The Super Bowl — America’s biggest sporting event with over one hundred million people watching on TV — is over and my San Francisco 49ers lost.
In Gaza, the carnage continues with no victory insight, as Hamas fights back and as the United States has so far failed to create a cease fire and a beginning of real discussions of the only long-term solution, the creation of two states — Israel and Palestine.
In Ukraine the war also goes on with no end in sight and with rapidly decreasing military resources for the Ukrainians due to lack of support from former president Donald Trump and the Republican Party. It’s possible that, next week, we will see a compromise bill in the Congress with almost one hundred billion dollars in new aid for Ukraine and Israel/Gaza, but it’s not a done deal yet.
In South Carolina over the weekend, Trump’s comments on NATO gave chills among the military alliance’s European members as well as at the White House when he said that he would encourage Russia to attack U.S. allies if they failed to pay their fair share of the defense pact’s costs. At a campaign rally, Trump said he told the president of a big European nation, who had asked him, that, “no, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them (Russia) to do whatever the hell they want.”
“Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the U.S., and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg responded in a statement.
And at the Supreme Court, the nine justices are contemplating several crucial decisions that will decide Trump’s future in politics, but no one knows when those decisions might come.
Credit: Reuters
So it’s not that nothing is going on here in America right now. In fact, there’s a torrent of news, almost without respite, and we really did not need another major story. But we got one, and it hit like a bomb, possibly changing in a fundamental way the presidential election campaign: President Joe Biden’s age.
“Let’s not mince words,” wrote veteran journalist, Jonathan Alter. “There’s no way to minimize the political blow the president sustained on February 8 when Special Counsel Robert Hur spent much of his 345-page report documenting Biden’s brain freezes. While deciding, thank God, not to indict him for his carelessness in handling documents from his time as vice president (unlike Trump, he immediately complied with requests to return them), Hur did offer a devastating eight-word political indictment, concluding that Biden is a “well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”
The fact that Biden, unlike Trump, was totally exonerated was completely lost in the bedlam that resulted from Hur’s words on Biden’s age. Biden, himself, went on counter-attack, supported by Vice President Kamala Harris and a slew of other Democratic leaders, but the genie was out of the bottle and the age-question, up to now only talked about sotto voce, landed with bang on the front pages all over the world.
How Attorney General Merrick Garland could choose Hur, a Republican attorney originally appointed by Trump, to investigate Biden in this matter, has not been fully explained, but that fact, and that Garland let this report go public without comments or edits, has landed Garland in hot waters. Wrote another veteran journalist, Joe Klein:
“Garland chose a Republican hack to investigate Biden. Very judicious, I suppose, very high-minded. But stupid. Garland cannot be trusted in a presidential campaign. He should resign—or be fired—immediately. It would be better if Biden canned him: that, at least, would be decisive.”
Biden is now 81, while Trump turns 78 later this year, — two old men, running for U.S. President. There is nothing at this time that can change that confrontation, barring something unexpected. We’re stuck. Biden and Trump are the choice of the two political parties. No one has challenged Biden among them Democrats, and Trump, in spite of losing three straight elections and in spite of facing 91 criminal indictments, is the Republicans’ choice.
Although both are old, Biden, in public, does seem much older than Trump. He walks gingerly, and every time he appears in public you worry about what he might say, or might not say, forget, or say incorrectly. It’s clear that he has been protected by his staff, carefully controlling and limiting his public appearances, but that now seems likely to change, his cocoon is likely to end.
For Trump it’s a bit different, physically more vigorous, his voice stronger. His misstatements, and lies, are legendary, and they are expected. But somehow, he seems, at least largely, to get a pass in the media — maybe there are just too many lies? — although his recent, ludicrous statement on NATO is a clear exception to this, judging from the big and alarming headlines, and it’s possible that it might actually do him some real political harm.
“The voters’ choice,” wrote columnist Doyle McManus in the Los Angeles Times, “is between two elderly men with poor memories,” but the question is “whose flaws are more dangerous.”
So, here we are, where age has landed in the middle of the American political debate, and Margaret Sullivan, a leading media observer, is reminded of the 2016 election campaign when Hillary Clinton’s emails dominated the political discussion. Yes, she wrote, Biden’s age is a legitimate concern, “but for the media to make this the overarching issue of the campaign is nothing short of journalistic malpractice. That’s especially the case when Trump is poised to take down American democracy.”
Margaret Sullivan's comment is on target. The media and some would-be pundits are distracting the public from the real issues at stake. Is "age" really the ultimate question for deciding who to vote for?
Yes, I agree, she is spot on. I'd hate to see a repeat of the email coverage. Thanks for reading!