This New Round Of "Biden's Old!" Bullshit Will Have A Very Short Shelf Life
Talking about Biden's cognitive health means talking about Trump's and that is not allowed.
Ah, the right-wing and their most reliable accomplice, the press, are like pigs wallowing in shit right now. Special counsel Robert Hur released his report on the giant non-scandal of Biden’s classified documents. It was such a non-scandal that most people had completely forgotten about it. And for good reason. You see, unlike Trump, Joe Biden didn’t steal hundreds of classified documents, hide them, lie about it, and have volumes of data the Russians desperately wanted “disappear.”
But since Hur is a Republican, he couldn’t just say that in his report. Exonerating Biden during an election year doesn’t help the GOP. It helps Biden and that’s a problem. The solution? Add in a lot of unnecessary political commentary about Biden’s memory:
The Opinionated Ogre exists because of you and your support. If this is the kind of content you enjoy and want to see more of, please subscribe today. Straight from my keyboard to your screen, the way it should be! - Justin
“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,” the prosecutors wrote in their report released Thursday. “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. 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.”
If it seems odd that that Hur is speculating about possible trial tactics while discussing the fact that the person in question did not commit a crime, you wouldn’t be wrong. It’s incredibly odd. But he needed some way to insert his politics into the report and this was it. He couldn’t very well say Biden didn’t do anything wrong and, oh by the way, here’s my opinion of his mental state.
The report had the desired effect, setting off a stampede of concern trolling from the right and the “liberal” press. Everyone is very worried that Biden is not up to the job!
So, should we be panicking? Probably…nah.
If you’ll recall, the press spent months clutching its pearls over Biden’s age and cognitive health. Once it had become apparent the economy was not going to implode the way they had been wishcasting for three years, they needed something new to bash Biden with. Biden’s age was the silver bullet that was going to drag him down and give Citizen Trump his best chance of overcoming the hurricane-force headwinds facing his campaign to be America’s Führer.
But then Trump’s age and rapid cognitive decline became a topic of discussion and the press dropped Biden’s age like a hot potato. Except for a few potshots here and there, the firehouse of coverage concerning Biden’s age just…stopped.
Not really a mystery why.
Is Biden old? Sure. Is he as sharp as he was 10 years ago? No.
Does that mean he can’t be president? You can make that argument BUT…if you do, you must extend that argument to Donald Trump. And that’s where it all falls apart.
Trump is only 3 years younger, in worse physical shape, and his cognitive decline can only be described using terms like “rapid,” “severe,” and, “accelerating.” You can’t bash Biden for something Trump is experiencing far more acutely. That would be like raging at Hillary Clinton for having pneumonia while Trump had stage 4 lung cancer. I mean, that’s absolutely something the press would try to do but good luck selling that to the public.
This is part of the reason the press would very much like Nikki Haley to quit the race and go the fuck away. She keeps talking about Trump’s cognitive decline and the press does not want that topic penetrating into the mainstream. If the public truly understood how compromised Trump’s brain really was, he wouldn’t be able to win an election for PTA president if he were the only person running.
So where does that leave us? Exactly where you think it does. Biden’s age will be A Very Important Story for a few days. Maybe even a few weeks. Then Trump will announce at a rally his running mate will be Ronald Reagan or that he personally won the Civil War and his Swiss cheese brain will be right back in the news. Just like that, the press will suddenly remember that they have a dentist appointment. No time to talk about the age of the candidates anymore. Very busy. Gotta go.
We’ll probably see this cycle repeated at least two more times before October. Then the press will roll it out again a week or two before the election, totally spontaneous, not planned at all! The loudness of the coverage will be directly proportional to how badly Trump is losing at that point.
In the meantime, just remind people whining about Biden’s age that he can still give a barnburner hourlong speech and Trump can’t go 5 minutes without forgetting which person he’s supposed to be angry about.
There are 269 days until the 2024 election. Vote blue like your life depends on it.
Also, “Just like that, the press will suddenly remember that they have a dentist appointment.” Genius. 😉👍🏻
Joe Biden overcame being a stutterer and has had a long career which involves frequent public speaking. Have any of us seen him stop mid-sentence, his face becoming contorted from the effort to get the right word out? I can’t recall a single time. Does he slip sometimes? *Everybody* slips sometimes. Justin, your remark about barn burner speeches is on the money. When will the press start talking about All The Things He’s Done?
TFG, on the other hand, doesn’t know his a** from a hole in the ground, and never has. 🤬