When, tomorrow, President Biden has his first solo news conference since the first and possibly only 2024 presidential debate - and his first solo news conference since long before that - it will have been two weeks since the debate, in which the President was so incognizant that he spoke about taking pride in beating Medicare. Since that disaster, Biden has attended rallies in North Carolina and Wisconsin and reverted to top form, he's done an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, he's campaigned vigorously in Pennsylvania with Biden backer John Fetterman, the state's junior senator, he's spoken to Joe Scarborough on his MSNBC morning show by phone, and he's given a stirring speech about NATO at its seventy-fifth anniversary summit in Washington, D.C. And when Democrats and pundits said he needed tme to make a decision about whether to withdraw from the 2024 presidential campaign or to stay in, he made the decision - he's staying in.
Then Democrats and pundits said he needed time to make his decision.
Didn't they get his reply? They got it, they just don't want it.
If Churchill had had this sort of backing from the British people on the eve of the Battle of Britain, the Germans would have occupied the U.K. without having to fire a shot.
I've seen Democrats flee from the hills and the media start performing last rites for a political career when Democratic candidates for the Presidency committed an unfortunate faux pas - like Howard Dean, who didn't deserve the abuse he got, and Gary Hart, who did - but never have I seen such aversion to a blunder by an incumbent Democratic President. Bill Clinton actually got less blowback over Monica Lewinsky. The more determination Biden shows in staying in the campaign, the more Washington Democrats and pundits are determined to make him drop out. As of this weekend, nine House Democrats called for Biden to step aside for someone else. Yesterday, a tenth Democratic U.S. Representative called for Biden to step aside, pushing the number of House Democrats against Biden's decision to keep going into double-digit territory - Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, who happens to be my congresswoman. It would have been eleven if Tim Ryan, who forfeited his House seat in Ohio for a fool's errand of a bid for a U.S. Senate seat not won by a Democrat since John Glenn won it in 1992 - and is now held by a phony who could be the next Vice President of the United States - were still in Congress, as he's called on Biden to step down as well. Three Democratic U.S. Senators have joined this chorus of Cassandras, including Michael Bennet of Colorado, who expressed fear that Donald Trump could win the Presidency in a landslide and that Republicans could win both Houses of Congress on his coattails.
As you may recall, Tim Ryan and Michael Bennet ran for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, two of 26 Democrats who did so. Bennett may be from Gary Hart's home state, share Gary Hart's birthday, and hold Gary Hart's old Senate seat, but he also demonstrated that he shares Gary Hart's inability to be elected President. Ryan, having failed at defeating Nancy Pelosi as House Democratic leader in 2016, also failed to stay in the 2020 presidential campaign beyond 2019.
As for the pundits . . .. Any attempt to list all of the newsreaders and pundits on television and podcasts who want to give Biden the hook would double the length to this already long blog post, so I will concentrate on two - David Axelrod and James Carville (below) have both said that Biden has clearly shown a deteriorating mental acuity and a failure to articulate his goals for a second term, and they have doubted his effectiveness since long before the debate. Axelrod is still living off his reputation for getting America's first black President elected, and Carville has been coasting on his success in Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. They're like the New York Jets acting like they're still champions because they won the 1969 Super Bowl.
But seriously, folks - how far back do you want to go? Biden was so disrespected as Barack Obama's Vice President that even if his son hadn't died of cancer, he still would have been pressured into not running for President in 2016, thanks to all of the white bourgeois liberals who made Hillary Clinton the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee-in-waiting as early as January 21, 2009. Biden's 2008 presidential campaign got so little traction that he was laughed out of the campaign after the Iowa caucuses (which is still better than Martin O'Malley getting laughed out of the 2016 presidential campaign during the Iowa caucuses). Biden became the front runner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination only because Gary Hart withdrew as a result of his sex scandal, and Biden and the other candidates for the nomination were dismissed as the "Seven Dwarfs" for their lack of national stature. Then Biden paraphrased a British politician without attributing him and got caught in a plagiarism scandal over a term paper he'd submitted in law school, giving the press more opportunities to ridicule the Democrats - but especially Biden - as not being ready for prime time.
I can go back even farther than that. On Election Night 1980, the last presidential election Walter Cronkite would cover for CBS News, Cronkite asked about future Democratic presidential possibilities in the wake of President Carter's loss to Ronald Reagan. Someone suggested Joe Biden, than a second-term Senator from Delaware. Cronkite just chortled mockingly. So don't tell me this animosity toward Biden has to do with his age - or with his inability to construct a sentence, which is attributable to a stutter he's had all his life. It has to do with the fact that he's Joe Biden and the fact that pundits don't like him.
And now can I direct your attention to someone the media haven't been covering in the past two weeks - Donald Trump? Donald Trump is also old and inarticulate. He talks about sharks trying to attack sinking electric boats and encourages Putin to invade more of his neighbors. He has a problem when pundits ridicule and criticize him. He takes their names not for when he can kick their asses but when he can fry them. He wants to force women to carry babies to term. He wants to introduce tariffs that might have made sense when Henry Clay first proposed them two hundred years ago but would destroy the economy in an interconnected world. He wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He wants to declare martial law to deal with demonstrators and suspend the Constitution so he can abolish opposition parties (and so Michael Bennet can count on the Republicans controlling Congress in a second Trump term even if the Democrats win both chambers this fall). And - he's a convicted felon! And a certified rapist! And his party's Project 2025 agenda would bring about the second coming of the Third Reich!
Trump has taken advantage of the media narrative about Joe Biden's age and deterioration - which, of course helps Trump going into the fall campaign. He's mostly stayed out of public view, appearing at a rally only once since the debate, virtually denying the Democrats the pleasure of using his own words against him. Pundits and newsreaders are only too happy to go along with the story about Biden possibly dropping out, since it's such a great drama. And Democrats are all too happy to keep the story going with their concerns about Biden's age and abilities because they are too timid to back Biden when he needs them the most, Senator Fetterman, the Congressional Black Caucus, and a smattering of others being honorable exceptions. They think Biden's determination to continue his campaign will help Trump getting back in power. You know who's helping Trump get back in power? They are.
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