Watching Joe Biden take a daily pounding from fellow Democrats and former media co-conspirators is almost enough to make you feel sorry for him.
Almost.
The president’s house of cards is collapsing, and not just because he had “a bad night” at the debate.
It’s collapsing because, as the late economist Herb Stein observed, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”
In this case, the “something” was a scam, a pretense that Biden was a healthy man qualified to tackle the most important and demanding job in the world.
He never was.
Recall that he spent much of the 2020 campaign in his Delaware basement, ostensibly hiding from COVID.
Yet nearly every time he emerged, it became obvious that he was addled and in serious decline.
But woe betide anyone who dared say so, with the Praetorian Guard ready to silence truth-tellers.
Mob rules for press
The scare tactics worked then and have been employed ever since.
The media demand for omerta has kept doubters in line, with the result that questions of whether Biden was good to go for four years were never aired.
Until now, when he is seeking four more years.
Suddenly, questions, doubts and demands are not only acceptable, they are required.
Once again, the media moves as a mob.
No individual reporting or thinking is allowed, just follow the herd.
What to know about the fallout from President Biden’s debate performance:
That’s why most of the Washington press corps didn’t complain when Biden set suspect records among recent presidents.
He held the fewest press conferences and took the most vacation days, at his Delaware homes.
A fair, functioning media would have been suspicious about the repeated disappearing acts and demanded answers.
Why can’t we ask him questions?
Why won’t he sit for extended interviews like other presidents did?
Or this one: Can he still speak without a teleprompter?
The racket ended only because Biden’s debate flop served as a giant reveal about his condition.
Yet Americans should not be confused about why his media supporters are turning against him.
It’s not because they’re worried about the nation or whether the commander in chief can answer the proverbial 3 a.m. phone call.
It’s only because they hate Donald Trump more than they love America.
If they were worried about the good of the country, Dems and the press corps would have raised their concerns about a second Biden term earlier.
They would have taken their cue from his ducking them and his policy disasters, such as the open border and budget-busting inflation.
They would have cited his historically low approval numbers as signs he was in trouble with voters.
And they would have seen the desperation in the way his Department of Justice corrupted law enforcement and the courts to knock Trump out by locking him up.
Times is fed up
Instead, they cheered on the political prosecutions and fawned over Biden’s “accomplishments” in a manner that was the political equivalent of a participation trophy.
They sang from the same song as Jill Biden did when she lavishly praised him after the debate by declaring “You answered every question!”
Well, up to a point, Lord Copper!
Although the revolt among congressional Dems seems to have stalled, the media attacks on their ex-favorite president continue.
The split marks a major breach in the coalition because without the media, Dems will have to create a new propaganda arm.
Most notably, The New York Times remains in full jihad mode against the president it has protected. In its second editorial in a week, headlined “The Democratic Party Must Speak the Plain Truth to the President,” the paper directly accuses Biden of “trying to defy reality” by refusing to quit the race.
“For more than a year, voters have made it unquestionably clear in surveys and interviews that they harbor significant doubts about Mr. Biden’s physical and mental fitness for office,” the Times writes.
“Mr. Biden has disregarded the concerns of those voters — his fellow citizens — and put the country at significant risk by continuing to insist that he is the best Democrat to defeat Mr. Trump.”
But for more than three years, the Times itself disregarded those concerns and published scores of flattering stories and opinion pieces about Biden’s “accomplishments” at home and abroad.
Calls for him to pass the torch were nonexistent — until the debate.
Now, suddenly, it’s an emergency because . . . Trump.
The Times isn’t worried that China, Russia or Iran will carve up the globe because Biden is asleep at the wheel. They aren’t worried about Israel or our other allies around the world.
No, the only risk they care about is that Trump will win in November.
Only Trump matters
That echoes the approach of George Stephanopoulos’ interview with Biden.
His questions could all be boiled down to one: Can you beat Trump?
There were no questions about how many “bad” nights the president had and whether he was healthy enough to function during a national security emergency.
The result was that the ABC event amounted to little more than a Zoom call for nervous Democrats.
Of course, none of these discussions mention the views and concerns of Trump supporters.
Once again, as they were in 2016, they are the forgotten Americans.
Then they were called “deplorables” and “clingers.”
Now they are simply MAGA Republicans who are regarded in leftist redoubts as modern lepers and discussed only as dangers to democracy.
As for Biden, his bare-knuckle response to quivering Dems and the turncoat media caught them by surprise.
They likely expected him to go quietly and quickly, and his resistance puts the onus back on them.
Do they continue to demand that he pass the torch?
Or do they fold their campaign out of fear additional criticisms of Biden would further weaken him and bolster Trump?
Either way, the president is not going to become mentally sharper and robust.
His cognitive and physical declines are now established facts in the minds of more Americans than ever, and could resurface any time he ventures into public.
Moreover, his policy failures are permanent, and there is next to zero hope he can improve his approval ratings.
That’s not to say the November cake is baked.
But there can be no doubt that the debate debacle and the Dems’ civil war are reshaping the race in Trump’s favor.
Serves them right.
Jewish ‘exodus’ for Don
John Podhoretz, in Commentary Magazine, spots the significance of a Siena College poll that finds just 52% of New York’s Jewish voters are supporting Biden, with 46% backing Trump.
He contrasts that with 2020, when Biden received about 70% of the national Jewish vote, compared to 30% for Trump.
“If this were to hold, Trump would receive the highest level of Jewish support of any Republican presidential candidate in modern history,” Podhoretz writes.
He cites as reasons Biden’s wavering support for Israel and the fact that he “stood mostly mute as campuses were lit aflame and anti-Semitism became a daily factor in Jewish lives across the country.”