We are where we are, and if Joe Biden isn’t the nominee, the Democrats are almost certainly going to go into the deep end and not be seen again for at least two years. Parties often rebuild themselves well after such total-immersion experiences, as the Republicans did after 1964, and the Democrats did after 1972. The sensible Democrats should not imagine that Biden is any world-beater, or that he is likely to win. His launch was a fiasco, beginning with “I was thinking, in my mind . . .” (the usual locus for thinking), and he bobbled the whole question of being overly tactile with women. But at least he didn’t grovel about it and continue his toe-curlingly awful apology tour in the footsteps of Kamala Harris and others. And he didn’t really apologize to Anita Hill. The truth is, Clarence Thomas is a distinguished Supreme Court justice, and the Hill attack on him was as Thomas described it, “a national disgrace . . . a high-tech lynching of an uppity nigger.” Biden’s apology should be to the memory and family of Robert Bork, whom he and Teddy Kennedy defamed unforgivably when he was a candidate for the high court in 1987.
Trump’s policies are forcefully presented, but only a little right of center; Biden is wobbly, but no extremist. With the end of any notion of impeachment (unless the Democrats have an uncontrollable death wish), although there will be great election fireworks, American politics may be inching back toward normalcy at last.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member