NY Times: How Biden’s Handlers Managed His Obvious Decline

You could say there’s no sense in beating up a guy on the way out, but this is more a case of beating up the people around him.

The story that everyone knew about President Joe Biden’s obvious mental decline is now being told by every news outlet that wouldn’t speak a word for the past four years. Today’s exhibit comes from the New York Times with a comprehensive story about how Biden’s “inner circle” protected a declining president:

The people closest to President Biden were well aware that he had changed. He talked more slowly than he had just a few years before, needed to hoist himself out of his seat in the presidential limousine and walked with a halting gait.

“Your biggest issue is the perception of age,” Mike Donilon, the president’s longtime strategist, told him in mid-2022, according to three close aides who heard it. That bit of feedback, delivered repeatedly by Mr. Donilon, was the sort of blunt talk that did not often make its way to a man who had spent a half century in politics prizing loyalty and deference.

Mr. Biden acknowledged the concerns, but the warnings only ignited his defiant, competitive streak. In April 2023, without convening his family or having long deliberations with aides, he announced he was running again.

If this wasn’t a case of elder abuse, then what is? The man was obviously incapable of running for a second term and everyone, probably including Joe Biden himself, knew it. Still, no one stopped it before things got out of hand. Most notably, First Lady Jill Biden stood by doing nothing to prevent her husband from inevitable embarrassment on the world stage.

Beyond the trivial concerns, what about the image of the United States to our allies and adversaries alike? Did that ever cross the minds of these staffers and handlers clinging to their menial power by shielding Joe Biden from reality? They didn’t care and America paid the price.

Many honest journalists and observers pointed these things out yet the New York Times only now sees fit to print them:

They had Mr. Biden use a teleprompter for even small fund-raisers in private homes, alarming donors, who were asked to provide questions beforehand. They came up with replacing the grand steps that presidents use to board Air Force One with a shorter set that led directly into the belly of the plane. They chastised White House correspondents for coverage of the president’s age. They hand-delivered memos to Mr. Biden describing social media posts the campaign staff had persuaded allies to write that pushed back on negative articles and polls.

The Biden family is screwed up in so many ways. Jill Biden wanted to remain in the White House because she loved the power and luxury it provided her. Hunter Biden, and other family members, wanted to remain influential so they could continue earning money off Joe Biden’s presidency. Other senior aides wanted to protect their hides and remain in power as well.

It was, according to the Times, six key figures involved in the Joe Biden cover-up:

Jill Biden, the first lady, and Hunter Biden, his eldest son, fervently believed in his ability to win. Mr. Donilon and Steve Ricchetti, the counselor to Mr. Biden, knew when and how to deliver information, along with Annie Tomasini, the deputy chief of staff. She and Anthony Bernal, the first lady’s most senior aide, took tight control over the president’s public schedule.

All of them are deeply devoted to Mr. Biden. All are adept at navigating his quick temper. All enjoy proximity to the most powerful office in American politics.

And all were convinced that he was the only one who could beat Mr. Trump.

Maybe they convinced themselves he could beat Trump but no one with half a brain believed that. Since the failed Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021, Joe Biden has been on a down escalator of waning public approval. That was the first sign that this administration was inept, unaccountable, and careless regarding foreign policy. Add to that the continued economic failures of skyrocketing inflation, that Biden never acknowledged, and his fate was sealed by his self-created malaise.

They were all in denial or drunk with power to think that propping Joe up for another presidential campaign was a reasonable idea.

While some of Joe’s decline could be hidden from the American public, our allies were keenly aware from firsthand accounts:

…Mr. Biden pushed his staff to keep him scheduled and busy. As a result, he would at times seem tired and listless, particularly during or after overseas travel. His shaky condition was evident to foreign dignitaries during a trip to Normandy in June for the commemoration of D-Day.

People who were there said he appeared disoriented at events and at times gazed off into the distance. At a state dinner at the Élysée Palace hosted by President Emmanuel Macron of France, a member of the French presidential staff approached an American attendee and asked with concern about Mr. Biden’s health, saying he appeared “dans les vaps” — French slang for “out of it” or “in a fog.” The trip occurred at the same time as Hunter Biden’s trial on a gun charge in Delaware.

It was embarrassing on many fronts and no one ever had an inkling of pulling the plug on Biden’s re-election before it started.

The Times story is detailed and lengthy about the shortcomings Joe’s handlers worked overtime to hide and compensate for. Eventually, in June of last year, after the terrible debate performance, it all caught up with them and there was no hiding it any longer. The media was forced to admit it and Democratic Party leaders no longer could pretend it wasn’t happening. They knew full well that Joe Biden would go down in one of the most lopsided landslide defeats in modern political history if he remained on the ballot.

The real lesson here is that Joe Biden should not have been the nominee in 2020 to begin with. He was already past the time when he had his faculties to serve and conduct all the duties necessary as president. Democrats were so insane in their quest to defeat Donald Trump that they saw him as the only viable path.

Instead, Democrats traded a temporary win putting Biden in the White House for four years to wreck the country, destroy the party, and set off a political realignment toward Donald Trump’s brand of populism that may last for generations to come.