Biden ‘An Elderly Man with a Poor Memory’
A special counsel has declined to prosecute the President but his rationale was painful.
WaPo (“Special counsel: No charges for Biden in classified documents probe“):
Joe Biden carelessly kept classified documents and notebooks at his home, according to a special counsel report released Thursday that said the evidence wasn’t strong enough to charge the president with crimes. The report’s description of Biden as “an elderly man with a poor memory” prompted a furious response from the president at a hastily called news conference hours later.
The 345-page special counsel report portrays Biden, 81, as someone who haphazardly kept notebooks and documents with classified information at his home, and struggled to recall key dates in his life. Republicans quickly seized on that stinging characterization to attack the Democratic incumbent as unfit for office.
Special counsel Robert K. Hur’s report also said Biden could not remember the year in which his son Beau died of cancer.
“How in the hell dare he raise that,” a furious president said to reporters summoned to the White House on Thursday evening. “It wasn’t any of their damn business. … I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away.”
In an exchange with reporters that veered from questions about possible national security crimes to the president’s mental faculties to the ongoing U.S. response to the war in the Middle East, Biden insisted he never improperly shared classified information with anyone and was fit to be president and run for reelection.
“I know what the hell I’m doing,” he declared.
Hur,who interviewed the president at the White House himself, found evidence that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials to his ghost writer after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.” The special counsel concluded, however, that the evidence “does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” At the news conference, Biden denied disclosing restricted information, saying he was careful to skip over any sensitive material when sharing his notes.
Prosecuting Biden would be “unwarranted” based on a number of factors that would make it difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to break the law, Hur’s report concluded.
Among the issues examined by investigators was why Biden first told his ghostwriter that he had classified information in his possession back in 2017 but didn’t report it to authorities.
Ultimately, the report said a jury would find Biden to be a sympathetic figure and “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Prosecutors also suggested it might not have struck Biden as noteworthy that he was in possession of classified documents so soon after his term as vice president had ended.
Hur’s report said 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.”
Hur’s team wrote Biden’s case was far different from that of former president Donald Trump, who is being prosecuted for retaining classified documents — including that Biden promptly returned the documents when asked, while Trump declined multiple opportunities to do so.
Richard Sauber, a lawyer for Biden on the documents case, said he was pleased the investigation has ended without charges, emphasizing in a statement that the president “fully cooperated from day one.” Sauber said every administration ends with packing mistakes involving documents, and Biden’s was no different.
Sauber went on, however, to criticize Hur for “a number of inaccurate and inappropriate comments” in the report. “Nonetheless, the most important decision the Special Counsel made — that no charges are warranted — is firmly based on the facts and evidence,” he said.
In a response included in the report, Sauber said, “The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years-old events.”
The special counsel team conducted 173 interviews with 147 witnesses, including Biden, and collected millions of documents to compile the report. They said Biden cooperated with investigators and consented to multiple searches of his properties.
In an “analysis” piece (“Special Counsel’s Report Puts Biden’s Age and Memory in the Spotlight“), NYT White House correspondent Michael D. Shear observes,
The decision on Thursday not to file criminal charges against President Biden for mishandling classified documents should have been an unequivocal legal exoneration.
Instead, it was a political disaster.
The investigation into Mr. Biden’s handling of the documents after being vice president concluded that he was a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and had “diminished faculties in advancing age” — such startling assertions that they prompted a fiery and emotional attempt at political damage control from the president within hours.
[…]
The president’s remarkable appearance before reporters underscored the political damage that Mr. Hur’s report could do despite the lack of criminal charges. The report’s discussion of the president’s memory and age was repeated throughout the 345-page document, and was quickly seized on by Republicans, including Mr. Biden’s likely opponent in the 2024 election, former President Donald J. Trump.
In the report, Mr. Hur said the memory of the then-80-year-old president was so hazy during five hours of interviews over two days that it would be difficult to convince jurors that Mr. Biden knew his handling of the documents was wrong. Mr. Hur predicted in the report that if the president were charged, his lawyers “would emphasize these limitations in his recall.”
[…]
In his own written statement issued just after the report became public, Mr. Biden appeared to suggest a reason for why he was distracted.
“I was so determined to give the special counsel what they needed that I went forward with five hours of in-person interviews over two days on Oct. 8 and 9 of last year, even though Israel had just been attacked on Oct. 7 and I was in the middle of handling an international crisis,” he wrote. “I just believed that’s what I owed the American people.”
[…]
Concerns about Mr. Biden’s age have been a recurring theme of his presidency over the past three years. Fueled in part by video of the president appearing weak or stumbling in public, many voters have expressed concern about his mental and physical fitness as he seeks to remain in the White House until he is 86 years old.
[…]
During fund-raisers on Wednesday, Mr. Biden twice recalled a 2021 conversation with Helmut Kohl, the onetime German chancellor, who died in 2017. His spokeswoman later said he misspoke, as many public officials do. In his remarks on Thursday evening, Mr. Biden confused the presidents of Mexico and Egypt, making exactly the kind of mistake that his staff would have wanted him to avoid at a time when his mental acuity is being questioned.
On Thursday, he angrily disputed the suggestion that he was not fit to serve. Asked about polls showing that the American people have concerns about his age, he pointed at the reporter and said: “That is your judgment. That is your judgment.”
He then added: “That is not the judgment of the press,” though he appeared to mean it was not the judgment of the public. Asked why he should not step aside and let someone else in his party be the Democratic nominee, he said, “Because I’m the most qualified person in this country to be president of the United States and finish the job I started.”
The POLITICO Playbook gang piles on, calling it “A day Biden world wishes it could forget.”
“It felt like a Comey moment for me.”
That was the assessment of a top Biden campaign official watching special counsel ROBERT HUR’s report explode yesterday.
In July 2016, FBI Director JAMES COMEY ripped into HILLARY CLINTON for being “extremely careless” with classified material and noted that there was “evidence of potential violations” of the law. Then he delivered the actual news: “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.” In a scathing report, the DOJ’s inspector general later harshly criticized Comey for his actions.
Like Comey, the Biden official argued, Hur put his “thumb on the scale during an election season.”
Biden’s lawyers raised the C-word with Hur even before the report became public. Why, they demanded, had Hur called Biden “totally irresponsible,” the same words Biden used to criticize Trump’s retention of classified documents, when in other parts of the report they took pains to note the differences between the two cases? Biden’s lawyers invoked the IG’s Comey report in arguing that “totally irresponsible” was the new “extremely careless.” They said Hur’s “criticism of an uncharged party violates” DOJ protocols. (Former Attorney General ERIC HOLDER seems to agree.)
But the real peril in the report was the one highlighted by Biden’s lawyers in two pages of forceful language that laid out their shock and indignation at Hur’s repeated criticisms of Biden’s memory — an issue that, given voters concerns about the president’s age, is central to the 2024 election but seemed gratuitous in Hur’s report.
They highlight some of the specific allegations in the report:
- Page 9: “Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023.”
- Page 208: “Mr. Biden’s memory also appeared to have significant limitations … Mr. Biden’s recorded conversations with [ghostwriter MARK] ZWONITZER from 2017 are often painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries. In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse. 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?’).”
- Page 247: “For these jurors, Mr. Biden’s apparent lapses and failures in February and April will likely appear consistent with the diminished faculties and faulty memory he showed in Zwonitzer’s interview recordings and in our interview of him.”
Naturally, Biden and his team are firing back. But, by most accounts, Biden’s impromptu press conference reinforced the negative perceptions he was trying to rebut;
The report was released as Biden was attending the House Democratic retreat in Virginia. The president vented about the Beau line privately during a small meet-and-greet with House Minority Leader HAKEEM JEFFRIES, Democratic Caucus Chair PETE AGUILAR and party leaders (“You think I would fucking forget the day my son died?” he said, according to the AP).
He repeated a version of the line without the F-bomb during a Q&A with a larger group of House Dems. And, according to a source familiar with the planning for the hastily arranged news conference last night, Biden was angry and defiant and still feeling especially outraged by the Beau line when he decided to face reporters and defend himself from Hur’s slurs — and then compounded the questions about his memory issues by referring to Egyptian President ABDEL FATTAH EL-SISI as the “president of Mexico.”
The view from Biden world is that Hur’s gratuitous editorializing was driven by two factors:
- Partisanship: “We have to remind people that this is a MAGA guy,” said the campaign official.
- Pride: Hur had failed to find indictable conduct.
“The prevailing feeling is that they poured all these resources into investigating — and we were very cooperative — and he’s the only special counsel investigation that’s ever not led to charges,” said one Democratic defender of the president. “And I think that there’s probably some frustration around that that led to this over-torquing: ‘So let me just shit on [Biden] about memory!’ And also crossing a line that very few people would ever think about crossing when it comes to Beau.”
If Biden world seems defensive, it’s because they know Hur hit on an issue that the campaign has no real way to combat with ads or fancy strategy.
“The fact that he’s a senior citizen is not going to go away,” the Biden campaign official told Playbook. “What I’ve said to my colleagues is that we all have to remind the American people that sometimes we forget shit.”
Josh Marshall buys the MAGA line:
First off, this is another example of the universal rule: Republican special counsels are chosen to investigate Democrats. And Republican special counsels are chosen to investigate Republicans. It may not have been a great idea for Merrick Garland to have a two-time Trump appointee investigate Joe Biden. But here we are. Robert Hur totally slimed Biden with these gratuitous comments about his mental acuity and memory, referring to him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Even if you assume they are the product of a good faith evaluation they are still wildly inappropriate.
DOJ guidelines make clear that if you’re not bringing charges you don’t bash the subject of the investigation in your announcement (a la James Comey). You certainly aren’t supposed to affirmatively attempt to demean the subject of the investigation with clearly political attacks that aren’t even related to what you’re investigating.
[…]
The descriptions in the report sound bad because they are designed to sound bad. These are from a five hour discussion the day after the October 7th attacks on Israel when I’m sure Biden was focused on that unfolding crisis. Without watching the interview we have no way of knowing whether these are representative of the tenor of the conversation or cherry-picked gotchas.
But there’s no crying in baseball. Entirely justified outrage from Biden supporters won’t counter whatever damage these comments will have. The White House will need to get Biden in front of interviewers, where he actually does quite well, and in widely seen venues, to counter it. It’s really as simple as that.
Because I was sure from the outset that Biden was not going to be prosecuted—even if DOJ didn’t have a standing policy against prosecuting sitting Presidents, we simply hold people in very high positions of responsibility to different standards—I have paid little attention to this case since the initial spate of media reports. Further, I have maintained from the outset that Biden’s handling of classified documents is simply wildly different from Trump’s, with the latter deserving of prosecution.
I don’t have a strong opinion of Hur. He’s clearly quite conservative, having clerked for the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist and been appointed a U.S. Attorney by Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions. But, like it or not, Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed him to this role, declaring,
Mr. Hur has a long and distinguished career as a prosecutor. In 2003, he joined the Department’s Criminal Division, where he worked on counterterrorism, corporate fraud, and appellate matters. From 2007 until 2014, Mr. Hur served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, where he prosecuted matters ranging from violent crime to financial fraud. In 2017, Mr. Hur rejoined the Department as the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General. In 2018, he was nominated and confirmed to serve as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland. As U.S. Attorney, he supervised some of the Department’s more important national security, public corruption, and other high-profile matters.
[…]
I am confident that Mr. Hur will carry out his responsibility in an even-handed and urgent manner, and in accordance with the highest traditions of this Department.
I concur with Marshall that the tone of the comments about Biden’s mental fitness was problematic. In particular, citing Biden’s inability to recall the date his son died strikes me as gratuitously hurtful. Even aside from DOJ policy, it’s simply distasteful for prosecutors to besmirch the reputations of citizens whom they have decided not to prosecute.
At the same time, it’s arguable that Biden’s forgetfulness was actually germane to the prosecutorial decision. If he genuinely didn’t comprehend that he had classified documents, it’s rather difficult to establish one of the elements of the crime under consideration.
Regardless, the comments reinforce the biggest obstacle to his re-election: the public perception that he’s just too damn old to serve another four years in such a highly stressful, demanding job. And, fair or not, his instances of stumbling in the press conference defending himself against that charge was not helpful.
My perception of them, from reading some social media reaction from pro-Biden folks, was that they were a disaster. Watching the event itself, though, does not give me that impression.
Biden’s articulation is not what it was a decade ago but he’s clearly in command of the facts. But most people aren’t going to sit through 13 minutes to watch it in full. They’ll see the clips of the stumbles.
All that said, I’m not sure how much any of this will matter. This is a re-run of the 2020 race and it’s difficult to imagine two politicians about whom Americans have more fixed opinions. Who it is that, until yesterday evening, thought Biden was fit to be President but changed their mind after seeing him mix up Mexico and Egypt?
Hur is carrying out a political hit.
It’s painfully obvious.
Josh Marshall is correct to point out the flaw in how AG’s have behaved in the past few decades: When Republicans are appointed to investigate Dems, they frequently take political hits even when they find no wrong doing. When Republicans investigate Republicans, they frequently slant harmful results to present them in a better light, or in the case of Barr issuing his “summary” outright lie about the contents.
Exacerbating this is Republican AGs tend to appoint Republicans to investigate both Dems and Repubs, seeking to gain advantage. And Democratic AGs also tend to appoint Republicans to investigate both Dems and Repubs, seeking to appear unbiased.
This smacks of James Comey’s interference in the 2016 campaign, and I don’t like it this time either.
RW wurtziler is in full press– I just listened to a ‘Pollster’ on POTUS XM Radio of all stations basically lie and distort data about polling– call the Presidents press conference addressing the report ‘ The End of a Presidency’
These people are not playing games, they will use the credibility of anything regarded as credible, journalism, polling, punditry, to manipulate and shape opinions of otherwise well meaning people.
One simply cannot take anything as gospel without going several questions deep.
Look, Republicans with ‘long and distinguished careers’ like Hur are ambitious snakes. You have to have zero ethics to clerk for William Rehnquist and then end up at Bush’s Justice Department. Furthermore, he bought in on a party which had the veneer of decency and ended up serving Donald Trump. Of course he’s going to drop a ‘sneer’ which bothers Republicans if it’s about a car. He’s spent the last eight years being the smell in the room everyone is pretending not to talk about. He wants to strike back and spread his stink.
That said, the Democrats threw a slow pitch right over the plate. There are dozens of clips of Biden at any point blanking out or mumbling incoherently. He’s not in good mental shape. It’s obvious that this is the issue costing him support in his own pary. And the attempts to make it otherwise are just pathetic. They are the basically the equal of the empty careerism of a guy like Hur.
Ah, but reality doesn’t matter though. It’s pathetic, but it is what it is.
@Modulo Myself: I suppose both candidates could fill out blooper reels. Elevating Biden over Trump in this area is giving aid and comfort to the morons.
I was talking about this yesterday with my daughter. She said she wasn’t necessarily voting for Biden as much as his obviously competent administration. I agree. Don’t get me wrong, she likes Uncle Joe, as do I. It’s just a slightly diminished Joe at the political level is still miles above the crazy, unbalanced horror of the orange idiot.
@becca:
In my 30s, I already have enough senior moments and verbal stumbles (as a recovered childhood stutterer) in any given month to fill a blooper reel. Thank God there’s no camera on me every time I enter into a room and then blank on why. Apparently, they’d claim I’m mentally unfit and try to put me out to pasture (I may indeed be mentally unfit, but that’s not why lol)
@JohnSF:
Indeed it is. When he couldn’t find anything to charge Biden with, he chose instead to fly with the right’s false narrative of Biden being senile. The bias is so blatant it would be laughable, were the stakes for our democracy not so incredibly high.
@Mikey: The right is going to ride this hard all year. It’s about all they have. Demonizing Hilary in 2016 worked, especially with Comey’s last-minute intervention, and they’re hoping it’ll be this year’s successful hail mary. Of course, it’s all so tragic that it could work, given how ridiculously awful Trump is in similar and other ways.
LGM calls out “the Republican Daddy imperative”;
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/02/the-republican-daddy-imperative
Surly, Hur knew that he was pulling a Comey (tacking on unnecessary commentary to his findings, in a presidential election year) and he did it anyway.
Inflation down, gasoline prices down, record stock market, record employment!
National deficit is $1.7 trillion in 2023; oh no! Doom. We’re all doomed!
National deficit is $3.13 trillion in 2020, Trump’s last year. Crickets.
Keep this old doddering fool not the other doddering old fool!
@becca:
The ‘Biden is better than Trump’ is bleak when you get to the things like the ‘chaos’ at the border or Gaza. It’s maybe true that the reactionary border bill Biden wanted is better than whatever horrors Trump will unleash. But I can’t fathom the difference between Biden and Trump in Gaza, and I don’t care to, to be honest.
Regardless, Biden seems to be losing. It would be one thing if all of these centrist/popularist/anti-left tactics were paying off. But they aren’t.
@Modulo Myself: omg, if you think Trump would not gladly off the Palestinian people and proclaim Israeli settlers as righteous freedom fighters, you are a true naif. Don’t tell me, let me guess, you voted for Nader in 2000.
James,
Biden not getting the facts straight on his son’s death is a fact.
Saying Biden is elderly and posesses a bad memory is besmirching him? No its again stating fact.
Over 40% of Democrats according to recent polling say Biden’s age is a concern.
I’m not sure if Biden’s age is the biggest obstacle to his re-election. Rent and food prices are up 30-40% since he took office. That might outweigh Biden’s age but the two of them combined are dynamite.
Before you bring up the consumer price index and jobs reports, your average voter knows little about these or even understand them. They do however understand what they pay for rent and groceries.
No it isn’t. Biden’s state of mind wasn’t a factor 4 years ago, though there were some of us not just myself who questioned it. We also have the Gaza conflict that’s dividing Democrats and could be a serious swing states like Michigan.
Philip Klein writes–
The democrats need to replace Biden otherwise the result is going to catastrophic in November. There isn’t any descent around here about Trump could do if re-elected. It would be nice if commenters wouldn’t be regularly practicing this.
@Modulo Myself:
Ongoing Democratic wins in recent elections beg to differ. And the latest round of national race polling has the race tied or Trump and Biden trading small leads.
Often when you hear folks dismissing the differences between Trump and Biden, what they’re really saying is that their privilege will protect them from the Trump right’s assault on human rights.
Black people vote Democratic at a 90% clip because most of us don’t have the luxury of ignoring and dismissing the consequences white supremacy like affluent liberals in the “But Gaza” crowd.
One reason Democrats keep winning elections despite the attacks on Biden is because women — facing injury and death due to Trump’s forced birth judges — are also not sitting around pretending there’s no difference.
@becca:
Oh no–a naif and a Nader voter. What cutting insults! I mean, they’re probably true. Lived in CA in 2000 and like Biden, my memory is slightly hazy about things like that.
Or maybe I’m simply not the type of person who watches the IDF massacre Gazans with Biden’s approval and consoles himself with thinking about how much worse it would be under Trump.
Biden needs to get in front of cameras a lot more than his campaign would like. A lot, and soon.
Or, if that doesn’t go so well, Biden needs to be prepared to release his pledges and allow an open convention.
@becca:
If Trump were president, US policy would be to greenlight Israeli resettlement of Gaza. Apparently, some on the left needs to see this happening to believe it. They may yet get their wish.
@DK:
I’m quite used to having my intelligence insulted but there’s something off about having your decency insulted. Speaking with contempt about people who are appalled about whatever you want to call it in Gaza because it could be worse and more appalling is just off. This is privilege in the sense if you believe that any type of moral autonomy is privilege. It’s not a good look.
@Bill Jempty:
Even if what you say is 100% accurate and you say it every day for the next 6 months (and your comments remain as accurate as they were on day 1 of the first month), until the GOP also replaces Trump on the ticket the GOP can pound sand. We have a battle between two old men, both are showing obvious signs of cognitive decline, but one has pretty much promised that 2024 will be a blue state revenge tour 2.0 but this time with some extra spice for added measure (he will carry out his revenge while forcing states like CA to watch a press conference where he hugs Putin and praises him as strong).
I think that I am just barely optimistic enough to believe that the vast majority of Americans realize this to be true and Biden will be our next President. Seriously, unless Obama decides to run again the situation on the ground will not change between now and November 5.
Folks who are part of the anyone but Biden (or Not Biden) tribe are in the same boat as Never Trumpers, we are not getting our wish to have neither of them on the ballot. Not going to happen.
At this point, I think I am fine with folks like yourself saying you are not a Trump fan but also choosing to point out, on a daily basis if that is your preference, that Biden is also not fit to be our next Commander In Chief. It allows you to vent which can be healthy and certainly make you at feel good for a period of time.
Okay, there is another way that Biden gets replaced, that plenty of others have pointed out that is obvious, he passes away before Nov 5 (although if really close to that date people would have to write in a different name on the ballot as I bet Biden would remain on the ballot dead or alive).
The same with Trump, he dies or has a stroke during one of his rallies/interviews with a sympathetic news outlet, only the MAGA would ignore a stroke, everyone, and I mean everyone else in the world would take steps to ensure that our next Commander In Chief is not someone rehabilitating from something like a stroke. Maybe also if Trump has a moment like that reporter some years back where she started to randomly talk nonsense on the air, that might also sound the death knell of Trump’s latest run for President, but otherwise, like it or not we all have to grit our teeth and accept the reality that it will be Biden Vs. Trump.
Well, I just felt good putting this down on paper, so to speak. Back to the salt mines for me.
I genuinely hope you continue to be well Bill and it is Friday, so I hope your weekend also goes well (I believe the weather in Florida will be in the 70s this weekend, if so that is actually pretty nice if things are not too humid outside).
Happy Friday folks, be well and try to relax this Super Bowl weekend.
@Modulo Myself: talk about insulting decency… do you think Biden can undo blind US support for Israel with a flip of a switch? Get real. Biden may be old school on that front, but he is learning and growing, willing to buck mighty political forces when it comes to Gaza and Palestine. If only righting international wrongs were as simple as you seem to think they are.
@Bill Jempty:
Bill, FWIW, you were also sure that Biden was going to be catastrophic in 2020 and that there was no way he was going to beat Trump–those comments are still up on the site.
At this point in the race, I’m not sure who this moves.
All I have to say on the topic is that, at least for the moment, I’m sticking with the dotty septuagenarian who mixes up names while talking well on policy versus the dotty septuagenarian who once suggested… we inject bleach and swallow a black light to help fight a global pandemic*.
And share this instant karma: Jesse Waters goes after Biden’s Egypt slip last night… and immediately introduces Kristi Noem as the governor of South *Carolina*.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/jesse-watters-bombards-joe-biden-141550106.html
* (that’s before we get to being indicted on 91 felonies and being found liable for what is now classified as rape)
@Bill Jempty:
At this point, the easiest part of the best way to do this involves building a time machine.
The hard part is persuading Biden, who has been aching for the presidency for decades, to step down after one rather successful term.
@Modulo Myself:
You think maybe there’s a reason for that? All you seem to offer is raw emotional reactions, and you think that’s all that’s required. Well no, not if you’re going to talk seriously about politics in general, and definitely not if you’re talking foreign policy.
Do you think you’re the only person to be horrified by dead children? You think your emotion sets you apart? That your outrage marks you as virtuous? Sorry, but emotion without reason is what we expect from children. Centering your own feelings and dismissing every other factor is narcissism.
Pointing and screaming, ‘Look! Bad thing!’ is easy. Figuring out WTF to do about it, in a real world context, is much harder. You don’t even try.
Matt, the reason I did not simply create what would have been a short comment by once again asking, replace him with who(m?) is because I was tired of seeing folks constantly ask that question and did not want to ask this question for the billionth time (but I failed, because I did just type out that question, lol).
To be fair, many in the GOP are in the same boat we are, us Democrats insist that someone other than Biden become our candidate, and many in the GOP sincerely wish Trump would not be their candidate, but unless the majority of the Democratic party were to embrace someone like Obama, and unless the GOP were to embrace someone like Nikki Haley, it is just going to be a very long election year where a whole like of whining is spilled on the web by both sides about how we wish someone else would step up to take the place of each of our current candidates for President.
It is also a fantasy to believe that we would “force” Biden or Trump to step down.
I think the only saving grace here is that this “Comey moment (and that is what it is, sigh)” is early enough in this election year that there is still the very real possibility that the moments impact is greatly reduced when we are say 6 weeks out from the actual day of voting. One can hope.
@inhumans99:
FWIW, while I don’t think “we” could make Biden step down, I suspect that if Obama, other trusted advisors, and Jill asked Biden to step down for the good of the party and the country, I suspect he would.
I also believe that the only person will convince Trump to step aside is the grim reaper.
@Matt Bernius:
Joe Biden is an octogenarian at 81 years of age.
I’m sorry your news media did this to you. The “bleach” was entirely made up by the talking heads at CNN, MSNBC, etc. In real time, I’ll grant. Trump himself was talking of using localized UV light application under research that was and is ongoing and showing great promise. You remember science, right? Don’t you like science? The talking heads latched on to the word “disinfect” and in their shallow knowledge, they latched on to “bleach” as the only disinfectant they knew of.
But you stick with your ideobabble.
@JKB,
#TIGGERED!
You realize that I posted that because I knew you’d respond pookums. I remember how you desperately explained what your man really meant at the time. And I knew you can’t help defending that (and for that matter slavery and that Democrats are the real racists and in no way did the southern racist wing of the Democratic party get absorbed into the Republican party in the second half of the 20th century).
Ooh that stings.
Keep crying those sweet bircher tears about how the mean old commie press is after Trump.
[Unsnarky aside: thank you for the correction on Biden’s age.]
@Tony W:
Comey: “Where is the FISA warrant?” to spy on the Trump campaign?
Just like Trump who also has mental issues except when he is committing crimes knowingly
This is how far you guys have fallen. Bernius posts something provably false about Trump and when called out on it, just makes an even bigger ass of himself. Reynolds stamping his little feet and yelling at someone for having a “raw emotional reaction” when no one around here became more frothing-at-the-mouth hysterical over Trump than he did.
Enjoy the next 8 1/2 months! You guys have certainly earned what’s coming.
@Bill Jempty: I fear that it’s too late to substitute Biden. The campaign has already begun and to find a new candidate would be impossible. And it’s not like the dems have a deep bench. They have some new talent, but it would really help if more dems retired to allow some younger people come up and get some prominence.
ETA: I should have read inhumans99 comment a bit closer. I apologize for the dead and beaten horse.
@JKB & @TheRyGuy:
Since y’all are so fun, let’s go back to what Trump said:
Ok, first I hope you appreciate how you are working to explain these quotes in the same way that you think people are doing for Biden.
But let’s take your side for a second: The UV treatment Trump talking about *is already internal. So you have, in the first quote, Trump remembering/understanding the treatment incorrectly AND giving himself credit for suggesting the treatment. Perhaps you think Trump did in fact come up with the idea.
For those curious, those college-educated woke hoipoloi scientists and doctors decided to go in through the mouth versus following the suggestion of going through the skin.
Either way, that both some confusion AND making shit up. That’s not a great start.
In the second, you have to accept that the President doesn’t understand the concept of inject-able anti-virals AND he seems to be suggesting that he’s the first person to think about them and that teams of researchers are not already investigating this. Again, perhaps you believe they were waiting on his word for that one.
Either way, that seriously doesn’t make those quotes any better.
Yah, that pretty much happens everytime I post. You got me there Mr I-HATEREAD-OTB-EVERY-DAY.
It’s great to see that we broke your will again and decided to ejaculate your monthly
See you in a few weeks for the next installment of how in a few months all of our backs will be up against the wall for destroying the United State and I, the writer of said comment, hvs no unadressed anger or self esteem issues.
James Comey helped to elect Hillary Clinton, and now
Robert Hur is trying to get Donald Trump elected.
I don’t know why people are so cynical about our politics today?
@TheRyGuy:
Trump is human garbage. He is a traitor, a fraud, a two-bit con-man, and a felon, who is deliberately harming this country to keep himself out of jail.
But the really terrifying thing is how depraved people like you are. How quickly you succumbed to this cult of personality. How easily you tossed aside everything you once pretended to believe in. You are failed Americans. A historic embarrassment.
@Michael Reynolds:
Oh, emotional. That’s like being a woman! That’s even worse than being a Nader voter…
Funny thing is that you can’t cast yourself as wise and then blunder into the Abraham Accords (a Likud/Trump/Saudi Arabian fantasy) and buy into Israel’s top-secret info about the UNRWA. It doesn’t work. This is one of Biden’s biggest problems. It’s a bunch of old guys calling each other serious who either get played 24/7 or are completely amoral.
In a different world, Biden (or whomever) could have been running a positive campaign about bullshit and decency and being an actual wiseguy and not some bigot/cop/nativist/IDF beta dimwit fan. For example, a week ago, there was a video of some migrants attacking innocent cops. It was everywhere in RW America. Biden’s America, etcetera, blah blah blah. Turns out the cops went up to some guys who were standing around, told them to vamos, and then attacked one of the guys for no reason. Biden’s America, indeed…In a different world, Biden was working on an actual ’emotional’ campaign where ‘serious’ people are not taken in by this crap or some propaganda about the Hamas and the UN. Instead, he pandered and pandered and pandered, because you got to pander. And what has it gotten him? Low approval ratings, losing to Trump badly in swing states he barely won, and a horrible centrist attempt to be bipartisan with the border shot down and probably forgotten in a week.
Paul Campos at LGM has a post up titled Elite Lawyer Brain is Killing Us. It starts out:
And ends up:
And in the middle he explains why, which I recommend, although it is very, very depressing.
@Bill Jempty:
Well, actually it’s both, but you already know that from your experience as a professional crafter of words. Very few statements are “just the facts, ma’am,” as Sgt. Friday used to put it. And even Sgt. Friday was really looking for more; he was looking for incriminating facts rather than random information (just the facts).
Connotation plays a big role in what “facts” people select to emphasize and what facts they ignore. Connotation plays a large role in how people on this site view Trump, for example. (Though, to be fair, he was unqualified to be President on the day he rode down the elevator and still is, so the fact that he’s a “dotty septuagenarian” is of no real impact in the larger scope of things*.) What we think *just the facts* show plays a large role in our decision-making processes and how we craft our opinions. What you said was significantly larger and more important that (merely) stating facts.
Beyond that, some readers will draw a connotation from your proclamation that you are (just) presenting facts; they may connote that you have a partisan bias but are unwilling to own it. Indeed, most readers who do not share your partisan bias are likely to make that connotation. It would be a better world if we all (cracker included) would simply “let our yes be yes and our no be no,” but we’re all pretty thoroughly disinclined to do so. It’s important to remember that we’re not fooling anyone, all the same.
*The fact that ~47% of the electorate is either oblivious to or doesn’t care about those features of Trumpness is disturbing to me, but I can’t fix the problem.
@Paul L.: I wish you would cite which right-wing-nutball sources your quotes were coming from, but I’m content to connote that the reason that you don’t is that it’s better to conceal your sources and have people think you’re a partisan hack than to reveal them so that people know you are.
@Paul L.: Am I supposed to conclude that Comey suffered shock that the leopard ate his face post event from your (uncited) source? And if so, why does that matter? It’s simply another dealin’ with the devil regret story either way.
@Modulo Myself:
I don’t think that comment quite turned it around for you. Here, I’ll make it very easy for you to see the problem:
1) Israel withdraws
2) Hamas fires missiles into Israel
3) ?
Give us a real world solution. Here’s another:
1) US withdraws support for Israel
2) Israel says, cool, and pushes all Gazans into the Sinai.
3) ?
Now, remember that time travel does not exist, so it’s not a solution to say that back in Year X, Party Y, did Z. Real world, present tense.
This will be hard for you to grasp, but your fee fees are universal and mundane. Take a poll here: how many are happy to see children die in war? What? No one? Huh. So you stand out not for your bleeding heart, but for your inability to even attempt to offer anything by way of solution.
As to your ‘points’, the Abraham Accords were negotiated by Trump and I, along with EVERYONE, knew it ignored the Palestinians and that there’d likely be trouble. Do you think you discovered the Middle East all by yourself? Guess what? Everyone knows the ME is fucked, and everyone knows the settlers are pigs, and ditto Bibi. All the things you think you’ve sussed out? We know. Because, see, we were paying attention long before October 7. You wandered in for the last 5 minutes of a movie and are now loudly informing us of what we already knew.
Now, do you have a solution to propose?
The clearest assessment of the whole imbroglio is today at emptywheel. Bottom line, the special counsel made up some facts and misapplied the law. As to his gratuitous swipe, I saw the press conference, Biden is as he has always been, a tad sloppy, and maybe he is showing his age a bit, but he seemed fine.
@Modulo Myself:
Just as a passing comment, I can’t bring myself to fault people in politics/international relations for being immoral. Then again, I see many foreign policy issues to be state of nature situations where life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” In support of your thoughts on the question at hand, I will note that “stupid” is not on the preceding list. Getting played by any actor into endorsing “solitary, etc.” is often stupid and stupid is the real sin here, not amoral.
While I’m here: assuming that Special Prosecutor Hur is of Korean descent, I will note in passing that the particular name as spelled in Korean does not come out “Hur” but rather “Heo” (no “/r/” in the Korean spelling). I suspect that the current spelling evolved over the years (it was spelled alternatingly either way on business cards of different people I knew ~10 years ago) because “Heo” is difficult for Americans to decode (is it a blend or a diphthong, for example) and would best be spelled as “Huh” for English language pronunciation. (And even that isn’t really accurate.)
Everyone is free to draw their own conclusion/connotation.
@Michael Reynolds:
1) Israel withdraws
2) Hamas fires missiles into Israel
3) ?
Israel was managing quite fine when these missiles were being fired before. Gaza was so terrifying that there was a rave within sight of its walls and fences and Netanyahu had moved the IDF into the West Bank to protect the settlers as they attacked Palestinians. So I don’t even get your point. There should be a cease-fire. Israel should withdraw. There should be a last-ditch effort to create a Palestinian state. Is it going to happen? No. But that isn’t because it won’t work. Israel has never wanted the Palestinians to exist, regardless of what the Palestinian position has been.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Source: Justice Department inspector general report on FBI Russia probe
Andrew McCabe said in his testimony Comey demanded the Carter Page FISA warrant.
Here is a rightwing source for Comey’s walkback on the FISA warrant.
@Paul L.:
Ironically, you are getting to a situation created by Trump himself. A number of legal anyalsts have repeatedly pointed out that Trump could get out of most of his legal problems if his lawyers could advance the argument that Trump didn’t know what he was doing. Or rather that he honestly believed his actions were legal and due to diminished mental capacity he could not be convinced otherwise.
That, for the record, was the hail Mary the Guiliani’s lawyers attempted.
The issue is that Trump needs to be publicly and legally seen as the smartest person in the room. And therefore, he willingly chose to ignore all the evidence that (1) the Election was not stolen and there was no tampering with the vote in Georgia or elsewhere, AND (2) as noted by the DC Court in this week’s decision, the President has no business in administration and oversite of elections and therefore was acting outside of the role and powers of his office when he interfered in the election process.
You’re right; he can’t be both. And all we can do is respect Donald Trump’s decision to, at least legally, be knowingly accountable for his actions.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
FYI, I am a registered democrat. Next up- I don’t swallow the party line hook line and sinker and never have. That’s why in my old blogging days Michelle Malkin referred to me as a moonbat, Daily Kos called me a far right winger, and Florida politics blogger Jim Johnson called me middle of the road.
For a couple of years I posted at a popular conservative blog where I was regularly scorned for my views. Like thinking John McCain’s chances of winning election in 2008 weren’t good.
Regulars here say Trump has dementia when he says something wrong. Biden does the same, you say he is just being Biden.
Michael here in reference to Trump says if someone starts losing their faculties, they don’t get them back. What makes Biden any more human?
Biden is elderly and his memory is failing. You don’t like it but that’s reality.
Biden die hards who think nothing is wrong with him are only fooling themselves. On November 6 it will be too late to come to your senses.
@Modulo Myself: Meh. @Modulo Myself:
A hit dog will holler. Ignoring, dismissing, and/or downplaying the Trump right’s many white supremacist attacks on black Americans, their forced birth attacks on women, and the many other undeniable and important differences is what’s appalling.
On racial equality, on abortion righys, on climate, and yes, even on Israel and Palestine — Biden is much better than Trump, and it’s not particularly close. A truly decent person ought to be able to both acknowledge that and be upset about Gaza.
Those on the left who just perform decency while trying to use Gaza as an excuse to throw under the bus blacks, women, gays, workers and others threatened by MAGA extremism certainly have the prerogative. But if thr6h expect to bully the rest of us into quietly playing along with their dishonest and intellectually lazy bothsidesm, they are mistaken.
Biden and Trump are obviously not the same on Israel’s territorial, and you who say so are obviously not telling the truth. Trying to position that falsehood as an excuse to abandon your fellow man right here at home is not a good a look.
@Bill Jempty:
Biden haters who think Democrats will replace him are only fooling themselves.
With barbarians at the gate, this is a time for choosing, not for fantasy.
@TheRyGuy:
Red Wave 2022!!11!!
@Raoul:
Same I and Dr. Joyner saw, but don’t expect the haters to be able to see reality through their preferred narrative. But Her Emails all over again.
On all sides, we all just see what we want to see, apparently.
@Paul L.: Thanks! Remember, it’s important to cite your quotes to show the good faith in which you are making your argument. (And don’t feel sad :*( , I occasionally had to remind my first-year college and high school early-entry students about this situation.)
@Bill Jempty:
As I have noted before here many times, I consider myself to be (effectively) as actively non-partisan as I can possibly be given that I haven’t voted since 2003 (when I moved and didn’t change my voter registration). That I consider myself that way is probably a fiction I tell myself in much the same way that you use “FYI, I am a registered democrat” as a similar deflection.
My comment is not about what you claim. My comment is about what impression about you your comment creates in the minds of your audience. Beyond that, it’s bad form to switch from “fooling themselves” in your opening sentence of the paragraph to claiming that “[I–by way of identifying me as “you”] will need to come to [my] senses” in the next one. In this case, it’s also ironic given that I’m on record here as early as 2019 that Biden (and Sanders, Warren, and Hillary Clinton as well) was too old to be a viable candidate in my mind–though I did agree that Biden was, apparently, the best available choice given that he was who Democrats and swing voters were willing to vote for.
Honestly, I agree with a significant portion of your argument, but I’m not sure that it matters to the audience to whom you are addressing it. In real life, you should probably consider dropping the Abe Simpson as the old man shouting at the clouds/partisan hack MAGAt in the bag for Trump part of your schtick. YMMV.
I am only in my early forties. My dad died 6 or so years ago. I know it was on my wife’s birthday, but I couldn’t tell you the year. I can only roughly peg it because I was still living in Houston, which puts an upper bound on it. If you ask me my wife’s birthday, I could give you the month, but I would probably get the year and the day wrong by 1 or 2. I know my wife and I have been married nearly 9 years, but that is only because we were talking about it the other day. Being bad with dates is not an indicator of senility.
There are a number of people comparing this to James Comey. Blame Merrick Garland for releasing the report. Read section 600.9 here.
@Rick S: I’m in the same boat. I remember exactly where I was on the day that I found out my dad had passed away. I also remember the clumsy, badly worded email message that I sent to a couple of friends who probably hadn’t heard and the relief that I felt that his suffering from Alzheimer’s and progressive organ failure were finally over. I also remember the email that I sent to my mom asking her if she needed me to come back from Korea because my school would give me bereavement leave if she wanted/needed me to be there. I can tell you the month because it was close to my birthday, but I no longer remember the exact day or year. Lots of stuff is like this. Biden is not unique nor is his situation (but I still wish the Democrats had a younger choice available for their sake; then again, I wished this in 2019, too).
I think everybody’s focused on the wrong part of the phrase. Both Biden and Trump are elderly men with poor memory, most people agree. Only one of them is well-meaning, though. Maybe that’s what the special counsel was highlighting, because the Republican base is not under that impression in general.
@Michael Reynolds:
At point 3, I have not funded ethnic cleansing. And if it indeed makes no difference whether we find it or not, then I want no part in it.
If the US pulls funding, I think that will have a greater effect than complaining around the edges while still funding. It’s not just the money there, it’s losing the support of one of the very few countries that has traditionally always supported them.
Is there any guarantee that it will change Israeli behavior? No, of course not. But the status quo is enabling Israeli behavior for “leverage” that never amounts to anything. So let’s stop doing that.
Even if the only practical difference is that there is less blood on our hands, but the same amount of blood spilled, I’d like cleaner hands.
As far as voting for Biden despite his support, because Trump will be worse? Meh.
If your kidnapper offers a choice between having your arm cut off just above the elbow or three inches above that, maybe you take an ineffective swing at the kidnapper instead. Doesn’t seem unreasonable.
Biden has until November to make a case that supporting Netanyahu is making things less worse. Otherwise? I live in a safe state, so my vote won’t matter anyway. A third party protest vote may actually be the best option. People in swing states should think about it harder.
@Franklin:
It’s kind of you to hope for good motives in people. Thank you for giving me an example of who I’d like to be. And if you can give us suggestions about how to become such a person, I’m sure many of us would welcome them.
They said Biden was too old and past it last time versus Trump. Then they debated and he kicked Trump’s ass with ease.
@Franklin: Is Biden’s memory that poor?
Sure, he doesn’t remember which year his son died, but I doubt half of America would remember which year they got married in, or when a kid was born.
If I try to remember what year my brother died, I’m stuck remembering what job I had, a health problem I had at the same time, the apartment I was living in, and then a guess based on having gone to a Democratic Caucus where my building superintendent was saying that we had to support Obama because Hillary Clinton killed Vince Foster and was involved in all sorts of crimes. And then I can guess from there, and still likely be wrong, just less wrong.
@DK:
FWIW, I fully expect that if Biden wins in the fall, @TheRyGuy will not post here again under that name. I’m personally hoping that he spectacularly self-immolates (digitally, mind you), leading James to ban him (again).
That latest banning (again, I tend to think it won’t have been the first) will only piss him off more. He’ll continue to hate-read the site until he can’t take it any more and one way or another creates a totally new and absolutely never been banned before handle to mouth off about how OTB has ruined this country and how once Trump wins in 2028 lefties like me and traitors like James will get the ends we deserve.
What he will never do is admit to being wrong. Or that getting banned from OTB broke his brain.
Put abortion on the ballot in a red or purple state and none of this matters.
@Matt Bernius:
Yup. I don’t understand these types.
In late 2019, I argued with a friend from Delaware (one night, in the midst of a bunch of shirtless dudes at a gay rave LOL) who insisted Biden was not just the best Dem candidate, but the only one with the needed appeal to nonwhite voters and white swing voters both.
After Biden won, I told him how wrong I had been. I was glad to have been wrong.
Later, I complained here about Biden not using his bully pulpit to hammer McCarthy during the debt ceiling and budget negotiations. Turns out Biden was right to stay silent, and in doing so ran circles around Republican negotiators. I was glad to be wrong and glad to admit it.
I also remember scoffing at the notion that my native Georgia would ever make Herschel Walker a senator, and being told I was a pollyanna. Some here swore Latinos were abandoning Democrats over “LatinX.” We all remember the promises of Democratic catastrophe in 2022 and 2023.
But only a handful of the media so wrong about these elections ever admitted so. I don’t recall any OTB commenters who took a similar stance ever doing the same. One even denied what he’d said; I’m not tedious and extremely-online enough to bother digging up his old quotes.
As for 2024, nobody knows what will happen. Except this: if Biden wins, those making overly-confident declarations guaranteeing a Biden loss will never say they were wrong.
The political graveyard is littered with the bodies of those who have underestimated the Biden-Harris Democratic Party. It is surely possible a few more gravestones will be added.
1. I was wondering why this bitching about Biden’s memory issues bother me so much. Then I realized I have pretty severe memory issues myself. Between PTSD and ADHD I can’t remember a fucking thing. I’m mentally competent. I know what’s going on and am functional. I just don’t and can’t remember. The ADHD Dr told me that my memory is so bad to not even try.
I lived with my grandpa when his dementia started getting bad. That was awful. Trump reminds me of my grandpa at the beginning.
I think we are reading too much into normal memory issues where one remains functional and competent and the beginnings of dementia.
2.
@DK:
Thank you so much for this. I have been wracking my brain to understand why so many young trans people I know or interact with say there’s no difference between the two. They’re young and they’re White. There’s a whole bunch of unconscious privilege there. They’re gonna be big mad when I tell them I hired an immigration atty to get my UK big out bag ready. I have actual privilege that might protect me and my family. They don’t.
As an aside, they all get pissed at me when they ask how did we get “stuck” with Biden and I calmly tell them that Black women are the core Dem constituency and the Black women in SC delivered the election for him.
Again, thank you. I really appreciate this.
@Beth:
Yup.
I am completely uninterested in listening to flithy rich black radio hosts like Charlemagne the God, affluent white brocialists, or students at Ivy League schools with billions-dollar endowments lecture me about how there’s no difference between Biden and Trump.
I’m like, chile please. Of course you would say that. Of course. It’s easy for your biggest concern to be an ethnoreligious conflict thousands of miles away when (you think) you’re not under any significant immediate threat right here in the US of A.
@DK:
Or White trans women not understanding the difference for us between Biden and Trump is us being alive or dead. Even as bad as TN, FL, IA, TX, UT, get, we could thrive under a Biden administration. Under a Trump, we’re toast on January 22.
James –
“Even aside from DOJ policy, it’s simply distasteful for prosecutors to besmirch the reputations of citizens whom they have decided not to prosecute.”
I think that observation fails. As you correctly point out, Biden was never going to be prosecuted. Let’s save the (societal and institutionally corrosive) reasons for that for another day. However, it left Hur with a pickle: “how do I not prosecute in the face of obvious facts, and the law?”
(And in anticipation of painfully silly arguments about how Trump’s situation is fundamentally different; spare me – at core, its not)
“I’m not going to follow the facts or the law” isn’t a very good look. Hence: prosecutorial discretion. Heh. So: “Biden is a doddering old man whose pitiful presentation and realities would result in jury nullification.”
(Remember, the bleach bit-ing, hard drive hammering Hillary forced Comey into a bogus “no reasonable prosecutor” farcical explanation that satisfied no one, except Hillary.)
Its not that hard to figure out.
@Beth:
Unfortunately, it’s not just privileged white trans people. There’s a significant number of impoverished BIPOC trans people on the main Philadelphia trans Discord who seem believe that Jasmine Sherman can win the 2024 election.
@Beth: I’m starting to think of looking at setting up a hidey-hole for myself. Which will probably be somewhere French-speaking or Japan.
@Jack: “(And in anticipation of painfully silly arguments about how Trump’s situation is fundamentally different; spare me – at core, its not)”
Thank you for the brief and very instructive lesson on how to ensure that no one will take anything else you say seriously.
@wr:
Personally I think it’s kinda cute the way Jack demonstrates he doesn’t understand what intentional obstruction charges are without saying he doesn’t understand (or care).
Or perhaps he’s unconsciously acknowledging that all Trump had to do was cooperate and he never would have been charged. Don’t tell him but even Jonathan Turley agrees with that proposition.
@Jack:
By volume, it was clearly different.
But more importantly, one cooperated and the other didn’t. Moreover, Trump actively tried to thwart the law. The differences are obvious to anyone willing to pay attention.
@Rick S:
Indeed. I am in my mid-fifties. Since I was a wee lad in his twenties, I have actively forgotten my parent’s anniversary (the day–I just realized I couldn’t tell you the year, for sure). I forgot my mother’s birthday for years-I finally have it down.
I only remembered my Dad’s birthday because it was two days after Pearl Harbor Day.
My grandparents both died recently. I have to stop and figure out which years if asked.
Quite clearly Biden is old, but the reducing of all of his mental faculties down to specific examples is ludicrous. I bet every single person reading this said something yesterday that, if taken in isolation, would make them sound like an dottering fool.
@inhumans99: Okay, there is another way that Biden gets replaced, that plenty of others have pointed out that is obvious, he passes away before Nov 5 (although if really close to that date people would have to write in a different name on the ballot as I bet Biden would remain on the ballot dead or alive).
In a U.S. presidential election, voters cast ballots for electors not the candidate. What will happen with the electoral college is open to question.