Another Barrier to Re-Election

What is Jennifer Rubin thinking?

She is excellent. Why does a name make any difference??

— Jen "I dissent " Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) July 8, 2024

This Parkinson's controversy appears to be a tempest in a teapot or for those born after circa 1960, a lot of nothing.  Emily Baumgaertner and Peter Baker of The New York Times note that Dr. Kevin Cannard

a neurologist who specializes in movement disorders and recently published a paper on Parkinson’s. The logs, released by the White House, document visits from July 2023 through March of this year. More recent visits, if there have been any, would not be released until later under the White House’s voluntary disclosure policy.

It was unclear whether Dr. Cannard was at the White House to consult specifically about the president or was there for unrelated meetings. Dr. Cannard’s LinkedIn page describes him as “supporting the White House Medical Unit” for more than 12 years. His biography on Doximity, a website for health professionals, lists him as a “neurology consultant to the White House Medical Unit and the physician to the president” from 2012 to 2022, which would include the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump.

Records from the Obama administration, when Mr. Biden was vice president, show that Dr. Cannard made at least 10 visits in 2012 plus a family tour; four in 2013; one in 2014; four in 2015; and eight in 2016. Mr. Trump rescinded Mr. Obama’s voluntary White House visitors disclosure policy, so records are not available for his four years in office.

In all the Parkinson's hoopla, no one from the media seems curious about no records being available for the Trump White House since the time that then-President Trump decided to shut the media out of information. Aside from the Times article, there is little attention paid to the statement of White House spokesperson Andrew Bates that in his annual physical, President Biden "has been seen by a neurologist once a year" and that "examination has found no sign of Parkinson's and he is not being treated for it."

That's not to suggest all is well with President Biden's health. However, less well is the individual representing the President to the press, hence to the voting public:

Later in the briefing, Karine Jean-Pierre says she "takes offense to what Ed alluded to," when she dodges on the Parkinson's specialist, adding that it is "really unfair" that she is "holding information" from the White House press corps. pic.twitter.com/YACDBlIblM

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) July 8, 2024

If the press secretary is to serve the President effectively, she should not get into such an extended argument with a reporter. Nor should she say "for security reasons, we cannot share names" when 

At her regular briefing later in the day, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, refused to answer questions about Dr. Cannard’s visits, saying she would not discuss specialists who come to the White House out of concern for their “privacy” and “security,” even though Dr. Cannard lists his affiliation with the White House on a public website.

Ed O'Keefe, the CBS News correspondent Jean-Pierre quarreled with, had earlier in the exchange identified Dr. Cannard by name. And yet, the press secretary claimed "for security reasons, we cannot share names".... a name which already had been "shared" on a public website.

This is not simply a matter of transparency. The name was out there. The problem is with a press secretary who has been simply awful from the beginning of her tenure. Admittedly, on a list of the President's problems, this is probably only #41 or so. Similar to Biden's cognitive issue, it is one more matter which the White House has ignored. Jean=Pierre has improved somewhat, yet her presence remains one more obstacle to Joe Biden's re-election, one which should long ago have been removed.

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Heading Down a Ruinous Road

Credit to black-oriented Philadelphia radio station HURD. After an interview (the second by a black-oriented station) with President Biden recorded July 3 was aired on July 4, CNN's Victor Blackwell asked Andrea Lawful-Sanders

about your interviews, and something – I listened to both of them. And there’s something that’s similar here. You each were, you asked for questions, and maybe that’s what you were allowed to ask by, the campaign or the White House. But they were essentially the same questions, both interviews about accomplishments, progress in your respective state, what’s at stake in the election, what do you has to say about this debate performance, and what he would say to voters who think their vote doesn’t matter or might sit this election out. Were those questions given to you by the White House, or did you have or the campaign, or did you have to submit questions ahead of this interview?

The friendly chat with the President turned out to be a bad political move because

Lawful-Sanders arranged the interview, including the prewritten questions, without the knowledge of WURD management, which “violates our practice of remaining an independent media outlet accountable to our listeners,” wrote Sara M. Lomax, the president and CEO of WURD Radio. Lawful-Sanders’ separation from the station is effective immediately.

“This is something we take very seriously,” Lomax added in the statement. “Agreeing to a predetermined set of questions jeopardizes that trust and is not a practice that WURD Radio engages in or endorses as a matter of practice or official policy.”

The exchange with Lawful-Sanders was not a good political move also by the President, who stated

By the way I’m proud to be, as I said the first vice president, the first Black woman served with a Black president, proud of the first Black woman, the Supreme Court. There’s just so much that we can do because together we, there’s nothing. Look, this is the United States of America.

Identifying himself as a black woman was apiece with Biden's theme during the interview as

Biden likely jumbled the sentence because he'd earlier spoken about being the first vice president to serve under a Black president.

Earlier in the interview, he also spoke about how he was the first president to have a Black woman as vice president and had appointed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

This is governance by quota.  The President had ruled out males, as well as whites, Latinas, Asian-American, or members of American Indian tribes. But, O.K.: results matter, and Mrs. Jackson was an excellent choice.

However, there should be no more pride in serving under a black President than under a white President, especially because Biden would not have been selected if he had not been white.

That's all in the past, of course. But Kamala Harris was tapped by former Vice President Biden because she is a black woman, one about whom Jill Biden, following a presidential debate in June of 2019, maintained

I think that they were looking at the past. I mean, the one thing you cannot say about Joe is that he’s a racist. I mean, he got into politics because of his commitment to civil rights. And then to be elected with Barack Obama, and then someone is saying, you know, you’re a racist?

According to New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns in their book published in May, 2022, Dr. Biden complained "There are millions of people in the United States. Why... do we have to choose the one who attacked Joe?"

That was a question she should have (and probably did) addressed to her husband.  A bad Attorney General, unremarkable United States Senator, and terrible candidate, Harris nonetheless was selected as a running mate by a 77-year-old white male because, well, he was a 77-year-old white male.

He is now an 81-year-old male in serious decline and facing irresistible pressure to leave the race. There is little indication that the Democratic Party has chosen to be democratic and open the process to candidates other than the sitting Vice President because.... (See above.)

If President Biden had heeded the advice of Bill Maher andJames Carville late last year, he would have chosen to sit this one out. There would have been a season of primaries and campaigning and a good chance that a strong Democratic nominee would have emerged. However, f the very unpopular Joe Biden drops his re-election bid, the very unpopular Kamala Harris now is the most likely nominee, an occurrence which would be applauded as "historic" by a Party which considers that a higher priority than defeating Donald J. Trump.

 

 

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Private first class Kamala Harris

Enjoy. There will be very few moments you will see them together. Unless, of course, you will in Republican campaign ads if Kamala Harris becomes the Democratic presidential nominee.

It’s always nice to see them together!@POTUS, @FLOTUS, @VP Harris and @SecondGentleman at the Fourth of July Celebration at the White House. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/gcO0Sb5L1Y

— best of kamala harris (@archivekamala) July 5, 2024

Amid strains of Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" (Springsteen getting the name of the country, United States of America, right), Vice President Kamala Harris screams

And today we celebrate freedom. As we celebrate the promise of America- we also celebrate and express our gratitude to our service members, to our veterans, to our military families.

So far, so good. But then the Vice President adds "and we give thanks to our commander-in-chief, the President of the United States, the extraordinary President of the United States, Joe Biden!!!!"

We now have learned something new, and important, about Kamala Harris. She is an extraordinary individual currently serving not only as Vice President but in combat for the nation. We know that because Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States of America states

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

(The founding fathers loved capital letters.)

Readers of this blog may wonder why I never have anything positive to say about Kamala Harris. But here I unqualifiedly thank her for her service, as many people do for other members of our Armed Services. 

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Privilege vs. Electability

As of 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, there are three camps in the Democratic Party. There are those who will soon disappear, doggedly defending President Biden; individuals, such as Jim Clyburn, who believe that the presidential nomination should be handed on a silver platter to Vice President Kamala Harris; and individuals who believe there should be open competition for the top spot once Joe Biden bows out.

In the latter category are who could be characterized as democratic Democrats. Most clearly representative of this group is longtime U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas. He has it exactly right:

Doggett notes that Joe Biden has been an effective President and that "our overriding consideration must be who has the best hope of saving our democracy from an authoritarian takeover by a criminal and his gang." Having emphasized "too much is at stake to risk a Trump victory," the congressman proceeds logically to "he has the opportunity to encourage a new generation of leaders from whom a nominee can be chosen to unite our country thorough an open, democratic process."

This is, after all, the Democratic Party, which makes ironic to hear voice(s) which believes it should be transformed into the Undemocratic Party:

 

Listening to white folks desperately try to justify not going with the Black woman who has all the campaign money is something else.

Just, real ass showing all around.

— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) July 3, 2024

Leave aside (for now) the race-mongering. In the midst of an occasional insight, it is just something you have to put with in Elie Mystal. More importantly, though a lawyer, he is not a campaign finance attorney nor possessing of any particular credentials in campaign finance law. And despite the highly misleading title of this article, it is not at all clear that Kamala Harris would inherit Biden campaign funds.  Reportedly, the money could be refunded to donors, "who could in turn donate to a new candidate. Further, two experts in the field

noted that if Biden steps aside, the funds could be transferred to a charity or a super PAC, which would not be able to coordinate with the campaign. The funds could also be transferred to the national party.

Campaign finance law is (in)famously complex and arcane. However (or therefore) the bottom line is that no one knows for sure what would become of the funds already collected for the campaign. Practically, that means that the Party could do whatever it wishes. In the worst case scenario, it does what is later deemed illegal and is eventually fined. And no one, aside from perhaps the then-chairperson of the FEC remembers the time in 1993 that

Senator Bob Dole's 1988 campaign for President has agreed to pay more than $120,000 in civil penalties for election law violations, the largest settlement for any Presidential campaign organization, the Federal Election Commission said today.

In the settlement, Dole campaign officials admitted that they had committed several serious violations in raising and spending money for the 1988 presidential primaries.

In an extensive article following Dole's death in December, 2021, The New York Times made no mention of the campaign violation.. Neither did The Washington Post. Few if any people paid attention at the time of the infraction; ditto when the fine was levied, and at the time of his passing, no one noticed, let alone cared about it. 

If privilege is to reign supreme, the Party vey likely could transfer the campaign funds to Kamala Harris. Mystal may be only the first, or close to the first, of well-known individuals to imply that race must be his party's primary concern in choosing someone to replace Joe Biden, and that to overlook her would be racist. (My "leave aside for now" meant only for the moment.) 

Political pundits have understood for many months that the election would turn on whether it is viewed by voters as a choice or a referendum, the latter obviously a welcome scenario for Donald Trump. If Kamala Harris is nominated for President, Mr. Trump would delight in excoriating what would become known as the Biden-Harris administration, an albatross no candidate other than Harris or Biden would have to bear.

In response, the Party should do as Lloyd Doggett suggests and recognize that keeping Donald Trump from returning to the White House is the greatest priority. The shattering of glass ceilings is far less critical, especially now that the US Supreme Court has decided in TRUMP v. United States that the President of the United States of America may assume the powers of a king.

 

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Lies and the Lying Liar Who Tells Them

On Friday, Bill Maher quipped "in case you missed (the Biden-Trump debated), so did one of the contestants."

“I think Democrats are being held to a different standard here.” @MollyJongFast says there’s too much focus on Biden’s debate performance and not on Trump’s egregious lies. pic.twitter.com/IqyxugddMX

— The Weekend on MSNBC (@TheWeekendMSNBC) June 30, 2024

CNN's great Daniel Dale did note that while Biden made at least nine false claims, Trump made more than thirty, including 

his assertions that some Democratic-led states allow babies to be executed after birth, that every legal scholar and everybody in general wanted Roe v. Wade overturned, that there were no terror attacks during his presidency, that Iran didn’t fund terror groups during his presidency, that the US has provided more aid to Ukraine than Europe has, that Biden for years referred to Black people as “super predators,” that Biden is planning to quadruple people’s taxes, that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned down 10,000 National Guard troops for the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, that Americans don’t pay the cost of his tariffs on China and other countries, that Europe accepts no American cars, that he is the president who got the Veterans Choice program through Congress, and that fraud marred the results of the 2020 election."best practice."

Yet it's difficult to focus on lies or other falsehoods because there is no video. Video drives cable news and television news in general because it's, well, visual, viewers like to see it, and interviews and discussions can be packaged around it. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to see it, it still makes a sound. But there is no one to talk about it, and talk about it, and talk about it, and.....

It would make for bad television and a trivial number of social media clicks. By contrast, if someone is videotaped slurring words, unable to complete a thought, speaking incoherently, or looking as if he is barely aware of where he is, people want to see it. Additionally, there is a sort of dog bites man to Trump lying whenever his lips move- it's what he has done for years and it's just another day in the life.

Donald Trump, as usual, rarely made an accurate claim. However, as Maher put it, "Trump told lie after lie after lie. He never would have gotten away with that if Joe Biden was there."

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Dismal Outlook

I don't care much for his sleazy mother. However, this Republican is exactly right:

I don’t think this is true. But even if true, it misses the point: The Biden team wanted and needed this debate to change the direction of the race, BECAUSE HE IS LOSING. He failed. So arguing that “the race hasn’t changed” is not a very powerful argument for keeping Biden https://t.co/cmKGVJHWVS

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) June 30, 2024

Polls this far out from a general election usually are all over the place. Prior to last Thursday's presidential debate, a rough consensus had formed that President Joe Biden trailed Donald J. Trump, though probably within the margin of error. Biden evidently trailed Trump in the vast majority of swing states but not by an insurmountable degree. 

Nonetheless, the fundamentals had swung strongly in the Republican's direction.  Several days after Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts in New York, the Gallup organization conducted a survey of voters' perceptions of the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees for President. The results were not widely covered, yet would have been startling if they had been.

Gallup measured support for Biden vs. support for Trump across six variables, in the first five differentiating among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents:

- whether they were pleased with their party's nominee or they "wish someone else were the nominee";

-whether they have a favorable view of Biden, Trump, and of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.;

- as to agreeing or disagreeing that each of the two major candidates "has the personality and leadership qualities a president should have";

- whether they "agree or disagree with (Donald Trump/Joe Biden) on "the issues that matter most to you";

- whether the candidate's "political views are too conservative, about right, or too liberal";

- as to "how concerned are you that (Joe Biden/Donald Trump) is too old to be president: very concerned, somewhat concerned, not too concerned or not concerned at all."

On every measure- even prior to the 6/27/24 debate- Donald Trump had an advantage over Joe Biden, and not by a little. And we already knew that voters blame Biden for a bad economy which doesn't exist and for a surge in violent crime which hasn't occurred, as well as for the immigration problem.

Joe Biden may still be the nominee and possibly win the election. However, we don't know about the first, the second is unlikely, and if the election were held this week, the result would be an Electoral College blowout. 

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Plan B, If Leaders Have the Courage to Execute It

I see trees of green, Red roses too, I see them bloom

For me and you. And I think to myself, What a wonderful world.

Even Louie Armstrong's songwriters (their lyrics above) wasn't as divorced from reality as this economist, as well as others who want Joe Biden to persevere:

be a huge improvement -- would tear Trump to shreds https://t.co/na8qqsbJCi

— Dean Baker (@DeanBaker13) June 28, 2024

The main task now is to defeat Donald Trump and the Republican Party which adores him and would view his election as confirmation of its obeisance to a candidate who has openly advocated termination of the Constitution. Thanks go to Pete Buttigieg for his service to his country serving in Iraq. However, my guess is that the American people are not yearning to vote for a short, small, gay man. And as a nominee for President, he'd have to answer for the Administration's response- or lack thereof- to the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine.

Also, a white man. The Democratic Party is not going to persuade Biden to throw in the towel and consider an alternative to the sitting Vice President in order to nominate a white male, especially if his name does not rhyme with "Calvin Gruesome." This pertains to a statement about the incumbent President- threat, really- uttered by Democratic strategist Karen Finney, reported last September and which I've quoted several times:

When you had people who were trying to test the waters, the party rose up and made it clear to those individuals — who were mostly white men — that to disrespect the vice president would not be well received by women and people of color within the party. They got a little bit of a smack in the face. 

President Biden now is dead man walking, thus Kamala Harris, dead woman walking. Twisting Joe Biden's arm to persuade him to exit the race no longer would be disrespecting either of them. Joe Biden is concerned about not only the country, but also about the Democratic Party and his own legacy. Continuing with this charade of a race would doom a great many Democrats down ballot and tarnish substantially and irreparably his own legacy.

So, what to do? 

If you're the last ex-President of the Democratic Party, you convene a gathering of party leaders and other possibly influential parties. It should be not very long nor very short and in addition to Barack Obama, probably should include Eric Holder, former Attorney General, now head of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee; Nancy Pelosi, former House Speaker, still a congresswoman and party heavyweight; Nanette Diaz Barragan, head of the Hispanic Congressional Caucus; Representative James Clyburn, who made Joe Biden the 2020 nominee; perhaps Val Demings, formerly both a police chief and US Representative from Florida; and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, because even the Democratic Party needs a white male here and there. One or two of these may balk at being involved and could be replaced by another individual.

The group's major order of business would be to agree upon a viable alternative to Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris, the latter of whom was selected by candidate Biden and who is even less popular (at least until Thursday night) than the President. It must, however, be a package deal, with both a Presidential and Vice Presidential nominee selected.

I'm partial to to the sound of "President Sherrod Brown" or "President Rafael Warnock." However, the latter may not be saleable to the American electorate and the former not saleable to the Party. (See "Finney, Karen" above.) And now is not the time to be stuck on our favorites, nor on the incumbent being the best President of our lifetime, even of those of us who are elderly

Therefore, given the overriding importance of defeating Donald Trump and of electing Democrats throughout the country, would be Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer in the top spot and the young governor of Maryland, Wes Moore, in the bottom spot.

Agreement would have to be reached with those two individuals, contingent on President Biden bowing out. The latter is the easy part; if there is a consensus ticket determined and Joe Biden does not step aside, the Party has a far greater problem than it now appears to have. And I think it very unlikely that under those circumstances, Mr. Biden wouldn't discover that the needs of party and country are greater than his own.

And if he doesn't, we will learn that the Democratic nomination for President is worth about as much as John Nance Gardner reportedly believed the vice-presidency to be: "not worth a bucket of warm spit."

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