Biden's handlers and allies in the Corporate Press largely scoffed away the elephant in the room, but as it turns out, there's only so much wool to pull over our eyes.

Time Stamps:

* Cheap-Fakes Intro (0:00)

* The Scoff-Away Ends, the Panic Begins (2:44)

* Signs of Slipping You Weren’t Supposed to Notice (7:39)

* We Finally Beat Medicare? (10:05)

* A Very Aggressive Panic in the DNC (13:00)

The Covid Era allowed Joe Biden some leeway to make limited appearances in public, and dodge off any concerns about his mental fitness. Fast forward to 2024, there was no way of getting around the long-anticipated Presidential Debates.

Biden's handlers and allies in the Corporate Press largely scoffed away the elephant in the room, but as it turns out, there's only so much wool to pull over our eyes. If anything, they insisted that Joe Biden was in his prime and lent his wisdom to lead the United States towards greener pastures after Donald Trump disgraced the Presidency and democracy itself.

But don't believe me. Believe them.

I hereby give them the floor.

The Wall Street Journal piece referenced is, most likely, the article entitled Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping by Annie Linskey and Siobhan Hughes.

Let's skim through a few highlights.

When President Biden met with congressional leaders in the West Wing in January to negotiate a Ukraine funding deal, he spoke so softly at times that some participants struggled to hear him, according to five people familiar with the meeting. He read from notes to make obvious points, paused for extended periods and sometimes closed his eyes for so long that some in the room wondered whether he had tuned out.

...

The 81-year-old Biden is the oldest person to hold the presidency. His age and cognitive fitness have become major issues in his campaign for a second term, both in the minds of voters and in attacks on him by Republicans. The White House and top aides said he remains a sharp and vigorous leader.

...

This article is based on interviews with more than 45 people over several months. The interviews were with Republicans and Democrats who either participated in meetings with Biden or were briefed on them contemporaneously, including administration officials and other Democrats who found no fault in the president’s handling of the meetings. Most of those who said Biden performed poorly were Republicans, but some Democrats said that he showed his age in several of the exchanges.

...

In January, he mixed up two of his Hispanic cabinet secretaries, Alejandro Mayorkas and Xavier Becerra. During a February fundraiser in New York, he recounted speaking to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl—who died in 2017—at the 2021 Group of Seven meeting. That same month, at a different fundraiser, he said that during the 2021 G-7 summit he had spoken to former French President François Mitterrand, who died in 1996.

At one point in the debate, Biden said “we finally beat Medicare” after a particular cognitive stumble. There were several similar moments. Donald Trump's team was quick to capture these in a 95 second video made for social media. Trump made priceless faces throughout that seemed to say, “make it make sense.” It didn't. And there is little doubt that many viewers felt the same way.

Donald Trump's own messaging - especially pertaining to Stop the Steal and January 6th - isn't supposed to sit well with the public if conventional wisdom is the standard. Yet, he stands by these positions in confidence next to a man who fumbles on a scripted conventional narrative.

Trump was not supposed to walk away in one piece after facing these issues.

The controversy over Trump's messaging has driven an appeal to hysteria by the Democratic Party for years. Now that the season of “the most important election in our lifetime” is upon us, they've only doubled down about Donald Trump representing “the end of democracy as we know it.”

But after several episodes of superdelegates, Russia hoaxes, plots to squash Bernie Sanders, a war on democratized media, a literal proxy war waged on the side of autocrats and neo-Nazis in Ukraine, something doesn't quite add up.

Much effort has been invested in lawfare against Donald Trump, driven by the “save democracy” narrative. It makes little sense logically to weaponize the law against your political opponents as in a Banana Republic, in the name of “democracy” of all things. But hysteria has driven the narrative for the Democratic Party since Donald Trump rode down the escalator to announce his presidential bid for 2016.

But even the “convicted felon” label - hard-earned as it is - is not enough to shift public opinion. Rather, it's energized Trump's base and fed into his narrative of a rotten system in the hands of nasty people who stop at nothing to attack their opposition. And after this debate, Biden has to win back his own allies.

See Also:

* The Cognitive State of the Biden Regime

External Resources:

* Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping by Annie Linskey and Siobhan Hughes

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[364] Una ricerca sull'eroina in Italia. Parla Vanessa Roghi