FRIDAY: Citizen Scarborough, back from camp!

FRIDAY, JULY 5, 2024

What New York's correspondent has said: When we awoke this morning, C-Span 2 was re-airing this broadcast from a twelve-part series last year:

OCTOBER 9, 2023

Books That Shaped America
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass  

In part four of Books that Shaped America, historian, author, and Howard University professor Edna Greene Medford explored the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the first autobiography of abolitionist Frederick Douglass after his escape from slavery, published in 1845...

We're going to go ahead and admit it. When the conduct of Edward Covey was described, it called Greg Gutfeld to mind. 

Yesterday, we spent a chunk of time attempting to research the peculiar claim which formed the basis for the second segment on Wednesday night's Gutfeld! program. 

The termagant—perhaps more accurately, the little chimp—and his usual assembly of hacks spent the segment making a joke of what's left of "our democracy." We'll have to postpone our report on the way they leaped about, flinging their poo, until tomorrow at best.

Today, there's only one report you should be reading online. We refer to the new post by Kevin Drum, a post which starts off like this:

The press and Joe Biden

Has the press been covering for Joe Biden over the past few months? Until now I've considered this to be little more than typical Fox News nonsense, but I'm beginning to wonder...

Why has Kevin started to wonder about what the (mainstream) press has been doing? At that point, he links to a lengthy report by New York magazine's Olivia Nuzzi—and he posts excruciating excerpts from her lengthy report.

Nuzzi's lengthy report sits behind a paywall. The excruciating excerpts which Drum has posted are available for all to see. 

As he starts, Kevin says he's beginning to wonder about the past conduct of the mainstream press. But if Nuzzi's detailed account is accurate, it's hard to believe that anyone would still have to wonder about President Biden—more specifically, about his fitness to continue to serve for almost five more years at this point.

For ourselves, we've always tended to place an asterisk next to Nuzzi's work. We've done so because of what we regard as the somewhat unattractive way she broke into the upper-end press, way back in the somewhat better old days.

That said, we agree with Kevin's assessment, except perhaps a bit more so:

DRUM: As Nuzzi acknowledges, she's been skeptical of Biden's stamina for years, and is hardly a Biden family favorite. Still, there's no reason to believe she's making this up.

"There's no reason to believe she's making this up?" For the record, Nuzzi's report takes us well beyond an assessment of "Biden's stamina." That said, we would tend to agree with what Kevin says.

For ourselves, we've seen footage of President Biden, again and again, in which he displays what we would regard as an unmistakable look. Such tape has been widely aired on the Fox News Channel, has been disappeared everywhere else.

We've been actively concerned about President Biden since last August. A few weeks later, major insider David Ignatius wrote the mild-mannered column in the Washington Post in which he suggested that President Biden shouldn't seek re-election.

(For the record: Even then, Ignatius was able to report this: "According to a recent Associated Press-NORC poll, 77 percent of the public, including 69 percent of Democrats, think he’s too old to be effective for four more years." That's what respondents were saying even way back then.) 

Few insiders stepped up to agree with that column by Ignatius. As the months went by, the president appeared in public less and less often.

He made few attempts to speak about the major issues which were dragging him and his party down. With respect to the cost of living, he chose to adopt a ludicrous focus on the evils of "shrinkflation."

Then came the amazing performance at last Thursday night's debate. The other candidate's performance was utterly ludicrous, though in a more familiar way.

Adding the little chimp into the mix, this is the state of "our democracy" on this Fifth of July. Regarding the workings of us the people, we'll direct you to two observable sources:

First, we'll suggest that you scroll through the comments to Kevin's post. It's filled with comments by angry partisans who insist that there's nothing to see here—that this phony point of concern has all been made up. 

Some don't seem prepared to believe their own lyin' eyes! Here are four of the first five original comments:

COMMENT 1: [This has] been going on for months and you're only now, just now, hearing about it, at this carefully choreographed, time-critical moment?

What this is they're trying to reflect back all the bad press Trump has been getting about his mental state, and there is nothing else here at all.

COMMENT 2: Or they all could be orchestrated anonymous GOP ratf*ckers. YOU make the call! PS: Remember how HRC was at death's door in 2016? Have we learned nothing?

COMMENT 4: Olivia Nuzzi was saying this in 2020, before Biden's impressive to very impressive accomplishments over the last three-plus years. And told in the first person? Who does she think she is, Hunter Thompson?

I'll give her gonzo points though for saying the President didn't know who she was, as if it was evidence of mental decline as opposed to evidence that she's extremely small potatoes, butt-hurt potatoes at that.

COMMENT 5: Sigh. Look, it MAY be that there really HAS been significant deterioration very recently. It hasn't been materially evident at other public events (deliberate barbering of things like video from the Normandy remembrances notwithstanding), but mmmmaybe so.

One thing that IS clear is the overt bias—hell, active favoritism—of much of the major media... I don't put ANY stock in what the Olivia Nuzzis of the world publish.

IF there is a "conversation" to be had, I have confidence in the people around Biden—Dr. Jill, Obama, his Three Wise Men, Schumer, et al.—to have it, and I have confidence in him to have the wisdom and self-awareness to listen to it—very much UNlike the Felon, I would add. And if it leads to action, we'll hear about it.

With respect to Commenter 1, are we hearing about this at a "carefully choreographed moment?"

For whatever it may be worth, the moment in question follows directly upon the most peculiar debate performance in modern political history.

Meanwhile, Olivia Nuzzi is small potatoes—butt-hurt potatoes at that! The commenters don't place any stock in what "the Nuzzis of the world" may report.

It could be that Nuzzi's just quoting GOP ratf*ckers! By way of contrast, we can trust the people around President Biden—and we can trust President Biden himself. If they decide to make a move, eventually we'll be told!

If we might borrow from Robert Frost at this point:

Trust us, The Voices said.

The fifth commenter has confidence in the people around the president. The commenter also has "confidence in him to have the wisdom and self-awareness" to do the right thing.

For better or worse, some people never stop trusting The Voices! Meanwhile, let's state a point which is blindingly obvious:

If President Biden has slipped around a type of bend, he now lacks the type of judgment required to make sound decisions. He would now lack that type of judgment, like Senator Feinstein before him.

Anthropologically speaking, it isn't clear that we the people—that our vastly limited species—is wired for this sort of work. The meltdowns which have brought us to this point have involved the conduct of many groups—but those of us in Blue America have been an active part of this process, dating back three or four decades, or possibly five or six.

Then too, there was this:

We were surprised to see Joe Scarborough back on today's Morning Joe. He'd been away, on what was described as "a vacation," all week. It was surprising to see him back on the air for just one show, on the Friday of a four-day holiday weekend no less.

To appearances, Scarborough was back from a successful stay in re-education camp, where he was taught to say different things about President Biden's performance. We'll offer examples of what we mean when the links become available.

Meanwhile, we human beings don't seem to be built for this type of work! In our view, the bitter and caustic E. E. Cummings pretty much had it right, though only in his reporting about humanity, not in his moral assessment.

Nuzzi's report is a kick in the pants, but it's one of many such reports emerging on this topic. We ourselves became actively concerned last August, based on something we saw right there on our TV machine as we watched a live event on CNN.

Along the way, Vladimir Putin seems to have placed a wager. He seems to have wagered that we won't be able to make this work.

The strongman seems to have paced a wager. As President Biden slides in the polls, is "Putin's wager" in the process of possibly paying off?

Tomorrow: What the chimp, and his court of baboons, offered this Wednesday night