"The question of how to move forward has been well-aired for over a week now," reads a letter sent this morning to congressional Democrats. "And it's time for it to end." The letter makes the firm declaration that Joe Biden will remain in the 2024 race as the Democrat nominee for president, and demands that everyone stop debating alternatives and get back to focusing on Donald Trump.

It's a clear and cogent letter, which prompts the question: who wrote it? Joe Biden apparently signed it, but after the presidential debate almost two weeks ago and every appearance since, authorship remains a fair question. And I'm not the only one asking, either:

BREAKING — New letter from @JoeBiden to congressional democrats. Biden says he’s “committed to staying in this race.”

Members of Congress have already gotten this letter. pic.twitter.com/Fl6XT8hthl

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 8, 2024

The letter does make a strong case for Biden's nomination. For a party that calls itself "Democratic," its members seem blithely uninterested in the fruits of their own democracy, Biden (or someone) scolds:

We had a Democratic nomination process and the voters have spoken clearly and decisively. I received over 14 million votes, 87% of the votes cast across the entire nominating process. I have nearly 3,900 delegates, making me the presumptive nominee of our party by a wide margin.

This was a process open to anyone who wanted to run. Only three people chose to challenge me. One fared so badly that he left the primaries to run as an independent. Another attacked me for being too old and was soundly defeated. The voters of the Democratic Party have voted. They have chosen me to be the nominee of the party.

Do we now just say that this process didn't matter? That the voters don't have a say?

Again, that's a cogent, well-expressed argument. And again, how do we know Joe Biden wrote it? Biden could have delivered this message firmly and coherently at any point over the last twelve days of his political crisis. He arranged an interview with George Stephanopoulos to make this very argument, and couldn't do so coherently or convincingly. For that matter, Biden could have written this letter the day after the debate or the first Monday and delivered this as a speech from the White House.

And yet, it took nearly twelve full days for Biden to come up with this pitch, assuming Biden came up with it at all.

Get ready for plenty of questions about authorship. The New York Times suggests that Democrats will need to see "proof of life" before being convinced by this declaration:

President Biden said in a letter to congressional Democrats on Monday that he is “firmly committed to staying in the race,” a defiant answer to allies on Capitol Hill who have said in recent days that he should drop out. The letter kicks off what could be the most crucial week of his presidency, facing crumbling support from Democratic lawmakers and mounting fears that his defiance could lead to a historic rout by former President Donald J. Trump and his followers in November’s races for the White House and Congress.

Many Democrats are now demanding an immediate political proof of life, but Mr. Biden will be unable to deliver the ramped-up campaign they want as he plays host to the 75th NATO summit in Washington, where large swaths of downtown are already fenced off. Aides have promised an aggressive campaign schedule the week of July 15 — if it’s not too late.

Too late in what sense? If Biden refuses to withdraw, it's already too late. The time to fix this problem was a year ago, before the DNC and the Democrat donor base coalesced to prevent any real primary challenge to Biden. The letter claims victory in the primaries, but that only happened because the DNC and donors made sure Biden didn't have to contest for the nomination again. 

It'd be pretty late in the game, too, for Democrats to attempt a forced removal of Biden from the ticket, which may not even be possible in a legal sense. The DNC needs a virtual roll call vote from delegates before August 7 to meet state ballot deadlines in Ohio and a handful of other states. They had planned to conduct that in mid-July, before Biden's debate catastrophe ruined their efforts to cover up his cognitive decline. If they have to wait until after July 15 to see whether Biden can recover, even the aspirational coup won't have time to work, not even with the Taylor Swift Rescue Plan in place. 

And it's far too late to stuff the dementia genie back in the bottle again. The mainstream media got exposed as co-conspirators in a massive cover-up of Biden's cognitive collapse and have spent the last ten days writing about how they suddenly see signs of it everywhere. Voters are angry over the gaslighting from the DNC and party establishment. Arguments such as Jeh Johnson's claim that it doesn't matter if Biden's non compos mentis as long as his staffers and family run the show are going to land with a wet thud among the victims of this con. 

Unless and until Biden starts making unfiltered, extemporaneous appearances with tough questions in a live environment, it's too late for him and for the Democrats. And it's too late for them to do anything about it if Biden remains this determined to remain in the race ... or perhaps better put, if the letter writer(s) remain this determined to keep Biden in the race.