Ever since Joe Biden’s debate debacle last Thursday, the left has turned into a circular firing squad. This time, it’s not woke “values” coming into conflict; instead, it’s the cacophony of voices talking about Biden’s fitness for the 2024 campaign.
One day, the loudest voices are calling for the Octogenarian-in-Chief to drop out. The next day, all is well and President Plugs and Veneers is fit as a fiddle and ready to slug it out with Donald Trump.
Suddenly, the two camps are at odds with each other. Keisha Lance Bottoms, who inflicted her own Bidenesque reign of terror on Atlanta during her single term as mayor, has called out the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), the city’s only major newspaper, for criticizing Biden and suggesting that he step down. Bottoms calls this “election interference.”
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In an editorial on June 29, the reliably left-wing AJC editorial board suggested that the president step aside as an act of “the courage and dignity that have defined his political career” to “defeat Trump and for the good of the nation.” The editors made this suggestion even while also making the laughable claim that Biden “has shown a greater capacity to tell the truth than his opponent, former President Donald Trump.” (You can stop laughing now.)
Here’s a sample:
Throughout the excruciating 90-minute forum Thursday night, the president failed to convey a competent and coherent vision for the future of America. He failed to outline the most fundamental aspects of his platform. He failed to take credit for the significant accomplishments of his 3½ years in office. And he failed to counter the prevarications of an opponent, who, according to CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale, lied 30 times during the course of the debate, approximately once every 90 seconds of his allotted time.
President Biden’s surrogates attempted to brush off the debate performance. Aides claimed he had a cold. Vice President Kamala Harris argued the leader of the free world should be evaluated on the totality of his presidency, not one night. Former President Barack Obama took to social media and said, “Bad debate nights happen.”
These responses are insulting to the American people.
This wasn’t a bad night; it was confirmation of the worst fears of some of Biden’s most ardent supporters — that after 36 years in the U.S. Senate, eight more as vice president, and a term in the White House, age has finally caught up to him.
Bottoms appeared on MSNBC on Monday to make the audacious claim to interviewer Chris Jansing. In her eyes, saying what politicians across the country were also saying was tantamount to banana republic tactics.
“Let me just say I was very disappointed with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution,” Bottoms told Jansing. “As we have talked about making sure that we’re protecting elections and making sure there’s no undue influence, this was undue influence by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, or an attempt to influence.”
Jansing retorted that the AJC’s editorial board was merely doing its job, but Bottoms pushed back: “Editorial boards are supposed to honor fair elections. I don’t think it’s fair when an editorial board with ten people sitting in a room are trying to influence an election, especially in a state like Georgia where there’s already been discussions about influencing elections.”
Bottoms couldn’t resist a game of whataboutism. She made an apples-to-oranges comparison between Biden’s dreadful debate performance and the lawfare against Trump.
“If you’re going to ask a candidate to step aside, let’s also look at Donald Trump’s record and all of the reasons, including his indictment in Fulton County, trying to influence the secretary of state, his convictions,” she claimed. “Let’s put them side-by-side. I’ll take a 90-minute bad night over the totality of Donald Trump’s presidency any day of the week.”
I have a news flash for you, Keisha. The First Amendment guarantees a free press. That means that the AJC’s editorial board, which you would agree with 99% of the time, can say what it wants about any occupant of the White House. Just because you don’t like what it says doesn’t mean that the paper is trying to exert undue influence on the election.
There are plenty of outlets like this one, Keisha, who are doing our best to make sure that Biden is gone from the White House come January. Does that mean we’re interfering with the election? Absolutely not.
Both sides need to stop throwing the “election interference” canard around. Before long, both Democrats and Republicans are going to become the boy who cried “wolf.” Some real election interference will take place, but no one will believe it.
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