02-12-2024, 03:30 PM
(02-11-2024, 02:56 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I'll be honest, I don't listen to much in the media these days and was going primarily off of what I had seen from some of the conservative punditry. What I have seen in recent days from across the media spectrum has caused me to reassess my take on all of this. You are definitely correct in your assessment here, though.
So, I wrote this off as SOP as far as how this all goes. After talking with some former federal prosecutors I know and listening to a few others that have podcasts talking about these sorts of issues, I have been forced to reevaluate. What I have learned is that a declination report, as this would often be referred to as in the DoJ, is a common practice and is something that exists for every single investigation wherein there is a choice not to file charges. However, those reports don't see the light of day. They are passed up the chain in the DoJ and get stored in a file somewhere for reference. They are an entirely internal document. A lot of what Hur wrote in his report is reminiscent of such a declination report. However, according to all of those I have heard from, there are very opinionated and political statements in the report, even starting on the first page of the executive summary. There was a difference among these folks as to the relevance of some of the information re: Biden's memory. Some felt it was relevant, others not so much. All of them agreed, though, that bringing things like Biden's memory of his son's death into the discussion was not relevant.
There was also agreement among all of them that given the typical view of DoJ on these sorts of things, Hur should have tempered his report on these things, anyway. That because Garland had already made it known that the report would be made public well in advance, Hur should not have engaged in as much politicization of the process as he did. There was a lot of comparison to Comey's moves in 2016 as JWB remarked on in the first post of the thread.
Now, knowing what I do about the context of the situation (the ~5 hour interview occurred in the aftermath of the October 7th Hamas attack, which would take a lot of Biden's attention) as well as hearing from folks who know or meet with Biden regularly (I think back to McCarthy talking about how with it Biden was in negotiations), I don't see any real concern with Biden's mental acuity. Media is going to be hyperbolic about everything. I don't want Biden on the ticket for a long list of reasons, but his mental capacity is not among them. Washington is a giant rumor mill and we would be hearing a lot more concerns from Democratic officials about him if it were really that bad.
Is this a giant game of lowering expectations for the general election? Is it an attempt to get someone else on the ticket? Maybe remove him for a President Harris? Who knows. I know how little secrets can be kept inside the beltway, so I keep little stake in those theories.
I'm not going to act like I read every inch of every news outlet, but I have definitely been noticing more negative reporting coming from left leaning news sources. Which is part of what makes me believe the media is starting to realize Biden might not be the candidate to beat Trump this go around. Whether that's true or not? I don't know.
But what I do know is that multiple outlets have been reporting that Biden's age is a top concern for voters. I know people like to claim there is an even playing field here and like to portray Biden and Trump as equals when it comes to the "old guy" argument, but I would caution this approach. The criticism’s of Biden's age are much worse for Biden than they are for Trump in my opinion for a few reasons.
1. Both Biden and Trump "Show their age", but Biden is showing it more.
Anyone paying attention to the news going around on social media will know of all the blunders and missteps Biden has had since becoming President, and there's a lot of them. It's not just the forgetfulness. It's that outright confusion he shows on stage when giving speeches. When trying to shake someone's hand. When trying to find his chair etc.... It's really sad. And I don't mean that in a demeaning way. I was telling my wife this last night. Although I don't like Biden at all, I feel bad for him because he honestly seems like a completely lost old man at times, and I can't say that about Trump. Yes, Trump does say some things that make you scratch your head, but there's just something different about Biden. His "not all there" is worse than Trump's "Not all there" and he continued to show this when he came out and responded to the special counsel report.
2. Biden is a politician, whereas Trump isn't.
Some may ask, "Why does that matter?". Well, in terms of arguing about the mental fitness of Biden vs. Trump, it matters a lot actually. When Trump gives speeches, it's always being chalked up to Trump just being his dumb, uneducated, inexperienced, idiot self and rambling about whatever comes to mind. When he forgets things, people laugh at it, call him an idiot, whatever.
With Biden however, he has been at this game for years. When he forgets the names of prominent people it makes people go "But wait.... haven't you been involved in politics for 40 years? Shouldn't you know these people?". When Biden is standing on stage looking like he doesn't know where he is, people think back to the Obama days of how he stood there loud and proud and it makes people go "Man..... Biden seems kind of off.....".
This is why I bring up the point of Biden being a politician and Trump not being one. The point of reference of Biden's political career is making his cognitive failures look much worse than Trump because by default Biden is already held to a higher standard due to his political career. So, when people see him failing the way he does, in the back of their minds they're thinking "This isn't the same Biden".
For Trump there isn't much of a reference there. Trump has never been seen as some intelligent politician with a lot of foreign policy experience that has been around politics for years and knows all the people that Biden does and knows how to give speeches the way Biden knows and so on and so forth. The irony that I'm pointing out is that Trump's lack of experience politically here is actually helping him, whereas with Biden it is starting to destroy him. Take for instance the fact that Biden even came out and gave that speech in response to the report. It was a clear political move to save himself from the report and it absolutely backfired. Why? Because he failed to show people he was still as strong as he had been in the past.
What would Trump have done? He would have posted on Twitter about how it was all fake news etc... and people would have laughed him off as being "big dumb orange man". But Biden took the experienced rout and it cost him.
