“There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go.”
Tennessee Williams
“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, in direct proportion to its importance and in inverse proportion to the time available.”
Edward A. Murphy Jr. – American Aerospace Engineer – Murphy’s Law along with Ebeling’s Corollary
In February of this year, I wrote a blog entry entitled “Mae West Can’t Help Us Now”. (See February 17, 2024 entry.) In the article I asserted that whoever constitutes the power brokers in the Democratic party, needed to get their act together and find a presidential nominee other than Joe Biden. I was convinced of this because of the public perception that President Biden was an elderly gentleman who has lost the quick intellect and cognitive powers that are required to lead the most powerful nation in the world. The immediate impetus for that writing was the comments Department of Justice Special Prosecutor Robert K. Hurd made in his report regarding the possibility of charging President Biden for violating the Presidential records keeping laws. Hurd did NOT recommend charges but in the report detailed several encounters with President Biden that cast him in an unfavorable light, as a well-meaning but declining elderly man. There were many like me who called for a new nominee at that time. But a funny thing happens with the passage of time. The story died down and the public became preoccupied with other things, like our convicted felon former President Trump and his numerous trials.
And then came the ill-fated debate between the two elderly gentlemen who want to be the Commander-in- Chief of the world’s most potent military, the keeper of those nuclear codes and a few other sorts of unimportant tasks. Now the subject is at the forefront of the public discussion again. What has changed? Well, nearly five months have passed. A Trump-friendly Supreme Court has given him more protection from prosecution of wrong-doings as President while another court convicted him of a felony while other cases are pending. Five months have passed in the rapidly shrinking election season, in which the candidates can make their cases to the American people. What hasn’t changed? President Biden is NOT any younger, his cognitive abilities and intellectual stamina have NOT improved. In the five intervening months there weren’t any glaring in-the-public-eye events highlighting that. But I would make this case: The fact that we didn’t see them, doesn’t mean that they didn’t occur, and more importantly, it doesn’t mean that they won’t happen again, and probably happen soon as the grueling campaign takes its toll even on younger men.
In the 2020 election I pleaded with anyone who would listen, that we needed to vote for Joe Biden. As I said in February, I LIKE Joe Biden. He is a fighter for what he believes but he is also someone who has demonstrated that he sees the need to compromise at times. He was a politician in the best sense of that word – somebody who does not let their own passionate worldview block them from actually getting something done. It is the old definition – politics is the art of the possible. There are lots of things on which I DON’T agree with him BUT I believe he has served his country well. Yet even if his present critics are wrong, the voting public sees him as not being up to the job. I don’t think he can beat our former, convicted felon, philandering, lying former President Trump. And while I have concerns about what a 2025-2029 President Biden might do or not do, I much more greatly fear what a 2025-2029 President Trump will do, the things that he has SAID he will do. Can a new nominee prevail at this late hour in the process? I really don’t know, but I am becoming more confident that Joe Biden can NOT.
President Biden has asserted that HE is the person who will decide whether or not he will stay in the race. Of course, that is TRUE depending on what “staying in the race” means. But there is this thing that the Democrats do, their national convention. And one of the things that they do there is to endorse a presidential candidate. But the delegates to the convention have plenty of time to think about this, there are SIX WHOLE DAYS until it starts. The wheels of politics usually turn very slowly, and President Biden’s nomination may be all but decided. But somehow, some way, we have to head off the upcoming November decision that we may be forced to make, between two soon-to-be octogenarians, one of whom is a convicted felon among many other things.
If you hold the most powerful position on the earth, I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to give that up, if you think you can keep it. None of us wants to think that we are not at the top of our games (trust me I am seventy-four). But in spite of the allure of trying for a second four years in that most exalted position, I would make the argument that in our present environment, stepping aside would be the most courageous and the most patriotic action that Joseph R. Biden could take. This is BIGGER than one man, we are talking about the future of our country and the future of the world.
Hi Craig, you’re saying what I think a lot of people are saying. Please, Joe, put country ahead of self and step aside in favor of a younger candidate who is capable of attracting all of the people who don’t want to vote for an octogenarian and who can go toe to toe with Trump to catch him in all of of his lies and call him out on them in real time. Make his hateful rhetoric stick to him, make the 2025 Plan stick to him, make his desire to become a dictator stick to him, make his anti-American love of Putin stick to him. There is a little more time than you note. The RNC Convention starts in six days. Even though the DNC Convention is in mid-August, the party plans to hold a virtual role call vote in advance of that in order to insure their nominee’s name is on the ballot in Ohio, which requires candidates to be named 90 days before the November election. While I haven’t been able to find a source to confirm a firm date, several sources say that role call could occur on or about July 21st. So twelve days or by early August at the latest. Joe needs to look in the mirror and see what everyone else sees, a man who was old, but necessary to get Donald Trump out of the White House in 2020. A man who has gotten four years older since then and will get four years older by 2028. Whether it is ego or more evidence that he is declining so much that he has lost the self-awareness to see the obvious, I don’t know. He said only God could convince him to step aside. Well, whether by a vision or by some additional mis-step or by a loving family member getting ahold of him and getting his attention, I pray that God will get through to him ASAP.