Senility is the new “competent enough” – or, who cares whether or not it’s the president who answers that 3 AM call?
John Hinderaker spotlights an email sent by David Leonhardt, the Times’s “senior writer” who writes for the paper’s daily newsletter. Here are some quotes from Leonhardt’s email:
Strange as it may sound, the American government can function without a healthy president.
At this point the contention doesn’t sound strange at all, because we’ve been treated to over two years of a Joe Biden presidency – although, of course, it depends on the meaning of “function.” The country has been going downhill fast, but to many on the left that’s a feature rather than a bug.
More quotes:
If enough voters are turned off by the idea of a president who would turn 86 in office, Republicans might win full control of the federal government in 2024 — and Donald Trump might return to the White House.
I know that it may seem crass for Democrats to worry more about partisan politics than the mental acuity of the country’s most powerful person. But it’s not entirely irrational.
It’s not the least bit irrational. The country is run by a combination of agencies and behind-the-scenes advisors and aides, and so Biden (who is not entirely senile at this point, by the way) is mostly a figurehead. I am convinced that a significant number of people voted for him in 2020 with the assumption that that was the way it would be. Most Democrats may think he’s too old to be president for a second term but that it doesn’t matter as long as Democrats are in control.
Even Brandon’s aides admit that he puts in– at most– a 30-hour workweek: “[A]ides say it’s tough to schedule ‘public or private events’ with Biden at certain times of day — namely weekends, mornings, and evenings. In fact, the report adds, most of Biden’s public events happen between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. That works out to a 30-hour workweek — even less than the official 35-hour workweek in France. . . . Biden gave a convoluted answer when asked about his age at a joint press conference with South Korea’s president Wednesday: ‘I can’t even say — I guess, how old I am, I can’t even say the number. It doesn’t — it doesn’t register with me. And — but the only thing I can say is that one of the things that people are going to find out, they’re going to see a race and they’re going to judge whether or not I have it or don’t have it.'”
https://nypost.com/2023/04/28/bidens-30-hour-workweek-how-presidents-age-has-cut-down-schedule/
No wonder people are concerned about the VP’s very different type of incompetence.
My left leaning/D friends, whom I assume are similar to Neo’s, seem perfectly contented with the Biden figurehead and the direction of the country. Sigh….
” I am convinced that a significant number of people voted for him in 2020 with the assumption that that was the way it would be. ”
When I voted against Hillary and for Trump in 2016, I expected thim o hire the right people and spend his time playing golf and shaking hands.
Never expected the constant back-stabbing from entrenched bureaucracy.
This never gets old.
https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-announces-hes-been-told-hes-running-again-in-2024
like joe pesci said in casino (they didn’t forget to steal) re the mob bosses in casino, they also don’t forget to corrupt the rule of law, to tarnish childrens innocence to deplete our resources, to lock us into an expensive and dangerous electric grid (that obama era official said crucify fossil fuel didnt he) its a pell mell rush to oblivion, death by a thousand cuts, when we’re a dead shell, they’ll say well we meant well
physicsguy,
Yes, so do my left-ish friends. They seem content with the Biden administration and prefer not to look too closely at things. And their favored media are only to happy to comply.
They prefer their media bubble. I borrowed a friends newish car. He’d had it for about a year and he hadn’t programmed any of the local stations into the car radio. He rides around with the local NPR station on all the time! So of course I programmed local news and music for him.
I’m kinda conservative. But I listen to NPR on a regular basis. I feel a duty to keep myself well informed. But I usually switch stations when they go down the trans rabbit hole. Which, of course, they do frequently. It seems their intention is to normalize men in dresses acting like pedophiles and voyeurs.
Yawrate,
I used to listen to a great deal of NPR. I mostly listen to podcasts and music now, so I don’t have time for NPR, but unless something’s changed drastically, they have some good programming. I don’t think tax payers should pay a dime for it, but some of their programming is top notch (and some is not).
While it’s true that most Democrats are fine with having a figurehead President, it’s also true that there are some that are not and need to pretend that Biden is still in charge (which is why the media goes to such great lengths to protect him from spontaneous interactions). I think this state of affairs is both tragic and hysterical at the same time. We know Biden has lost a step or 10, the media know we know and yet they have to keep on pretending that everything is fine because all the alternatives to Biden are worse for their team.
Neo’s last sentence: “Most Democrats may think he’s too old to be president for a second term but that it doesn’t matter as long as Democrats are in control.”
My emphasis. Everybody who really cares about the constitution and the maintenance of the system it prescribes–conservatives, obviously, but any moderates and liberals who care–needs to internalize that, and understand everything the Democratic Party does in light of it. That’s what they mean when they talk about “our democracy.”
in the 90s, on the weekends I heard npr occasionally because they said it was valuable, outside of keillors guy noir impression and some of the quiz shoes they
didn’t offer much, there was a local station that played classical music in the books and books, (i’m carbon dating my self here) npr has plenty of private donor money,
Not the first time we have had an Absentee President. Wilson was not in charge after his stroke. May have been others too. FDR certainly was in serious health by the time he was elected to his 4th term.
But I think the world is in a much different place now. Instant communications and weapons of mass destruction create there own problems.
I still think it will be Newsom. The DNC refusing to have debates will certainly cause issues.
I think what happened is the low-effort/no-effort voter. IE The media gave the most blatantly biased pro Joe reporting possible. Then states changed the rules so people could literally vote while eating their froot loops at the kitchen table.(Yes, that’s how you spell it.) So they voted blindly the way they were told to vote because they didn’t have to put in any effort.(You don’t think they’re going to question anything do you?)
I believe that a significant number of Biden voters would have voted for a potted plant over Trump.
i think they are potted plants, for how little they value their vote,
Joe Biden
John Fetterman
Diane Feinstein
–Sonny & Cher, “The Beat Goes On”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lkfrtztqEY
huxley,
Don’t leave out the fact that since covid, congress members don’t actually have to show up to vote. Someone else can cast their vote by proxy. Your three may be figuratively vacant, but there are also the literally vacant or absent.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/proxy-voting-covid-house-republicans-democrats/
TommyJay:
Sonny & Cher didn’t cover that, but Good to Know!
i think the proxy doesn’t cover the senate, but I could be wrong
I assumed it was Obama, through puppet Rice, who was running things. Now she’s moving along. Of course, I always thought Obama was someone’s puppet, probably Valerie. So that leaves the intelligence agencies. But you’d think one person has to make the final call. Or is it consensus of some small group? I think I’m writing a novel.
Biden has been a liar and crook for 50 years. Were he in full possession of his faculties, I don’t know if things would be better. He changed positions so often that there is no thread of ideology in him. The people running him are so far left that we are seeing disaster coming but half the population, including two of my kids (both lawyers) seem OK with it.
eastasia criticizing oceania,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/29/north-korea-kim-jong-un-sister-says-joe-biden-is-in-his-dotage-as-she-criticises-nuclear-pact
Leftists would vote for Chairman Mao if they could, dead or alive.
I’m with Mac on this one too, was sure the likes of Susan Rice were the go-between from Barky if even he is pulling the strings.
Maybe it’s hive mind or a cabal who meets every Saturday on a secure channel?
Yeah, it’s Val Jar in charge – imo.
Some light required reading (final paragraph): “Sooner or later, they will put these third-world migrants in American uniforms. Then they will be used against the U.S. population. They are coming to take our homes and cars; they are coming to replace us. And our own government is behind it.” https://www.theflstandard.com/federal-government-behind-massive-operation-to-send-illegal-immigrants-into-u-s/
Certainly Schumer and Pelosi were running Congress, and Schumer still is, but I don’t think anybody really is running the Executive Branch. I certainly don’t believe that Obama is calling the shots. Rather, it seems like the bureaucracy — the permanent government — and the Democrats want the same things, so Biden and his appointees basically let the permanent government have its way.
In the past, and even now when Republicans are in the White House, cabinet level appointees could disagree with their civil service underlings — or they could spur them to action. That doesn’t seem to be the case now. Does anyone think that Buttiegieg and Granholm are really running their departments? They may give out a few trivial suggestions or even general guidelines, but they don’t seem to have much control over what gets done — or doesn’t get done.
An exception may be Mayorkas, who has overridden ICE’s preferences from the very beginning. The White House and Merrick Garland exercise some control over the Justice Department, but the department is all too willing to do their bidding.
Biden was always a party animal, a creature of DC, so I’m not sure how effective a president he would be even if he were in command of all his faculties. The myth is that he’s rooted and grounded in working class Middle America, but it’s only a myth.
Build Brezhnev Better.
The problem with Leonhardt’s argument is that the officials who operate the government in place of the president are not elected. They have no democratic legitimacy on their own, and can’t acquire it vicariosly from a president who is too incapacited to exercise his powers. The statute establishing the line of succession derives its authority from Congress, not the president. The statute doesn’t give executive authority to the national security advisor or the Fed chairman. The country is being run by an unelected cabal.
well it’s the colonel house argument,
https://twitter.com/AGHamilton29/status/1652051928040308737?s=20
“The country is being run by an unelected cabal.”
Run into the ground, actually.
…As long as we’re talking about “actually”…well, the country was—actually—hijacked by an unelected (and unelectable) cabal.
(But that would make “unelected cabal” more than a bit redundant, wouldn’t it.)
On the other hand, how else would Obama be able to serve four terms?
(After all, the Great Man has been compared to FDR by his falling-over-one-another, fawning media ….)
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/04/afts-randi-weingarten-shut-down-on-twitter-cnn-after-falsely-claiming-she-fought-to-reopen-schools/?