From TPM Reader SP …
It was so obvious that Biden had no business running again. Obvious when the Hur report came out. Obvious after the Israel-Hamas war broke out. Obvious after the debt ceiling standoff. Obvious after losing the House. Obvious after two years of rising inflation. Just as obvious after the fall of Kabul as it ever was. All we got was “it’s too early,” “the economy is improving,” “don’t re-open the ideological rifts in the Democratic party,” “presidents always run for a second term,” and the ultimate dodge, “polls at this stage aren’t predictive.” And it was the most obvious of all where that would lead. They would wait and wait, repeat that line over and over, until we reached the point where polls at this stage are predictive, and surprised, Biden’s numbers only got worse, but now we’ll hear, “it’s too late to replace him.”
Which it probably is, who could remotely put any campaign infrastructure together now? And now, in the most predictable event ever, Biden comes off as really old in the debate, compounded by an impossibly badly timed cold. And the whole world is going to be destroyed because the Democratic establishment – and TPM – refused to stop brushing off and slapping down the most obvious imperative in the world – getting the oldest president in history out of the race – because it’s just not “how things are done.”
I am an immigration lawyer. I may die next year when my office is shot up by the Proud Boys. Who knows how many of my clients will die being rounded up by the military, in tent camps in the desert as the deportation planes come and go, or slaughtered by the same vicious Central American gangs they came here to escape. I’m not sure what this review of old Editor’s Blog posts going on now is about, but look back at all those “get over it, the sky is blue and Biden will be the nominee” columns and think about what you’ve contributed to.
