This week, the liberal information networks stated completely nothing about billionaire Warren Buffett’s barely-veiled slam of President Biden and different liberals for his or her latest class warfare gambit: demonizing companies that purchase again their inventory. That’s a far cry from 2011 and 2012, when those self same networks helped juice then-President Obama’s re-election marketing campaign by trumpeting Buffett’s name for larger taxes on the wealthy (see beneath).

At this yr’s State of the Union on February 7, President Biden demanded a 400% enhance within the new tax on inventory buybacks his get together rammed by way of final summer season. “Firms should do the appropriate factor. That’s why I suggest we quadruple the tax on company inventory buybacks and encourage long-term investments,” he proposed as Democrats jumped to their toes in applause. “They’ll nonetheless make appreciable revenue.”

Lower than three weeks later, Buffett put out his annual letter to shareholders of the Berkshire Hathaway company, of which he’s CEO. Whereas he didn’t point out Biden or different liberals by identify, he was completely clear: “If you end up advised that every one repurchases are dangerous to shareholders or to the nation, or significantly helpful to CEOs, you’re listening to both an financial illiterate or a silver-tongued demagogue (characters that aren’t mutually unique).”

Enterprise channels CNBC and the Fox Enterprise Community discerned the inescapable connection to Biden of their protection this week. “I like Buffett,” FBN host Stuart Varney complimented Monday morning. “His flip of phrase there may be good.”

But a search of closed-captioning reveals nothing about Buffett this week on ABC, NBC, CNN or MSNBC. The CBS Weekend Information on February 25 included a quick point out of the shareholder letter, however stated nothing about Buffett’s newsworthy remark about buybacks.

Correspondent Michael George gave it ten seconds on the finish of a narrative in regards to the financial system: “And at this time Warren Buffett, one of many world’s most profitable buyers, wrote in his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway that regardless of inflation he stays assured in regards to the state of the U.S. financial system.”

Examine that to what occurred almost 12 years in the past, when President Obama was searching for ammunition for his 2012 re-election marketing campaign. Buffett penned a White Home-friendly op-ed for the New York Instances on August 15, 2011 calling for larger taxes on the wealthy; an enthralled media spent the following six months selling Obama’s pitch for a “Buffett Rule” that will supposedly make the tax code extra truthful, culminating in Buffett’s secretary attending the State of the Union:

■ “Two of America’s prime company executives at this time demanded that Washington put the financial system again on monitor. In an opinion piece within the New York Instances, billionaire investor Warren Buffett advised Congress it should enhance taxes on folks incomes greater than 1,000,000 {dollars}. ‘My associates and I’ve been coddled lengthy sufficient by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our authorities to get severe about shared sacrifice.’”
— Anchor Scott Pelley on the August 15, 2011 CBS Night Information.

■ Anchor Diane Sawyer: “Is it time for the mega-rich to pay a minimum of the identical tax fee as their secretaries? And in the event that they did pay their justifiable share, wouldn’t it repair America’s colleges or roads?…”
Correspondent Bianna Golodryga: “A further one % tax on the richest Individuals is estimated to boost $100 billion in additional income through the subsequent decade….It’s sufficient to construct nearly 7,000 new elementary colleges or greater than 2,000 new excessive colleges, Diane.”
— ABC’s World Information, August 15, 2011.

■ “Warren Buffett made one other splash, saying it’s not proper [that] he, a billionaire, pays 17 % in taxes when his secretaries and receptionists pay extra. Isn’t he proper about that?”
— Co-host George Stephanopoulos to Donald Trump on ABC’s Good Morning America, August 17, 2011.

■ “The billionaire and his secretary who’ve ignited a large battle about taxing the wealthy in America. President Obama has declared it’s time to take motion on taxes as a result of folks within the center class are paying a bigger share of revenue tax than the super-rich and he stated he needs Congress to shut the loopholes and create a minimal tax the wealthy should pay.”
— ABC’s Diane Sawyer on the September 19, 2011 World Information.

■ “Possibly solely a very, actually wealthy man can credibly make the case for why the rich needs to be requested to pay extra in taxes. You’ll be able to’t accuse an enormous capitalist of ‘class warfare.’ That’s why the appropriate wing despises Warren Buffett and is making an attempt so onerous to close him up.”
— Washington Put up columnist E. J. Dionne in a September 28, 2011 op-ed, “Why Conservatives Hate Warren Buffett.”

■ “The difficulty was famously raised by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who complains he pays taxes at a decrease fee than his personal secretary. Mr. Obama advised final fall the tax code be modified, so rich buyers would pay charges a minimum of as excessive as atypical staff….Mr. Obama’s proposed ‘Buffett precept’ has, to this point, gone nowhere. Nevertheless it’s more likely to get one other airing from the White Home, now that [GOP presidential candidate Mitt] Romney has disclosed he’s in the identical low tax bracket because the billionaire Buffett.”
— NPR’s Scott Horsley on Morning Version, January 18, 2012.

■ “Grover Norquist, the anti-tax crusader, says no tax will increase beneath any circumstances. Warren Buffett says, ‘Hey, the wealthier on this nation will pay extra and they need to pay extra.’…Who is aware of extra in regards to the American financial system, Grover Norquist or Warren Buffett?”
— Moderator David Gregory to Mitt Romney at an NBC Information/Fb GOP candidates debate proven on Meet the Press, January 8, 2012.

■ “The Republicans have been fully intransigent. They don’t imagine, nearly to a person and girl, in any tax will increase in any respect, even though you might have folks like Warren Buffett, one in all America’s richest males, nearly pleading, ‘tax me extra.’”
— Host Piers Morgan to Obama strategist David Axelrod on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight, December 5, 2011.

■ “[Buffett’s secretary] Debbie Bosanek says she nonetheless looks like Cinderella on the ball, given the 24 hours that she’s had….A whirlwind journey to stardom, that started when her well-known boss, Warren Buffett, says she pays a decrease tax fee than he does….It comes simply 24 hours after Republican candidate Mitt Romney revealed he made nearly $43 million over two years, paying a tax fee of 13.9 % in 2010. Not Debbie’s 35.8 %.”
— ABC’s Bianna Golodryga profiling Buffett’s secretary on World Information, January 25, 2012, the day after Bosanek was seated with First Woman Michelle Obama through the State of the Union for instance the President’s pitch for larger taxes.

Truly, an evaluation on the time by the Tax Basis confirmed just about all tax filers (97%) paid lower than Romney’s 14 % fee, and thus additionally lower than Buffett’s self-declared fee of 17 %. In different phrases, the media had no concept what they have been speaking about as they eagerly parroted the Democrats’ speaking factors.

Flawed or not, Buffett’s foray into politics was seen as serving to Obama and the Democrats, and the media endlessly cited him as an professional on tax equity. This week, Buffett chimed in as soon as once more, this time to critique a Democratic plan with which he disagreed. There’s been solely silence from the liberal networks.

That’s what’s known as a double commonplace.

For extra examples from our flashback sequence, which we name the NewsBusters Time Machine, go right here.