Should America elect a well intentioned but hapless President or an evil and dangerous President?

In the last couple of days there has been concerning news come out of the US of A. The Republican appointed to investigate the legality of Joe Biden’s retention of official records has concluded that he should not be charged.

The justification is important.

The investigator, Robert Hur, who is a Republican, has concluded that Biden wilfully retained classified documents but that he was “well-intentioned, but sometimes hapless and forgetful” and that a prosecution was not justified because “at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.

This is the most startling and damaging attack by someone in a nominally independent position since former FBI Director James Comey announced that the FBI was reopening an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails and whether they involved the unlawful removal and retention of classified documents eleven days before the 2016 Presidential election. That event is considered to be one of the reasons that Donald Trump won that election.

Biden has responded by claiming that Hur is wrong. From Radio New Zealand:

The White House on Friday blasted a report from a Department of Justice special counsel that suggested President Joe Biden was suffering memory lapses, and Vice President Kamala Harris called the report “clearly politically motivated”.

The report from Special Counsel Robert Hur, a former US attorney in Maryland during Republican Donald Trump’s administration, has prompted an election-year brawl and renewed questions about Biden’s advanced age. This week Biden, 81, mixed up the names of several world leaders.

Ian Sams, spokesperson for the White House legal counsel’s office, joined press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in the White House briefing room to criticize Hur’s report and raise questions about his motivation.

Hur said in a report released on Thursday that he chose not to bring criminal charges following a 15-month investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents because the president cooperated.

Hur said Biden would be difficult to convict and described him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” who was not able to recall to investigators when his son, Beau Biden, died.

“We don’t think that part of the report lives in reality,” Jean-Pierre said.

“We just reject that this is true,” Sams said.

Harris rushed to Biden’s defence when asked about the issue after a White House appearance.

“The way that the president’s demeanour in that report was characterised could not be more wrong on the facts and [is] clearly politically motivated,” she said, according to a pool report.

The right are rejoicing in the news. On the left there is some questioning of Hur’s background and motivation.

Trump himself has problems with his memory. He recently confused Nancy Pelosi with Nikki Hayley, said that Hungarian leader Viktor Orban was the leader of Turkey, famously said that the current leader of the US is Barak Obama.

Dana Milbank has this fascinating description of Trump at a recent meeting:

I went to Trump’s rally on Saturday night in Manchester, where he didn’t address the Haley-Pelosi mix-up but assured his supporters that he “took a cognitive test” and “I aced it.” He has previously boasted of his ability to identify an image of a “whale” on said assessment, but, as The Post’s Ashley Parker and Dan Diamond pointed out, there is no such marine mammal on any version of the test. (Maybe he was being “sarcastic” about the whale, too.) But I listened carefully to Trump that night — no easy feat because he went on for 100 minutes — and noticed that, even though his text was fed to him through a teleprompter, he told many of the same stories over and over again, repeating some lines almost word for word in the same speech, with no apparent awareness that he had done so.

Unlike so much of what Trump does, his memory lapses aren’t disqualifying — only hypocritical. Trump routinely calls President Biden, 81, “cognitively impaired,” but the 77-year-old Trump seems also to have lost a step. He mangles names and words — a visiting foreign dignitary becomes a “foreign dignity” — and occasionally just talks nonsense.

Many in the news media don’t make much of this; while they focus on Biden’s mental acuity, in Trump’s case they rightly focus more on his authoritarian outbursts and gratuitous racism. Last week, for example, he bastardized Haley’s Indian name and falsely suggested she’s disqualified from the presidency because her parents weren’t citizens.

In fairness, the Trump of four and eight years ago was also plenty erratic. But a closer look at his public performances — his courtroom outbursts and on the stump — suggests the very stable genius is off his game. He’s propped up by a very professional campaign, which he didn’t have before, and more insulated from questions and spontaneous exchanges. Yet he’s still saying and doing the sort of things that, had Biden done them, Republicans would cry: dementia!

Trump has other problems. He is facing multiple charges relating to attempts to overthrow the Presidential and Georgia election result and possession of classified documents as well as falsifying business records, there are sustained court applications to remove him from the ballot for insurrection, and he has just lost a defamation law suit to E Jean Carroll for calling her a liar when she accused him of sexual assault.

You would think that in normal times any of these events would rule out any chance of him being elected President. But the polls are already neck and neck.

And apart from Biden’s cognition issues he has some pretty solid achievements. The US economy has added 13 million jobs during his tenure, growth is strong and ahead of the rest of the Western World, inflation is down as is debt.

In a country where culture wars dominate and whole communities with deeply held Christian beliefs can think of Trump as some sort of saviour rational discussions about the merits of governance do not count.

The election is still 9 months away. There must be a chance that through health or legal issues one or both candidates will drop out. The rest of the world will be watching events intently.

30 comments on “Should America elect a well intentioned but hapless President or an evil and dangerous President? ”

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bwaghorn 1

11 February 2024 at 10:04 am

Neither should be the answer,

Belladonna 2

11 February 2024 at 11:45 am

“well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” who was not able to recall to investigators when his son, Beau Biden, died.

This quote reads as code for 'early stages of dementia'.

The issue for the Democrats seems to be – Can only Biden beat Trump?

If the answer is 'no' (and I can't see why it would be 'yes' – assuming that they settle on another middle-of-the-road candidate) – then surely they can come up with a better option. Of course, that would require Biden to take one for the team (as Andrew Little did for Labour in 2017) – and that seems entirely foreign to the intellectual make-up of American politicians.

Ghostwhowalks 2.1

11 February 2024 at 12:50 pm

Who is this 'they'

The party hierachy dont chose the President or very many other elected offices US partys have a system of primaries where the VOTERS choose for their party candidate for the general election.

It seems its a simple … 'name recognition' matters most.

Belladonna 2.1.1

11 February 2024 at 2:30 pm

If you don't think that the party hierarchy choose the candidates …. then I have a bridge to sell you.
VOTERS get to choose from the limited range of candidates who are on the ballot paper.
It requires deep pockets (and substantial name recognition) to even get on the ballot.

If you think that Biden is the only candidate that the Democrats could possibly field – it doesn't say much for the party.

Ghostwhowalks 2.1.1.1

11 February 2024 at 5:10 pm

Limited range ?

No evidence for your claims, and individuals choose to go on the primaries not the DNC

yes you need deep pockets , but its an expensive country for elections with 50 states who each have their own primary or similar

heres the 2024 South carolina Democratic primary candidates and votes – Biden had 96%

https://www.thegreenpapers.com/P24/SC-D#0203

As hes a sitting president the contenders are much weaker /smaller field

However heres 2019 SC primary where there were 12 candidates incl Biden who got 48% but 260,000 votes – much more than this year.

https://www.thegreenpapers.com/P20/SC-D

Candidate	Pop Vote	%
Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr.	262,336	48.65%
Bernard "Bernie" Sanders	106,605	19.77%
Thomas Fahr "Tom" Steyer	61,140	11.34%
Peter Paul Montgomery "Pete" Buttigieg	44,217	8.20%
Elizabeth Ann Warren	38,120	7.07%
Amy Jean Klobuchar	16,900	3.13%
Tulsi Gabbard	6,813	1.26%
Andrew Yang	1,069	0.20%
Michael Farrand Bennet	765	0.14%
Cory Anthony Booker	658	0.12%
John Kevin Delaney	352	0.07%
Deval Laurdine Patrick	288	0.05%
Total

Wheres this "limited range of candidates " in 2019 you claim. Bernie was there too , and came second.

I call it bunkum as the facts dont support the Democratic party limiting the candidates ( other than the massive effort to run multiple state wide campaigns in primaries over 3-4 months )

South carolina is about same population as NZ

The internet – if you bother to dig deeper than just reading mass media headlines and memes – will provide plenty of details of how the system really works.

Green papers is a great start for the nitty gritty

You would think Taylor Swift was running , but news is a commodity and they want eyeballs on stories no matter the absurdity

Belladonna 2.1.1.1.1

12 February 2024 at 9:30 am

A cursory search of the main news sites – makes it very clear that the process is 'democratic' in name only. The parties (Repub as well as Dem) consistently manipulate the process to get the candidate 'they' want (God only knows why it's Biden). Trump has popularity levels from outside the party – and can, to a large extent, over-ride the party – this is outstandingly rare in US politics.

Political parties have significant legal power to shape their nominating processes, with states often deferring to party leaders to pick the candidates that appear on ballots or decide whether to hold a nominating process at all.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/22/democrats-biden-democracy-primary/

I think you are confusing theory with reality.
- Ghostwhowalks 2.1.1.1.1.1
  
  12 February 2024 at 10:07 am
  
  Plenty of people run for President outside the two party system
  
  Again in 2020 for South Carolina ballot paper with Libertarian, Green and Alliance party candidates running.
  
  Showing your claim is invalid
  
  'VOTERS get to choose from the limited range of candidates who are on the ballot paper.It requires deep pockets (and substantial name recognition) to even get on the ballot."
  
  For the main parties yes , but join a small party as the ballot paper for South Carolina shows
  
  https://www.thegreenpapers.com/G20/SC
  
  Then there is California ballot paper , where 'write ins' are allowed as well as a larger list of independent parties
  
  https://www.thegreenpapers.com/G20/CA
  
  with Green , Libertarian, American Independent,peace and Freedm 3rd parties plus 5 write in candidates
  
  The facts back my claims ,while your theory doesnt. Do you even realise how much it costs to run a sucessful candidate for MP in just one electorate in NZ .
  
  Like I said SC is roughly the same population as NZ and had a choice of 3 parties outside the main 2 . California with almost 10 x our population had even more choices.
  
  Wheres the factual basis for your claims
  - Ghostwhowalks …
    
    12 February 2024 at 10:19 am
    
    Something happened to my edit , but I added
    
    'Alongside Rashida Tlaib, Alexander Ocasio-Cortez was the first female member of the Democratic Socialists of America elected to serve in Congress" Wikipedia
    
    remember the US is a very conservative country by NZ standards

Obtrectator 3

11 February 2024 at 11:46 am

Thought I'd throw in a little statistic. Next year, in theory, it's possible for someone born since the fall of the Berlin Wall to become US President. But there still hasn't been one born after the thing went up!!

Ghostwhowalks 3.1

11 February 2024 at 12:46 pm

Close by a few days

Barack Obama born Aug 4 1961

Wall was erected on night of 12-13 Aug 1961

Mike Smith 4

11 February 2024 at 12:37 pm

Lee Siegel has an excoriating piece on Biden and Trump in the New Statesman.

Far from being the embodiment of stable and stabilising American values, Biden is the hologram president – a fabricated mirage of American idealism and strength.

Postmodern Trump, on the other hand, has become the analogue answer to the disorienting misery of simulacra. His very lewdness, vulgarity, viciousness, mendacity, is, to many, a breath of fresh air. Ecce homo! At the very least, a human being. Unlike distracted, confused Biden, Trump is fixated, intense, obsessive.

He asks where are the media, and what is happening to America's youth?

It is a conundrum alright. You look in vain for the editorial writers to shame Biden into stepping aside, to tell the truth about the reality of an increasingly incompetent president. You search futilely for some comedian’s devastating impersonation of Biden. But the liberal media, who at the height of cancel culture showed themselves capable of destroying their own at will, are nowhere to be found. Yet all it would take is to point out how Biden, the great saviour of democracy, is holding a gun to its head by not stepping aside, either by opening the door to a second Trump presidency, or by putting the country itself into grave peril.

There will, for sure, be a reckoning at the polls. The fact is that behind the woke turn is a generational conflict. What is really the bane of every young person? Deindustrialisation? Racism? Sexism? Inequality? Inequity? No. Statins. The older generation simply will not step aside. Soon, the veils of idealistic cant about domestic policy and foreign policy will fall away from Biden and he will be seen as the grotesquerie that he is. A dilapidated old man aping the sentiments and values of idealistic youth even as he steps on their dreams and their futures. The backlash, on the part of young people who feel obstructed and betrayed, will be furious.

But Biden is indisputably the man of his moment. Like the president, America has its own memory lapses. The country has forgotten what it was like to act in unison, beyond narrow self-interest, for the good of all. Enter Biden who, seemingly loosing his memory, is now, like the society of immediate gratification that he presides over, the plaything of scattered impulses and sensations. A man entirely of the vanishing present.

The real failure in my view is the US political system, captive to money since Citizens United and unable to. move beyond the corrupt two-party monopoly.

Ad 4.1

11 February 2024 at 2:29 pm

The real morons who have lost their memory are the ones who can't recall Biden's achievements.

And achievement is really the point of politics.
SPC 4.2

11 February 2024 at 10:21 pm

The failure to act in unison, is a function of the Tea Party and worse since in the GOP.

It's voter base incline to white race nativism fascism is the road not taken in the 1930's. But it is one they have chosen now – in large part because of the southern strategy of the 1970's – Moral Majority – ticked all of the Catholic Church boxes – including faith based provider welfare reform and control of SCOTUS (and made some of the laity of the church its own political opponents – typified by the comment that Pelosi would not get communion because she was going to hell, metaphorically JFK would have turned over in his grave).

Biden merely personifies that the 1789 USA of 1932 is dying.

While the GOP protests illegal immigration and need for southern border security, it becomes more like regimes of the continent than ever before in its history. Hispanic machismo posturing of a Mussolini/Bavarian dry drunk in the aging New World, the junta milieu malaise.

The American people have the capacity to form a new political party, Obama’s fundraising demonstrated that.

Ghostwhowalks 5

11 February 2024 at 12:43 pm

Trump has said countless times "I dont recall" in legal depositions.

Even once famously he couldnt recall saying he had one of the best memories

Even before Biden was VP 15 years bac, he would stumble over words ( he has a stutter problem) and remember falsely

On the tape, Biden was responding to a question from the audience about his law school record.

"I think I probably have a much higher IQ than youdo, I suspect," he began and went on to rattle off a litany of substantiating facts: He went to law school on a "full academic scholarship," he graduated in the "top half" of his class and he graduated from college with "three degrees."

The problem was, most of his supporting facts weren't. He didn't receive a full scholarship to law school, he graduated 76th out of 85 in his law school class and he only earned one bachelor's degree (with a double major).

The bigger issue is candidates with little top level political experience.
Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump
Biden is far far over qualified in comparison

Mike Smith 6

11 February 2024 at 12:58 pm

the US is not a democracy, it's a gerontocratic, oligarchic plutocracy.

Ghostwhowalks 6.1

11 February 2024 at 1:17 pm

You are probably this demographic too, so who are you calling 'gerontocratic'

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/07/12/demographic-profiles-of-republican-and-democratic-voters/pp_2023-07-12_validated-voters_3-04/

64% of voters are now 50 plus

adam 7

11 February 2024 at 1:09 pm

Elder abuse.

If the need is to keep trump out, then Biden is not the answer.

Ghostwhowalks 7.1

11 February 2024 at 1:21 pm

Bidens been there and done that . Unfortunately for you and them Bidens going to romp home in the primaries. he would only pull out if those voters werent backing him.

The too old part came when Biden was Obamas VP, now the electorate is too old as well. Blame the boomers

barry 8

11 February 2024 at 2:21 pm

The majority of the electorate in the US have already made up their minds. the election will be decided by who doesn't vote.

Trump voters don't seem to care what he does, or how he behaves, and losing court cases, or getting bad press just confirms their opinion that the machine is against them. So long as he is breathing he will get their vote.

OTOH a lot of Biden voters are wondering if they can be bothered, and this sort of things is likely to affect their motivation. So it could be very influential. Biden needs to look like a president to win.

Belladonna 8.1

11 February 2024 at 2:33 pm

Not to mention the independents – who (generalizing wildly here) dislike Biden but dislike Trump more. If they come out and vote – then we'll see a repeat of the mid-term elections of 22 – where the Democrats won, despite the prediction of a Republican tidal wave (not even a ripple).

Ad 9

11 February 2024 at 2:26 pm

Age is really the only vector Republicans have to attack Biden properly.

What Trump never delivered, that 80-year-old President Biden has delivered, would put our Labour Party's 2017-2023 sitting to shame:

– Expanded refugee admissions to 125,000

– Cancelled the student debt of nearly 3.6 million Americans

– Massively expanded the Obamacare health insurance system

– Protected more US lands and waters than at any time since Kennedy

– Sustained support for Taiwan as a democratic country against a threatening and autocratic Xi Jinping.

– With the American Rescue Plan, cured the US of COVID and rescued the economy

– Put the United States on course for net-zero emissions by 2050, and re-joined the Paris climate accords

– Completely reversed US manufacturing reliance on China, and brought huge volumes of manufacturing jobs back

– Stood with the United Auto Workers on the picket line

– Sustained massive economic growth, and super-low unemployment

– United Europe and many other countries to support Ukraine's self-defence against the Russian invasion

– Sustained support for NATO, got out of Afghanistan, and continued to protect all the world's key shipping lanes on which New Zealand completely relies

joe90 9.1

11 February 2024 at 3:07 pm
- Stacked the National Labour Relations Board with union-friendly allies.
- Extended mandatory overtime pay to millions of workers.
- Loosened federal restrictions on weed.
- Cracked down on onerous overdraft rates, bank fees and discriminatory mortgage lending.
- Legislated to reduce greenhouse gases, provided support for green power sources including billions for new programs and tax incentives to boost non-fossil fuel tech.
- Improved women's access to reproductive health services and made OTC oral contraceptives available without a prescription.
etc

etc

https://twitter.com/What46HasDone/status/1484311526580584451

https://whatbidenhasdone.wordpress.com/
- Ad 9.1.1
  
  11 February 2024 at 3:12 pm
  
  What I would have given to have seen Ardern front up on an E Tu picket line.
SPC 9.2

11 February 2024 at 10:49 pm

– Completely reversed US manufacturing reliance on China, and brought huge volumes of manufacturing jobs back

Common policy with the GOP/Trump

– Sustained support for Taiwan as a democratic country against a threatening and autocratic Xi Jinping.

Conflict with Russia, China and Iran at the same time is not strategically sound. Nixon went to China to win the Cold War.

got out of Afghanistan,

Common policy with Trump. Abandoning the human rights of the women of Afghanistan as not part of a forever war is nothing to be proud about. The aid to the mujahadeen in the 1980's was part of the Cold War and they paid the price then – they were owed.
Macro 9.3

12 February 2024 at 11:17 am

Advanced women's rights

First female VP

First indigenous female secretary for Native Affairs

to name just a few women appointed to top positions in the administration.

But I think the election will be determined by the underlying factors of Abortion and the Supreme Court. Any sensible american would not let Trump anywhere near influencing those two factors again. It's what determined the outcome of the 2022 elections where the repugnants faired far worse than they had hoped. Their incomprehensible continued backing of the recalcitrant Trump will see them suffer a similar fate in Nov.

Sanctuary 10

11 February 2024 at 7:56 pm

It is difficult on the one hand for the Democrat establishment to paint Trump as an urgent existential threat to democracy and on the other nominate a visibly doddery 81 year old man with a 38% approval rating that 75% of Americans think is too old without giving anyone else a chance simply because that is how it's always been done. Like it or not, Biden's age is a huge issue for the American electorate. His unopposed reelection is further evidence of the decadence of the US political establishment.

And as Chippy found out the hard way, running on a platform of not being as awful as the other lot does not win elections.

Mike the Lefty 11

11 February 2024 at 8:43 pm

It would be great to have a strong third contender of the calibre of a young Bernie Sanders or Ralph Nader, but it's wishful thinking.

Americans would vote in Lucifer as president if he told them what they wanted to hear and believe.

SPC 12

11 February 2024 at 10:41 pm

Obviously Biden should do an evaluation of his health – to dismiss the dementia narrative. And so should Trump.

In fact there is a case that all of those in Congress, federal judiciary and SCOTUS over 75 should do the same as a matter of course.

But they probably need a test to screen out sociopaths/psychopaths more (orange face – wants to have a tan to look less like a fat old man, without aging the skin or looking like a “coloured” person).

A physical fitness test or IQ test of course would be unfair, a lot of Americans are fat and stupid.

Ghostwhowalks 12.1

12 February 2024 at 4:31 pm

Agree . if theres a reason for 35 being the minimum age for a President, then there should be a max age of 75 for all elected and appointed