During the interviews, New York Times reporter Charlie Savage writes, "Mr. Biden appeared clearheaded most of the time"—an excellent example of damning with faint praise. Voters who think Biden is "just too old to be an effective president"—nearly three-quarters of them, according to a Times/Siena College poll conducted in late February—are not likely to be reassured by the assessment that he is usually "clearheaded." And Savage also highlights portions of the interviews that do not fit that description. ...

Contrary to the way that Democrats have portrayed his report on Biden, Hur noted during Tuesday's hearing, "I did not 'exonerate' him; that word does not appear in the report." Rather, Hur concluded that there was ample room for reasonable doubt as to whether Biden "willfully" violated the law, including his cooperation in identifying and returning the documents after his lawyers found the first set as well as his generally plausible claims that he either did not know or could not recall how the material ended up in his possession.