Days of bravado from President Joe Biden combined with bullying by his closest adherents and crass careerism in the Democratic Party may be about to save the incumbent from being forcibly retired, as he should be.
If he manages even a moderate performance during his scheduled Thursday press conference at the NATO meeting in Washington, D.C., it is possible that he will avoid the proper consequences of his embarrassing debate performance. But his survival, if it comes, should cost every Democrat the last shred of credibility, for it would require them to pretend not to see what every voter has seen — that Biden is manifestly incapable of continuing to lead the country.
For more than a year, an overwhelming majority of voters, including a slim majority of Democratic voters, have told pollsters that Biden is too old to serve another term. These concerns are not the result of a conservative media propaganda campaign to undermine a Democratic president, as has been suggested. They are what any fair-minded person would have concluded from watching Biden since he first took office. This newspaper has said Biden was unfit for the office since before he entered it, not merely because of his career of incompetence and bad decision-making, but also because of his obvious and rapid mental decline.
Examples of his intellectual fragility are too numerous to count, but here are some picked at random. He forgot the name of his own secretary of defense just weeks after moving into the White House; in a speech he repeatedly called for Rep. Jackie Walorski to join him at the podium, not remembering that she was dead; and he mixed up the presidents of Mexico and Egypt during a late-night press conference specifically called to refute special counsel Robert Hur’s description of him as an “elderly man with a poor memory.”
He is also obviously in physical decline. He fell off his bicycle in Delaware, fell over in a heap at a military event, and repeatedly fell while trying to climb the steps into Air Force One. There are dozens more examples that should embarrass the majority of the White House press corps that ignored them. Some news outlets including these pages have not shied away from the truth and have reported what is going on. But for the most part, news media have worked hard to cover for Biden and conceal the truth from the public. They have betrayed their calling.
The Left-dominated press decided there was no story, so the story was suppressed rather than pursued. This is inexcusable. There has been some late accountability, such as the sacking of a radio host in Philadelphia who used a list of questions provided by the White House in an interview with Biden the day after his debate debacle. But her complicity in the media’s big lie is no different in substance from what many in the White House press corps have been doing for years — making sure their questions toed the official White House line, sometimes even to the extent of submitting those questions to the press shop in advance so Biden’s staff could prepare his answers.
As bad as was MSNBC host Joe Scarborough’s infamous assertion that Biden at 81 years old is “the best Biden ever,” he is just one of many who have hidden Biden’s condition because they thought their first duty was to prevent the election of his opponent, former President Donald Trump.
Many of the most senior Democrats are equally to blame in this colossal cover-up and fraud on the public. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and most importantly, Vice President Kamala Harris all regularly talk with the president and meet with him in person and must have known how enfeebled he had become. What did they know and when did they know it? These questions must be answered.
Democrats must now ask themselves how big they are willing to let their lie get. After an initial round of truth-telling by some elected Democrats in the aftermath of the debate, Biden and his allies have browbeaten many critics into submission. They and Biden himself in a letter to Congress argue that he is not going anywhere. It is a threat to critics that they will be excluded from influence and power if he wins. If he loses, critics will be blamed. This is an appeal to the careerist fears of the Washington swamp.
Two days ago on a private call, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said Biden should step aside. Now he says, “He’s going to be our nominee, and we all have to support him.” Did Biden suddenly get well? On Sunday, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) was planning to lead a delegation to the White House to force Biden to step down. Now Warner only says, “It is incumbent upon the president to more aggressively make his case to the American people.”
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The truth is that Biden did not merely have one bad night. His condition is bad and, through no fault of his own, it can only get worse. Every time Biden slips up, every time he says he is the “first black woman” to be president, every time he claims he created NATO, and every time he suggests Warner ran against him for the presidency, Democrats will be forced to repeat the lie that Biden is still capable and competent to do the toughest job in the world.
Biden seems to believe all the polling is wrong and thinks he is tied with Trump. Democrats can see the polling too. They know he is wrong. They seem increasingly content to let his delusions continue on to the crack of doom. They, like him, do not deserve the trust of the nation.