America owes Joe Biden a deep debt of gratitude. History will credit him for turning around America’s trajectory towards totalitarianism and for marshaling the forces of liberal democracy against Russian aggression, genocide and neo colonial fascism. Furthermore he is one of the five transformational Presidents in the last hundred and twenty five years, joining Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt. LBJ and Reagan.
In case anyone believers that the aspirational liberal democracy as described in the Founding Father’s documents has won out, stick around and listen to Trump and his chief challenger Governor DeSantis, who has refined Trumpiism, alternate history, racism, identity politics and authoritarianism to a new level. Biden orchestrated his message both in 2020 and 2022 on the fact that “that is not who we are”. And the message and the messenger have resonated. The message and the messenger need continuity.
Biden’s achievements stand in contrast to a rudderless amoral political opposition who don’t possess an original thought, are chained to their leader who is a pathological liar and who is under serious legal jeopardy. Trump’s apologists, who are led by craven Speaker McCarthy, have made it abundantly clear that the next two years are going to be devoted to smearing Biden, his family and his administration. Also they are playing games with the American economy by refusing to pay America's debts as mandated by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. A Constitution that they claim that they are wedded to.
Unhappily for the aged President fate has thrown him a curve ball in that classified documents, were found amongst his papers dating back to his Vice Presidency over six years ago and his Senatorship dating from the seventies. They were unearthed in an old office and in subsequent searches at his home.
While the circumstances are entirely different from Trump’s admitted seizure of classified documents and then his refusal to hand them over, McCarthy and his band will use the Biden saga as yet another reason to “investigate” Biden up the ying yang. The "GOP" inquisition will gain credence by the fact that the Attorney General has appointed a Special Counsel to probe into the classified material found in Biden’s possession. This even before Biden invited him to search his home. What will not help the “GOP” cause is the fact that their inquisitors are types who spout conspiratorial garbage such as Hillary Clinton and the Democrats were running a child sex ring from a pizza parlor.
However the document epic has added impetus to the controversy as to whether the elderly Biden should or should not run for a second term. There are those argue that the Special Counsel investigation will complicate the Democratic chances in 2024 and that he should bow out and take one for the team.
JUSTICE SECRETARY GARLAND’S “RUSH TO JUSTICE”
The finding of a total of thirty classified documents in Biden’s half century of elected office has resulted in the creation of a false equivalency between the thus far squeaky clean Biden and the criminally soaked Donald Trump.
The fear of a just a taint of favoritism has motivated the obsessionally impartial Attorney General to order a Special Counsel into the Biden saga. Any reasonable jurist will argue on the basis of what is known that Biden had no criminal intent whereas Trump has admitted his. Put another way a Special Counsel is appointed where criminality is suspected. In Biden’s case he reported the “crime” to the National Archives and the Justice Department immediately on discovering the documents and then instigated and invited searches to see if there were any more. Trump on the other hand admitted that he took three hundred classified documents, refused to return them, previously denied that he had them and then objected that classified documents were found and seized in an FBI court ordered search.
In spite of the obvious differences the House Republicans are crying fowl because Garland didn’t immediately order the FBI to “raid” Biden’s home. Rather without a subpoena the FBI went through every nook and cranny of Biden’s residence looking at records over a fifty year period. Biden can confidently swear that there are no more classified documents that can be found yet Trump probably has more secreted away in other residences.
Garland and his Special Counsel for Biden have already been subject to vicious attacks from the “GOP” even though Attorney Hur has impeccable Republican credentials and was appointed by Trump. Hur has donated to Republican electoral candidates and appeared at a Trump WhiteHouse Press Conference. In spite of Hur’s political bent, Kash Patel, Trump’s spokesperson screamed at Garland’s appointment of this Republican operative, “This guy is a swamp monster of the tier one level. He’s a government gangster. He’s now in charge of the continued crime scene cover up. “
It is over two years since Trump’s coup terminated in the January 6 insurrection. The January 6 Committee laid bare the conspiracy that was perpetrated by the Forty - Fifth President and his inner circle. Yet to date all Garland has done is charge the foot soldiers. Members of the January 6 Committee expressed their frustration as Garland’s resources and subpoena power outstrips that of their Committee and there was little evidence, till recently, that he was pursuing the conspiracy that effected the sustained attempt to keep Trump in power.
One gets the distinct feeling that Garland has a need to impress the Republicans as being impartial and has been loathe to investigate the MAGA "GOP" ring leaders of the coup. Only after thoroughly investigating Trump did the Attorney General appoint a Special Counsel. Presumably he did so as there was enough evidence to show probable cause that crimes had been committed. This is in stark contrast to his prompt probe into the Democratic President. The Washington Post investigation has indicated that Biden’s team were shocked at Garland’s action as he has cooperated fully with the Department of Justice.
Special Counsels are supposed to be appointed for criminal investigations. There is no way that that the Department of Justice could have had enough material to believe that there was probable cause of Biden criminal activity. Anyone reporting their own “crimes” could have not had any intent to commit them.
The "non political" Garland has made a political decision in an effort to forestall criticism by the Republicans. He need not have bothered because he and his appointments have been subject to the most outrageous invective.
The problem with Special Counsel investigations besides the implicit stain that they impart, is they take an interminable time. So like with Trump this will be continually be a news item.The chips are beginning to fall in a way that this controversy is consuming center stage threatening all the progress Biden has made. At every opportunity, regardless of the occasion and venue the press are bombarding the current President with questions about the documents. Polls indicate that at this stage a large section of the electorate view the two situations on a par.
What with all the investigations that the House Republicans are going to devise as well as the Special Counsel probe, there is a feeling that the Democrats would be better off with a new candidate in 2024.
The upshot of all of this is to reopen the call for Biden to step down and take one for the team.
SO SHOULD GERIATRIC JOE TAKE ONE FOR THE TEAM?
It is in a way a slap in the face to Biden to call for his departure and it can be argued that it is a betrayal of his loyalty and personal sacrifice in standing for election in the first place. But political reality is not for the faint hearted. Sometimes circumstances dictate outcome and maybe they are beginning to overtake Biden. Circumstances have changed in the past few weeks. The rationale of Biden’s detractors is that they don’t need to be on the defensive arguing that Biden's situation is not the same as Trump’s. To the lay person they appear similar,
However this is not the argument being put forward by those who are looking for an alternate candidate. It is rather Biden’s biological age and obliquely his mental status.
The smears against his cognition are just that smears. It is being pointed out that the highly successful trio of Democratic Leaders of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, Bill Hoyer and Jim Clyburn have stepped down from their top three leadership positions, in favor of younger candidates. Joseph Biden will be as old as they are at the start of 2024 run. They have recognized that while they still have their marbles and know how the other members of the caucus have to be able to reach the jackpot. Moreover the youth demographic in the recent elections has increased and they identify more with younger leadership. The eighteen to thirty - five year old demographic favor the Democrats over the GOP by at least twenty five percent.
The opinion makers and policy wonks in the Democratic Party are begging Biden to spend more than just the weekends in Delaware. The seventy - six year old Robert Reich wrote an op ed in The Guardian entitled, “Joe, Please Don’t Run Again”. Reich claims that it is one’s declining powers as the aging process digs in that worries him most. Reich projects his own failing faculties onto Biden. Whether that projection is accurate or not it is irrelevant because it is being bandied about for every word stumble, whether that can be attributed to his previous stutter or not.
Reich’s contention, that Biden and his generation, like Gingrich and Clarence Thomas, whom he unflatteringly lumps himself and Biden with, have fucked things up, is ridiculous. Biden is Plato’s original definition of a politician. In a world that has moved at a breath taking speed, he has always been slightly ahead of the curve. It is so easy to criticize politicians who be their very nature have to compromise and can only lead as fast as the followers can tolerate change.
James Carville the legendary Democratic strategist arrives at the same conclusion as Reich. Again he uses age as the rationale. Also throwing his five cents worth is geriatric David Gergen advisor to four Presidents including Ronald Reagan who was reported to only work a few hours a day. Gergen had nothing to say then.
It seems that it is mainly the geriatrics who are projecting their decreasing cognition onto Biden whose achievements are greater than any of the last ten Commanders in Chief.
THE ARGUMENT FOR BIDEN
Biden is the most qualified and politically savvy candidate around. The Democrats legislators are backing him.The leader of the Democratic House Caucus Pramilla Jayapal enthusiastically exclaimed that although he wasn’t even her second choice in 2020 she is fully behind him now.
Biden is not the typical US President. He has not great oratorical powers. He is not charismatic. However his genuineness and empathy allowed him to connect with a wide range of constituencies and he was able to cobble together a coalition that won him the presidency. There is every reason to believe he can expand on that. His approval rating has increased from thirty six to forty - four percent which believe it or not is pretty good for a politician in 2022.
Biden’s legislative record rivals that of LBJ. Unlike LBJ, he has delivered with the barest of majorities. He has navigated the agendas of a wide constituency within his own party, while he has cobbled bipartisan deals against all odds.
There are very few if any of the prospective candidates that assuredly can deliver the African American vote, the worker vote that won him Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan while hanging on to the Democratic coalition of minorities such as the LGBT groups. All pundits were waiting to hear from Jim Clyburn the kingmaker from South Carolina who was instrumental in catapulting Biden into the Democratic nomination in 2020. They were not disappointed as Clyburn, announced. “I am all in for President Biden:….passing more progressive legislation than any President since Lyndon Baines Johnson….”. He warned against any Democrat running against him in the Primary noting that is what cost Carter reelection in 1980. Incidentally Buchanan did the same to George Bush, 41.
There is an assumption that McCarthy’s investigations will have a negative impact on Biden. This is based on the defeat of Hillary Clinton by Trump. However McCarthy has delusions of grandeur as Clinton in fact made mincemeat of her tormentors in the Benghazi hearings. McCarthy had FBI Director Comey to thank for announcing the reopening of Clinton’s e mail probe days before the 2016 election. Clinton’s internal polling found that to be the decisive factor. There is every possibility that the fact that McCarthy et al with George Santos in toe, with loonies like Taylor Greene, Boebert, Biggs, Perry, Gospar and Jordan holding forth will backfire. Biden has been preparing for these hearings for two years. If anything Biden will turn the inquisition on Its head.
Biden may have to change his Vice Presidential running mate. Kamala Harris does not appear to have gained traction with a high staff turnover and low demand as a speaker in the midterms. Biden could call on Pete Butttigieg who is the sharpest tool in his cabinet shed. His youth and oratory skills may well bring out the youth vote. If as a member of the LGBT he won the snow white rural Iowa caucuses he has to have a message that resonates.
Biden with the pressure on him will be facing tough negotiations over the raising of the debt ceiling. He faces Speaker McCarthy whose future as Speaker depends on not yielding an inch, Biden has the problem in the Senate of Sinema and Manchin, two Democrats who are in favor of sitting down with the cynical “GOP”. The latter had no difficulty in raising the debt ceiling three times in the Trump stretch. Added to that the current deficit is in part due to the Trump tax cut for the rich and for the corporations. Stick around and see a quiet master at work.
How Biden maneuvers is never transparent as he knows better than anyone else that giving a running commentary and or criticizing those who are holding out against him is counter productive.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
At the end of the year who will be standing, McCarthy or Biden?
What expenditure does McCarthy want to cut? The Military Budget? Social Security? Medicare? Medicaid? Let McCarthy announce what he wants discussions about?. Trump has warned McCarthy to leave Medicare and Social Security alone, which are the two big items the Speaker has his eye on.
McCarthy has questions to answer why he was complicit in Santos’s fraud prior to his election to Congress.
Garland anxious not to appear biased will be mercilessly attacked anyway when he announces that Trump’s Special Counsel recommends charges and Biden’s does not.
If there is any double standard it is the deference afforded to citizen Trump as opposed to President Biden. Garland stuck around for years before gaining a court order to search Trump’s residence but within days wanted to “raid” the Biden’s residence - the latter invited him in.
Maybe Biden would have been better off with William Barr.
Biden has no need to take one for the team. He is THE reason that there is a winning team.
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