.

"Privately, the first lady encouraged her husband to run again while giving him the space he needed to process the decision in the way he traditionally does: with extensive deliberations, consideration of the burden it would place on his family, and a bit of classic Biden hemming and hawing. She was involved in all the high-level discussions around the decision, giving counsel when she felt it was necessary ...

"Her gentle encouragement of her husband’s reelection run comes as she’s relishing her role, hanging out at the Super Bowl and the women’s Final Four, and actively posting on social media. Unlike the cliche applied to wives of major political figures — that they’re the 'secret weapon' behind their husband’s success — there’s nothing that secret about the role she is playing."

No, there really isn't anything secret about the role she's playing. She's another piece in the liberal media's attempts to make the Biden family look like something other than the grasping grifters emerging evidence shows them to be.

By glossing over Joe Biden's obvious deficiencies as "lost a step" -- and implicitly denying them -- the piece only highlights what a shell of a man is occupying the Oval Office.

By presenting Jill Biden as a "character witness" while eliding the numerous, serious moral deficiencies the rest of the family exhibits (especially Hunter, of course), the article only brings them more to mind.

She's the woman with a front-row seat for the Joe Biden presidency and unavoidable knowledge that his mental capacities aren't up for the job. But she evinces not enough love for either her husband or her county to spare either of them.

It's not likely that an MSNBC analyst, "Morning Joe" contributor and White House correspondent for a nauseatingly self-satisfied liberal outlet like Politico meant to put the "hag" in "hagiography."

But it came through loud and clear.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.