President Biden could win re-election!

TUESDAY, MAY 21, 2024

Also, though, there's this: In his latest analysis for New York magazine, Ed Kilgore offers this gloomy thought:

"All in all, the path to a second Biden term is dangerously narrow."

In Kilgore's view, Biden is so far behind in three Sun Belt states—Georgia, Arizona and Nevada—that he'll have to sweep three Rust Belt states—Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin—to squeeze out a narrow win in the electoral college.

That could be true. But there's also this:

If Trump is found guilty in the Gotham trial, that could conceivably damage his electoral standing. (Or then again, maybe not!)

For ourselves, we're sorry the Gotham case was ever brought. We think the society should discourage money-grubbers with exciting stories to tell (and to sell) from inserting themselves into the middle of our White House elections. 

We don't think we should be punishing the candidates who get targeted by such people. We expect to discuss the history of this sort of thing next week.

That said, the NDA with Stormy Daniels was all about who was (allegedly) zoomin' who. In the end, we humans care a great deal about matters like that, and in the end we actually care about virtually nothing else.

It's human nature! Our thought leaders will pretend to talk about policy matters—until some such event comes along and relieves them of such duties.

At any rate, it's certainly possible that President Biden could win re-election. But then again, there's this:

At first, we assumed that Mediaite's Charlie Nash must be misstating in some peculiar way. At the start of this report, he said the White House had explicitly corrected nine misstatements by President Biden in its official transcript of a recent speech:

‘Irrectionists’: White House Issues 9 Brutal Corrections to Biden’s NAACP Speech

The White House made nine corrections to a speech delivered by President Joe Biden to the NAACP on Sunday, including a line where Biden falsely claimed to have been vice president during the pandemic and a line where he referred to insurrectionists as “irrectionists.”

In the official transcript of the speech, the White House crossed out nine words where Biden made both factual and pronunciation errors.

Biden made his first mistake at the very beginning of the speech, when he told a story about former President Barack Obama dispatching him to Detroit during the “pandemic.” However, Biden went to the Motor City to meet with representatives from an auto industry hit hard by the recession. In the transcript, the White House crossed out “pandemic” and corrected it with “recession.”

Mere moments later, Biden told the NAACP he was “humbled to receive this organization.” In the transcript, the White House crossed out “organization” and corrected it with “award.”

Nash continues from there. We thought he must be misstating, in some peculiar way, when he said the White House had explicitly "crossed out nine words where Biden made...errors," and had then written in what the president should have said.

That sounded weird and unlikely. But when we looked at the official White House transcript, this is what we saw:

Remarks by President Biden at a Campaign Event | Detroit, MI

THE PRESIDENT: Hello, Detroit.  My name is Joe Biden, and I’m a lifetime member of the NAACP.  (Applause.)  

As a matter of fact, the first organization I ever joined was the NAACP.  Didn’t get to vote until you were 21 in those days, but I got involved in civil rights when I was 15. 

And, folks, look, I want to thank Reverend Anthony for that introduction.  I tell you what, I measure the significance of an award based on the character and the consequence of those organizations bestowing it. 

And I love Detroit for three reasons.  Number one, my dad was an automobile manager.  Detroit put food on our table every night.  (Applause.)  Oh, not a joke.  Not a joke. 

And when I was vice president, things were kind of bad during the pandemic [recession], and what happened was Barack said to me, “Go to Detroit and help fix it.”  

Well, poor mayor, he spent more time with me than he ever thought he was going to have to.  (Laughter.)  God love you.

PARTICIPANT:  Love you.

THE PRESIDENT:  Folks, I’m humbled to receive this organization [award], which defines the character and consequence of what we do.  

Charlie Nash hadn't been misstating. Charlie Nash had it right!

Stating the obvious, Barack Obama wasn't president during the pandemic. Also, everybody makes mistakes—but has any White House ever done anything like this before?

Has any White House ever done any such thing? In the official transcript of this speech, the White House has recorded the president's misstatements, warts and all. 

They've then put strike marks though the erroneous content. They've then added what the president should have said.

Everybody makes mistakes. We're recording this because it seems so strange, so much like a troubling harbinger.

Especially thanks to the Gotham trial, President Biden could win re-election. Then again, we were struck by what seemed to be the weirdness of this.

Who knows? Perhaps this sort of thing has been done a million times before...