All Tapped Out

Jake Tapper's new book, co-written by Alex Thompson, chronicling the so-called cover-up of Joe Biden's lack of fitness to run for another term, reminds me how much I've disliked Tapper (below) since 2017, when he made fun of former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley's tweet comparing the MAGA movement to the Klan and to Nazis and calling on people to fight.  Tapper's and Thompson's book makes the argument that Biden more or less gave the Presidency back to Trump by insisting on running again in 2024 and denying rank-and-file Democrats the chance to find another candidate to take his place, with Democrats in Washington, D.C. concealing his deteriorating physical and mental condition.

In no way am I suggesting that Biden was correct in choosing to stand for re-election in 2024.  I'm not even suggesting that Biden was wrong to do so; given the dearth of appealing candidates who could have competed for the chance to be the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee (Gretchen Whitmer, who loves to hide her face behind a binder in embarrassing moments?  Josh Shapiro, who had just been elected governor of Pennsylvania and had no track record yet?  Gavin Newsom, the Gary Hart of Generation X - all style and no substance?), Biden likely felt he had no choice but to run again.   But even though I did believe that he should have stepped down and concluded that he must have known what he was doing once he chose to do otherwise, and therefore I was all in for him until he decided he wasn't all in for us and let Kamala Harris take the reins, none of what Biden did do or should have done has no bearing now.  Tapper and Thompson are only putting out this book to please Tapper's corporate bosses at CNN, who have been making it clear for quite some time that they want to be in solid with Trump, whose own dementia and involuntary napping have been on display for the past four or five years.  Yet no one in the mainstream media seems to want to talk about that.  Since the mainstream press is too busy normalizing Trump, they (and not just CNN in this case) are all too happy to please Trump and MAGA by picking on Biden.

So you can imagine my reaction when it was reported yesterday that Biden has an aggressive form of prostate cancer and can do no more than manage it to keep himself alive.

My sorrow for Biden is only matched by my sense of schadenfreude toward Tapper and Thompson.  They wanted to get in on the lucrative pastime of picking on Joe Biden for making a decision he clearly felt was the right decision at the time - running for a second presidential term in 2024 (and, again, given the possibility of a Newsom nomination, who could blame Biden for his decision?) - and just as their precious book is going to press, Biden's cancer diagnosis makes their book look more like a cynical, venal, disrespectful cash-in than it already did (and was).  Even more so, it makes Tapper and Thompson look unseemly and kind of cretinous.

But, seeing as I don't watch cable news anymore and turn instead to independent podcast media, that's none of my business. 

I wish Joe Biden the best.  Excuse me for not wishing the same to Tapper and Thompson.

Crazy

Bob Woodward couldn't have picked a better time to release a book about Donald Trump's White House as the midterm elections get underway.  His new book "Fear: Trump In the White House" depicts a President that acts on impulse, needs adult supervision, and constantly has to be saved from himself when he tries to undermine trade deals and mutual defense pacts or tries to do things like assassinate Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.  Many of this orders have gone ignored, hidden from his  view, or kept from his attention to prevent a third world war involving Third World countries.

But Republicans are obviously too busy shepherding Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court to care. 

While this is going on, a White House aide has written an anonymous piece in the op-ed section of the New York Times saying that, while he or she is committed to helping Trump acheive the goals of deregulation, a stronger military, and lower taxes, he/she and others have thwarted Trump in his efforts to have friendlier relations with dictators and undermine trade agreements with like-minded allies.

"We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous," this anonymous writer says of himself/herself and like-minded Trump staffers.  "But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic . . .. The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making."

Gutsy, yes, but hardly a profile in courage when you remember that this person doesn't want to be identified and has indicated no interest in taking responsibility for helping to instigate what he/she calls a "two-track Presidency."   As former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta  said this week, staffers should be more forthcoming in trying to maintain the ship of state, he said, and staffers aren't supposed to run the country - the President is.

"When you have a President in the United States elected by the people, and at the same time have a staff who believe that this President, for whatever reason, is not exercising the right kind of judgment, that situation cannot exist," Panetta told PBS. "That is an issue that, very frankly, I believe the leadership in the Congress has a responsibility to look at and determine what is happening, because we cannot allow that situation to continue. It puts the country at risk."

This makes Trump look all the worse as the midterm campaigns get underway.  The White House has been turned into what one staff member calls "Crazytown," and unless House Speaker Paul Ryan - who is retiring in January - and House Republican leader Mitch McConnell intervene, the GOP will lose the House and possibly lose the Senate as election campaigns tighten up.  The midterms are two months away.  Right now, though, I wonder if the country can hold out that long.

Brett Kavanaugh will likely be around longer.