The Biden Conundrum

Who Ya Gonna Call?

I have to say this: Every conversation that everyone has in every focus group about President Biden begins with age, in the middle it’s age, and at the end it’s age. And that’s a real fact that they have to live with, and they’ve just got to plow through it. And getting mad at the New York Times for talking about his age is not going to work.

—James Carville, in Conversation with William Kristol

Panic over Joe Biden’s age comes in waves, like the tides. It quite never goes away. The last surge was in February when the Special Prosecutor Robert Hur played geriatric specialist and pronounced Biden enfeebled. The President neutered that with a strong State of the Union performance. And yet…I feel a sharp stab of concern every time I see Biden in public—his eyes slits (too much plastic surgery), his words mumbled and slurred, his gait unsteady. I’ve known this man for nearly forty years and he does seem different now. But compromised? I’m not sure. And it’s difficult, in the course of a presidential campaign, to distinguish flailing from doddering. I’ve covered eleven of these things and never met a candidate who didn’t have some really bad days.

Biden, sadly, has never given off an air of courage or confidence. He’s more a pol than a leader. He hasn’t been willing to stand up and say: You may not like my position on this or that issue, but it’s the right thing to do for our country. On some very important questions, he’s done the opposite. Certainly, his mucking about on the refugee swarm at the border—finally, finally imposing a modest halt to a situation that even The New York Times calls a “loophole” in our immigration laws—has happened months after it should have. Why the dally? Pressure from “activists” and civil libertarians? No doubt. Indecision? Well, other Presidents, even good ones like Bill Clinton, have been famously indecisive. But age magnifies every moment of weakness with Biden—and dims his not infrequent moments of mastery.

Diplomacy is impossible to judge midstream. Biden’s attempts to limn a hellish bramble of crosscurrents in Gaza have been gallant and, indeed, visionary. He has not abandoned Israel—not even close—but he has made it clear to Bibi Netanyahu that we are not happy with the blundering, unrelenting, near impossible attempt to clear out Hamas. And walking that tightrope requires delicacy, which can seem teetering when attempted by a palpably old man. (By the way, Netanyahu’s latest foray to address Congress—remember, he did it to undermine Obama, too?—is a disgraceful effort to hurt an ally who has been very, very patient with him.)

Biden has been a master at slipping enormous bipartisan legislation through this nasty Congress. I’m sure the ghost of Lyndon Johnson would approve. But the public doesn’t see it—and may even come to blame Biden for the summer vacation traffic jams caused by the Infrastructure bill. (By the way, in my ramblings along I-95, I’ve noticed the construction signs tout the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill; Biden isn’t mentioned. You gotta figure Trump would be in capital letters.)

It would be difficult for George Washington to serve as President right now, given the boorish public square. What would the founding father made of Marjorie Taylor Greene…or the scrawny pug Jim Jordan? And while the press in GWash’s day was rather poisonous, there is now a patina of “objectivity” that lends authority to questionable pieces like today’s Wall Street Journal expose of Biden’s alleged debility. It is not news if Republicans Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson think the President is losing it; it would be news if some prominent Democrats agreed on the record. But even the blind quotes from Dems in the piece hardly seem damning. And according to Politico,. Democrats who were interviewed but had good things to say about Biden were not quoted. So much for balance.

All this comes during a week when it seems clear Biden’s acuity will be further tested. His son Hunter is on trial. (Plead guilty, boy! Go to jail if you can—the contrast with convicted felon Trump would be priceless.) Meanwhile, there’s been a rush of blood lust among Republicans, promising to visit hellfire and damnation on Democratic scofflaws. It’s not just that the silly hearings and impeachments and persecutions will continue, giving the false impression that the Biden Administration has been corrupt (the Biden family seems another matter). It’s worse that these “patriots” are willing to trash the American system of justice—including 12 jurors who did their job honestly—to suckle up to the Orange.

An aside: It is interesting that in all this loathsome mayhem not one accusation has been leveled against Barack Obama or his family. There is a reason for that: the Obamas were laser straight. Not even Jim Jordan could find anything bent about those folks. When people, and not just low-information people, ask me: Aren’t all politicians corrupt? I remind them of Barack and Michelle, who were not only honest, but also honorable and fun.

Actually, some prominent Dems—like James Carville, cited above, and David Axelrod—have expressed concern about Biden’s age. And a great many not-so-prominent Democrats and Independents of my acquaintance have as well. And, yes, I have, too. It may be my age, and my affection for the President—and the absence of an obvious alternative—that leads me to be reluctant to send him to assisted living. BUT…my age and experience also tells me there’s plenty of time to change horses before the election. Time distends in politics; the attention span of too many American voters is gnat-like. If Biden were to stand down, a vigorous young candidate—don’t ask me who—could win over the country with a single convention speech (as the aforementioned Obama did in 2004) and then roar to victory over a scattered, feral, felonious and dysfunctional Trump. Biden would seem ancient news by November. No one disputes that the public is a double-hating depressed and bored with the choices on offer.

This is not to say Biden should step down. It is only to say that he could.

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