By ERICK-WOODS ERICKSON
It’s hard to overstate just how badly last week went for Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign. Last week started with Biden confusing world leaders on two separate occasions before declining the customary Super Bowl interview and ended with a special prosecutor claiming that Biden mishandled sensitive documents but was too old and senile to stand trial before a jury. The issue was made inextricably worse by Biden’s last-minute press conference where he confused the President of Egypt for the President of Mexico.
Over the weekend Democrats lept into action attacking the character and competency of Special Prosecutor Robert Hur claiming that his report “shattered norms” by discussing Biden’s age and mental acuity. But what members of the media and elected Democrats neglect is that while the report was written by Hur, it was released by Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland. Without Garland’s approval to release the report, the salacious claims never would have seen the light of day.
Many of these same pundits attacked Donald Trump for “shattering norms” by attacking the Special Prosecutor investigating him but now are gladly doing the same thing.
What neither Democrats nor sympathetic members of the media seem to understand is that this report had to be published the way it was for one simple reason: Donald Trump is facing nearly identical charges in his documents trial. If Hur made no mention of Biden’s age or declining mental status and simply recommended that no charges be pressed, the public would have rightly seen a double standard of the highest order.
While Democrats understand the rationale, publically they are circling the wagons around Biden but privately are beginning to raise serious doubts. Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman went on CNBC and said that multiple House members who are staunchly pro-Biden in public, are privately raising doubts that he will be the Democrats’ nominee in November.
These same Democrats see a Vice President who told The Wall Street Journal today that she is willing and ready to serve but is so hated by the American public that her approval rating is well below Joe Biden’s and Donald Trump’s.
Democrats know they have a problem. They have an aging President who increasingly can’t speak in public, a Vice President who is historically unpopular, and a negative voter perception that is increasingly becoming fixed. They are quickly accepting these as facts but I don’t think they see any solutions.
