Good morning.
It’s July 13, 2024, two days after Joe Biden’s most recent audition to remain in his current job. He didn’t pass; he didn’t fail.
So the next “cognitive test,” to use the 81-year-old president’s own description, comes Monday in a sit-down interview with NBC newsman Lester Holt.
Friday is also the day when I offer a quotation intended to be uplifting or instructive. Today’s comes from author Lewis Carroll. But back to the 2024 presidential election for a moment.
The Democrats wanted this campaign to be a referendum on Donald Trump’s fitness for office – unfitness, in their telling. The Republicans wanted it to turn on Biden’s record in office, which they find wanting. Instead, the focus, at least for now, is on the aging process.
Until now, the 78-year-old Trump would have been considered too old to be elected president. An actual octogenarian would have never been considered. Many American voters seem to believe that Biden’s notion that he’ll be “sharp as a tack” into his mid-80s (when his second term would end) is itself evidence that he is already delusional.
Mass media has long been full of inspirational quotations about the contributions to society made by those in the autumns of their lives. I’ve cited them from time to time myself. In her memoir, Nora Ephron took exception to what she saw as treacly attempts to soothe the aging ego.
“Every so often I read a book about age, and whoever’s writing it says it’s great to be old. It’s great to be wise and sage and mellow: it’s great to be at the point where you understand just what matters in life,” she wrote. “I can’t stand people who say things like this.”
Ephron was half-kidding, but the state of modern American politics has something like two-thirds of the electorate concurring with the old proverb, “There’s no fool like an old fool.”
I’ll return to this idea in a moment, “through the looking glass,” to use another literary expression. First, I’d direct you to RCP’s front page, which contains the latest poll averages, political news and video, and aggregated opinion pieces ranging across the ideological spectrum. We also offer the usual complement of original material from our stable of columnists and contributors. Recent highlights include the following:
Defiant Biden Stumbles, But Survives Another Press Conference. RCP White House Correspondent Philip Wegmann reports on the president’s performance at the NATO summit.
Elites Abandoning Biden. Phil also reports on the mass exodus of supporters leaving the president in the dust after concerns about his age and mental fitness have increased.
Kamala Harris’ Star Rises While Gavin Newsom’s Fades. Susan Crabtree covers the intersecting trajectories of two California politicians with presidential aspirations, and their prospects for replacing Biden.
Most Voters Want Biden To Step Down, Oldest Voters Least Concerned. Gabriella Fine analyzes the latest polls, which show that a clear majority of those surveyed want the president to pass the torch.
Election 2024: What’s the Worst That Can Happen? Frank Miele relates his recent participation in the Transition Integrity Project 2024, which considers the likelihood of widespread chaos following November results.
Take Away the Car Keys. Jack Hamilton compares the situation facing the country in terms of a painful family memory.
The Widespread Sex Abuse Scandal That Educators Scandalously Suppress. In RealClearInvestigations, James Varney reports on the sexual victimization of K-12 public school students nationwide by teachers and other school employees – and its coverup.
Supreme Court Rightly Strikes Down Big Government Chevron Doctrine. At RealClearPolicy, Brian Darling praises the SCOTUS ruling and the restraint it will bring to unelected bureaucrats.
EU Should Sit Back and Allow Competition to Improve Apple. At RealClearMarkets, Sam Raus chides the European Union for infringing on the company’s right to manage its own intellectual property.
Four Common Myths About Intermittent Fasting, Debunked. At RealClearScience, Ross Pomeroy clears up several misconceptions about the popular and effective weight-loss method.
How to Ban Phones in School. At RealClearEducation, Max Eden shares a sensible approach to keeping these personal devices out of the classroom that will minimize distractions without sacrificing safety.
Things My Daughters Used To Say. At RealClearHealth, Bob McClure and Collin Roberts reflect on how the government’s response to the COVID pandemic imposed long-term consequences on everyday Americans.
EV Boosters Cannot Do Math. At RealClearEnergy, Duggan Flanakin tallies the cost of electricity usage for plug-in vehicles and finds it unsustainable for most middle-class families.
In Chapter Five of “Alice in Wonderland,” Lewis Carroll’s protagonist finds herself in the company of a talking caterpillar. By this point in the story, the reader isn’t surprised. And we empathize with Alice when she confided to her new friend that she can’t remember things as well as she once did.
So Caterpillar teaches her a poem, which begins thusly:
“You are old, Father William,” the young man said,
“And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head –
Do you think, at your age, it is right?”
Father William is having none of it.
“In my youth,” Father William replied to his son,
“I feared it would injure the brain;
But now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.”
And so it goes, for eight stanzas, with the last one being the impatient elderly man telling his younger inquisitor,
“I have answered three questions, and that is enough…don’t give yourself airs. Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off or I’ll kick you downstairs.”
It’s hardly a stretch to see Joe Biden as Father William, while the role of “the youth” is played by George Clooney and any number of the other voices in his political party urging the president to face the inexorable realities not of Father William, but of Father Time.
Biden himself would be cool with that comparison. But that wasn’t the end of Lewis Carroll’s vignette. After the Father William poem ends, the Caterpillar and Alice have a brief exchange:
“That is not said right,” said the Caterpillar.
“Not quite right, I’m afraid,” said Alice timidly; “some of the words have got altered.”
“It is wrong from beginning to end,” said the Caterpillar decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes.
And that is our quote of the week.
Carl M. Cannon
Washington Bureau chief, RealClearPolitics
@CarlCannon (Twitter)