Kimberly Strassel;

The recriminations are flying, as Barack Obama’s and Joe Biden’s forces go to war over who’s more to blame for Democrats’ humiliating defeat Tuesday. So long as the left is pointing fingers, let it direct a big, fat digit at the outfit that played the biggest role in losing it this election: the U.S. media.

That isn’t the conventional wisdom, which holds that the press’s naked shilling for Democratic candidates amounts to an in-kind campaign contribution. And no doubt the media’s ceaseless attacks on Donald Trump and Republicans did help round up some undecided voters. Yet the boosterism for Kamala Harris & Co. came at a far bigger cost: A narrative full of fantasy enabled Democrats to live in a world disconnected from the mood and worries of the country.

Among the most damaging of these fantasies was the four-year press assurance that Joe Biden was sharp as a tack. Even video evidence in June of a confused president wandering aimlessly at the Group of Seven was met with claims that the footage was “edited,” “lacking context,” “misleading.” Only when the Trump-Biden debate made Mr. Biden’s decline undeniable did the media drop the charade. Then it immediately turned to recast Ms. Harris—a presidential primary loser turned unpopular vice president—as a political genius and the obvious savior of the Democratic Party. How’d that work out?

And they’ll show you the crime;

Montana Democrats are debuting a new form of political warfare against Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy. They’re trying to destroy the business he built.

Denunciations of “wealthy Republican businessmen” aren’t new. But the assault on the Sheehy-founded Bridger Aerospace is of a nastier breed. The goal seems to be to destroy Bridger so as to tar Mr. Sheehy as a failed businessman. Sen. Jon Tester’s campaign has joined the attacks — never mind the cost to Bridger employees, many of whom are Montanans, or the local economy.

Before Mr. Sheehy announced his Senate run in mid-2023, what little press Bridger received was complimentary. As a Navy SEAL, Mr. Sheehy experienced the military’s rapid advances in surveillance reconnaissance, and on retiring from service after injuries, he saw its potential to fight wildfires. Mr. Sheehy (who is a pilot) and a fellow veteran scraped together money to found Bridger in 2014 with the mission of providing aerial support for wildland firefighters. ]…]

Yet the closer Mr. Sheehy came to winning the nomination, the more hostile the environment became for Bridger. Late last year the company started getting strange inquiries from lenders and regulators — leading some managers to suspect that people were lodging accusations against it in hope of triggering lenders to pull loans or provoking a public regulatory rebuke.

After Bridger weathered that storm, the assault went public. In early August, NBC and the Washington Post ran negative articles a day apart making strikingly similar suggestions of a coming Bridger financial collapse, based in part on the anything-can-happen disclaimers that public companies are required to file. NBC also quoted Marc Cohodes — a short seller who has praised Sen. Elizabeth Warren as “great” and who routinely bashes Mr. Sheehy and Donald Trump — accusing Bridger of existing “for insiders and the Park Avenue billionaires at Blackstone.”

I bought a few shares in BAER in September. The price is climbing back up.