“Let Biden Prove Himself” Is a Fig Leaf for Inaction
The stereotype about liberal parents is that we’re overly permissive suckers who get railroaded by our kids. “Okay, time to clean up!” we’ll say, immediately before our toddler dumps a bowl of Cincinnati-style chili onto the carpet. Our rejoinder will be weak: “Spilling the chili made Daddy sad,” we’ll say, “but in five minutes it will be time to clean up!” I won’t go through the whole back-and-forth between this hypothetical toddler and his imaginary parent (me), but it involves pleading, bribery, a promised trip to SweetFrog, a puppet show in which Ollie the Owl gets a Skittle for every Lego he puts away, and, ultimately, the dad mumbling “fuck it” and cleaning up the mess.
If You Can’t Communicate, You Can’t Run for President
The spectacle after the spectacle last night was watching Democratic operatives — who are professionals with a job to do — try to spin Biden’s performance. Imagine executives from the Graf Zeppelinworks watching the fiery wreckage of the Hindenburg crash to earth, and then turning to their PR person and saying: “Go out there and tell everyone that the blimp is fine.” That was the task for professional hacks last night. An extra layer of surrealism was added by the fact that some of the people arguing the unarguable were people who might replace Biden on the ticket — Gavin Newsom had to
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