But this doesn’t excuse the rhetorical overkill that the press flung so profligately. CNN’s Jake Tapper, a normally sober commentator and reporter, was so moved by the Biden-Harris visit to the Tomb of the Unknowns after the investiture that he helped himself to a little play-by-play from inside the new president’s mind. “I cannot imagine that President Biden was not thinking of his favorite soldier, Beau Biden, his son, who died of cancer, who was a major in the Army Reserve, and for whom he mourns greatly,” Tapper intoned. Please, please, can we have a brief moratorium on future Beau Biden references unless absolutely necessary?

On his Twitter feed, CNN media guy Brian Stelter actually complained that the gashouse gang at Fox News Channel were killjoying the happy day with criticisms of the coverage. Freed from his previous self-assignment to defend Trump’s lurching madness, the network’s Greg Gutfeld took aim at his competitors for their lapdoggery. “As the corporate press drools for Joe, they frantically spit on President Trump, the outgoing guy, trying to outdo each other on who’s more relieved that our national nightmare is over,” Gutfeld said on Wednesday, making himself one of the blind hogs who found a truffle.

Honest Biden acolytes would have to admit that Gutfeld had a point, though, and that by going overboard for Biden, the press was guilty of 1) hyping Joe; 2) inflating expectations to a volume he can’t possibly fulfill and 3) giving viewers and readers a reason to suspect if not distrust the gleaming Biden coverage. In an era when large portions of Americans think mainstream media is a tool of the left, a tad less bootlicking could help build trust among media skeptics.