As you’ve probably heard, CNN journalist Jake Tapper has released Original Sin, a book that claims (according to all the publicity, at least) the Democrats were aware Biden was in no shape to run for a second term and refused to do anything about it. By colluding with an unfit candidate, they gave the election to the Felon! If they’re to regain the trust of America, Democrats must apologize and beg forgiveness for their sins.
It’s not just Tapper: a quick online search shows multiple media outlets (sorry, not linking to them) saying the book is “damning,” a “bombshell” and repeatedly saying Dems need to apologize. Is anyone outside the media saying this or thinking this? I rather doubt it, but could be wrong.
Tapper also believes Biden only won the nomination in 2020 because Democratic elites were pulling strings. As LGM details at the link no, Biden won because he was more popular with Democratic voters than the competition. And while it might be suboptimal to have our country run by a gerontocracy, voters preferred Biden and the Felon over assorted younger, more dynamic candidates. This does not inspire me to read his book or take his opinion more seriously.
It’s telling, too, that his ire, and that of other mainstream media outlets, is directed at Democrats. Why not direct it at Republicans, who put the Felon in office with their votes? Why not at the media who’ve sanewashed the Felon in so many ways? For example, the president’s recent speech to West Point graduates was all about golf and trophy wives. The NYT’s summation: “Trump gives commencement address” Or this.
It’s another example of “only Democrats have agency” — Republican bad faith is just the way they are and nothing will change it. It’s up to Dems and only Dems to be the grownups in the room.
Give me a bleeping break. As James Fallows says, the Felon is the issue — Joe Biden dropping out and Kamala Harris are not the central issue, any more than George McGovern’s massive defeat against Nixon in ’72 made him the issue in Watergate. It’s the Felon’s conduct that matters. He’s the one devoting his Memorial Day message to screaming at people who don’t worship him. Or complaining Ukrainian president Zelensky says things the Felon doesn’t like. His administration says we should be color-blind unless white people don’t get hired.
In the comments to Fallows post, several people point out that nobody’s offered examples of Biden making bad calls or his health impairing his presidential authority. In contrast to the Felon’s rant to South Africa’s president about non-existent white genocide.
As Tom Scocca says at Defector, “The call for accountability sounds very righteous. But whatever the merits of those lessons may be—is an apology about Joe Biden really the No. 1 thing people want to hear from the Democrats before the next election?—the whole backward-looking Biden frenzy mostly seems like an excuse for the press to look away from the present day. Right now, the most acute problem the United States has with presidential age, capacity, and fitness is not about what people didn’t know or wouldn’t say about the last president. It’s about what they can’t bring themselves to say about the current president.”
