The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Joe Biden’s Punch Line Presidency

Posted on | February 11, 2024 | Comments Off on Joe Biden’s Punch Line Presidency

It’s hard not to laugh at the reaction to Special Counsel Robert Hur’s final report about Joe Biden’s classified document case. The main finding of Hur’s investigation is briefly summarized:

Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen. These materials included (1) marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and (2) notebooks containing Mr. Biden’s handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods. FBI agents recovered these materials from the garage, offices, and basement den in Mr. Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home.

In other words, Biden is GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY!

As several commentators have noted, this finding — and the fact that Hur recommended no criminal charges, despite the clear evidence of Biden’s guilt — raises questions about the federal effort to prosecute former President Donald Trump for very similar offenses. When you consider the extent to which “get Trump” has been the organizing principle of the Biden administration since Day One, this is a significant setback to that aspect of their agenda. But that wasn’t the worst of it:

The report’s summation of Biden’s mental fitness will likely be highly damaging to an electorate that overwhelmingly — 76% — has concerns about the 81-year-old’s mental and physical health.
“Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017 [with whom he shared classified materials], and in his interview with our office in 2023,” the report said in its executive summary. “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Prosecutors said that based on the way that Biden presents, jurors will “want to identify reasonable doubt” and that it would be “difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
Recordings from when Biden was interviewed by the ghostwriter in 2017 showed that even then, he was “struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries,” the special counsel said, adding that even back then he was showing signs of “diminished faculties and faulty memory.”
“In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse,” Hur said. “He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (“if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?”), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (“in 2009, am I still Vice President?”).”
“He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died,” the report continued. “And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he ‘had a real difference’ of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.”

That Biden has “diminished faculties and faulty memory” is not really news to anyone who’s been paying attention, but having it stated so clearly in a Special Counsel’s report? “Republicans pounce!”

President Dimished Faculties yells at a reporter

But the way the White House reacted — sending out Biden to “rebut” the Special Counsel’s report — was ill-considered, and even the docile sheep in the White House press corps weren’t playing along:

Journalists pressed Biden on what the report and questions about his mental fitness mean for the November election in which he faces a likely rematch against Trump.
“Many American people have been watching and they have expressed concerns about your age,” a female reporter began, citing “public polling.”
“That is your judgment. That is your judgment,” Biden barked, raising his voice and pointing at the woman, adding, “That is not the judgment of the press.”
The journalist continued, “In December, you told me you believed there were many other Democrats who could defeat Donald Trump. So why does it have to be you now?”
“Because I am the most qualified person in this country to be president of the United States,” Biden shot back, “and finish the job I started.”

Even though most of the media continue trying to defend Biden, the past three days of coverage — even on CNN (I watch, so you don’t have to) — has been more negative toward Biden than at any time in the past three years. Many of these “Democratic operatives with bylines” now realize that Biden’s cognitive decline makes his reelection impossible. No matter what else happens, no matter what Trump does, Biden can’t win because his brain’s gone soft and everybody can see it now. Sure, he’ll get the 40% or so of voters who would vote for a turnip if the turnip had a (D) beside it on the ballot, but there’s no way he gets to a majority on that basis. Democrats can’t even steal enough votes to overcome the problem of trying to reelect President Diminished Faculties.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!



 

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Category: Joe Biden

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