From TPM Reader JG …

“Missed opportunity” is the right way to frame this debate.  I think the debate did what the Biden strategists wanted in showing that Donald Trump was unfit to be President, temperamentally and policy-wise, domestic and foreign.  But it failed to make Biden seem like the obvious alternative, because of how frail Biden seemed particularly at the beginning.  Trump really was terrible and Biden simply missed so many opportunities to call him on his lack of answers and ridiculous statements about the “horrible” present state of affairs which people know is false from the well-being of their own lives.   Biden got to it at the end: “something broke when you lost” and he should have called out Trump on that very obvious fact early and often.  

Someone needs to call General Kelly, who was just called a liar on national TV for “losers and suckers” and get him on camera. 

Kate and I just recorded a pod that will be out in a bit. We shared our thoughts on how it went there if you’re interested. But it didn’t go great. Which is kind of an understatement. Biden came in hoarse with a cold. That made him sound feeble and frail. And he was unfocused. He didn’t respond strongly or even coherently to many open opportunities. He got substantially better in the second half of the debate when the topics moved to foreign policy and January 6th. But the conventional wisdom and impression had kind of taken hold by then. Trump was Trump. Abrasive, nasty, belligerent — lying and making things up constantly. But he seemed focused and vital. The contrast was not good for Biden at all. I do think there were some lies from Trump that will have legs. He again refused to agree to accept the results of the election. He again complained about non-existent fraud in 2020. He praised the shock troops of January 6th. But this debate is going to spur a huge freak out among Democrats and several days of terrible commentary. And that’s just when the shape of the race was moving, at least to a significant degree, in Biden’s direction. Let’s remember that no tent pole event in this cycle has had a big impact on the race. We don’t know what the impact will be. But at best this was a missed opportunity.

10:31 PM: Something snapped in you when you lost. Biden’s saying the things he needed to now. But it’s late.

10:29 PM: Can’t say he’ll accept the results of the election.

10:20 PM: “I just won two club championships.”

10:09 PM: “Never seen anger like this before.”

10:01 PM: Biden campaign now putting out that Biden has a cold. That’s clearly true. And very unfortunate.

9:50 PM: Okay, the first twenty minutes of this debate were simply awful for Biden. I do not see any other way to put it. He was unfocused, hoarse, lost his train of thought a few times. That’s shifted in the last half hour. Enough? I don’t know. Trump has also gone further into his weak spots, the conspiracy theories, inability not to start threatening retribution, denial about January 6th. Biden has definitely gotten more focused and is landing some punches. He’s still hoarse. It seems like he has a cold. But he starting to make the points he needs to.

9:47 PM: Biden is finally, finally starting to get some traction, get out the lines he needs to get out. But it’s half way through the debate and the impression get set early.

9:46 PM: Trump started by saying his retribution would be success. But he’s now worked his way back around to threatening to prosecute Biden.

9:38 PM: Again, Biden picking up a little speed. Far more focused on the wars he’s spent most of his time working on.

9:35 PM: It’s interesting that Biden’s far more on the ball about the situation with Israel. Probably because that’s what he’s been working for months. The rest has been a jumble.

9:33 PM: As I said, Biden’s picking up a bit of momentum as we move to foreign policy. But the contrast in energy is still stark. And Biden simply isn’t hitting Trump on the big vulnerability points. I mean, on Russia Ukraine, this is the guy who is in league with Putin. That’s a massive vulnerability.

9:30 PM: Trump is making so many nonsensical points that it’s really unfortunate that Biden isn’t counterpunching.

9:29 PM: Biden’s getting moderately better in the last few minutes. But the impression of the two is largely determined in the first half hour or so. So this is a big problem.

9:28 PM: No Trump is going way off into the arcana of MAGA conspiracy theory.

9:26 PM: I don’t know what the time for each candidate it is but it *feels* like all the talking is Trump. But I think that may be because he’s just controlling the tempo and speaking more forcefully.

9:20 PM: Biden should have focused on the point there that they had a bill and Trump killed it. But he didn’t mention that.

9:15 PM: The energy contrast is stark.

9:10 PM: Biden seems hoarse and sick. And that’s really not great.

8:58 PM: Having Van Jones and David Axelrod on the CNN panel is basically a war crime.

8:52 PM: I always have to get a feel for how much I can write and still keep up with actually watching the thing. But here’s where I’ll be sharing my thoughts. My colleagues will have more in the site Live Blog.

There’s a big and very long piece this morning about the travails of The Washington Post published at The Atlantic. It’s a reported piece by media reporter Brian Stelter. There’s a lot there. It runs almost ten thousand words. But the gist seems pretty clear, which is that the new villain is Jeff Bezos. “Villain” is a bit strong, certainly. What I really mean is Jeff Bezos as the root of the problem, a realization that some at the Post appear to be coming around to. And not because he’s done anything bad. By all accounts he’s been entirely legit on editorial non-interference. Write whatever you want about me and Amazon, etc.

The issue is that the Post essentially has an absentee, hands-off owner. And that has created perhaps not a vacuum at the top, but a lack of direction. Executives who weren’t getting the job done were kept around too long. Other executives were hired to shake things up but they weren’t the right fit. Now you have a CEO and publisher, Will Lewis, whose tenure is clearly and perhaps fatally damaged by the mix of staff revolt and miscellaneous scandals. And yet he’s still in place while Bezos is touring the Greek isles on his mega-yacht with his fiancee.

From TPM Reader JS on the Idaho abortion decision which was unofficially released today.

Don’t miss the big issue here: There were four votes to decide the case on the merits, Justice Jackson along with Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch. Jackson says she’d vote in favor of abortion rights and the latter say they’d vote against. Five Justices, however, voted to dismiss the case altogether and essentially punt for another day (but dissolve the stay on the district court’s injunction). Among those five are Justices Kagan and Sotomayor. Had just one of them voted in favor of deciding the case, the Court would HAVE to reach the merits. So that tells us that Kagan and Sotomayor believed the merits would have gone against abortion rights. While I understand their decision, I have to say I strongly disagree with it. They should have forced the Court to decide the issue, rather than let Roberts push it off to a non-election year. Sure, this will temporarily help women in Idaho, but allowing Roberts and his colleagues to gut further abortion rights AFTER the election is a long-term bad thing. I commend Justice Jackson for recognizing this.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed — one of the many — about your lists of your favorite Editors’ Blog posts is being reminded of ones I’d mostly forgotten about. Your favorites and mine too tend not to be about political news. They’re more about ideas about politics or history. That makes sense since the pieces about political news are the most ephemeral. The ones about broader observations or theories and commentary retain some relevance over time. This morning TPM Reader RL — the same one who wrote in about NY-16 — followed up and pointed to this 2017 piece on Bob Dylan’s three Christian albums — 1979–1981. I enjoyed writing that and and reading it again going on a decade later.

I just got this note from TPM Reader RL who lives in NY-16 and says he just voted for Latimer. He brings up something that didn’t figure in my piece at all: the fire alarm. I’d always written off the idea that Bowman was trying to delay that vote. It simply didn’t make sense to me. It seemed like he was in a rush. The door was locked. And he pulled the fire alarm to unlock the door. RL says it actually played a significant role in his vote, not because it was a huge deal in itself but because it was just dumb and made him a story when the GOP was imploding. As I told RL, perhaps it’s the same difference. It you’re in a rush and a door is locked, setting off a fire alarm in a large office building is not a smart thing to do. Terrible judgment and possibly even dangerous. It just seems like the kind of move, whatever the motivation, that is very much a Jamaal Bowman thing that you’d never see Hakeem Jeffries, Dan Goldman or AOC doing. Just not ready for prime time, quite apart from ideology.

Now RL …