Democrats had the weekend to assess the damage done by Presidentish Joe Biden's Jan. 6 speech on Friday and, judging by a new report in The Hill today, the consensus is "Oh, crap."
Much to my drunkblogging chagrin, Donald Trump has chosen to skip the increasingly silly and pointless GOP primary debates and, really, no one can blame him for that. But he's eager to debate Biden, telling Hugh Hewitt last month that he's ready to square off against the alleged current president 10 times.
But according to Alexander Bolton in The Hill, Democrat lawmakers are "leery about the prospect of President Biden debating former President Trump."
Senate Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said "I would think twice about" debating Trump if he were Biden. “I’ve been physically present at one of [Trump’s] debates with Hillary Clinton, and I watched him do outrageous things and say outrageous things. It’s just an opportunity for him to display his extremism.”
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) pointed out Trump's "hateful, fascist remarks" about the unprecedented flood of illegal aliens that's occurred on Biden's watch — as though the opening of our southern border to any and all comers somehow isn't nearly as bad as Trump's perhaps inartful description of it.
That Trump is "refusing to debate any of his primary opponents this time would make a pretty strong case for not dignifying him as a candidate by sharing a debate stage," Coons claimed.
"Privately," Bolton wrote, Democrats "concede they are counting on Trump collapsing under the weight of more than 90 felony charges and his penchant for conflict and outlandish claims turning off women and swing voters."
Biden doesn't have accomplishments; Trump will "collapse."
Biden isn't too old; Trump is too "extreme."
Biden isn't chicken; he just shouldn't have to debate against someone so "outrageous."
From the vantage point of my office high atop Monument Hill on the Front Range, today's Democratic pravda looks like a pleasant distraction from the big story from this weekend, in which the American public learned maybe two minutes after Biden did that his Secretary of Defense has been in the hospital for a week with an undisclosed but "serious medical condition."
My first thought upon seeing the headlines about SecDef Lloyd Austin was, "Well, why should he inform Biden about his 'elective' New Year's Day surgery and subsequent hospital stay? It isn't like Biden is in charge of the Biden administration."
My next thought after reading the details of the story was that we have a major war raging in Europe, an anti-terror campaign in the Gaza Strip that could explode into a regional conflict stretching all the way to Tehran — and an American president who couldn't get his SecDef on the phone because he was laid up in the hospital without telling anyone.
The mind reels. Groucho Marx was more in control of his chain of command as Rufus T. Firefly, newly-installed President of Freedonia.
How could Biden share a debate stage with Trump and merely pretend to look like the damn President of the United States of America — even though he's the incumbent?
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