Greetings and Salutations;

Today is Sunday, June 30th, four days after the infamous debate. At the END of this post, I have added a Postscript, discussing how the events that motivated the below essay have evolved a bit.

Today, June 27, 2024, the day after the first debate between presidential candidates, I am sorry to say that I am embarrassed and ashamed to be a Liberal Democrat! The last time I felt such shame and embarrassment was when Nixon resigned in disgrace. At that time, I, as were my parents, a Republican..and I had voted for Nixon for his second term.

What has brought me to this dark place in my life? It is the offensive and cowardly way many Democrats are responding to President Biden’s performance in the debate last night. There are a very vocal minority calling for him to step aside, and let a different, younger, candidate run against the mango twatwaffle. They cite his raspy voice, a couple of bouts of low energy, and, momentary aphasia as proof that he is too old and too incompetent to be returned to office.

Now, the Democratic party has always been like a collection of small, citystates, all warring against each other most of the time, but, occasionally pulling together to fight off a common enemy. As Mark Twain said “I do not belong to an organized political party. I am a Democrat.” However today, the party resembles nothing more than a huge collection of “Chicken Littles”, running around, screaming “The sky is falling”. This group is ignoring the reality of what President Biden has accomplished in the last three plus years. HERE is a list of most of these direct accomplishments. In addition, the other countries of the world are not looking at the USA as a rabid, unpredictable animal, as they did during the previous administration. President Biden is the adult in the room, and brings a much needed sense of calmness, and a steady hand on the wheel of the Ship of State.

Too much of the Democratic Party (and the so-called journalists of the media) are focusing on the issues I touched on above. They have not felt it necessary to point out that President Biden came down with a cold just before the debate. While I am sure he was given cough syrup and meds to control the symptoms, I am VERY sure that he likely felt like crap. However, instead of postponing the debate, he stiffened his back, and showed up. yes, his voice was raspy…so is MINE when I get a bad cold. Yes, he had a couple of gaffes where he lost his train of thought, or aphasia kicked in and he struggled to get the best word out. I have the same issues and I am a dozen years younger than he is. If they gave him Robitussin DM, or something similar to help with the cough, the couple of times his train derailed are not a surprise. It works very well at easing the discomfort of the symptoms, but, it can leave a person feeling a bit disconnected. So…SHAME on all of you who are pretending he was in perfect health!

In spite of the physical issues, 99% of the time President Biden listened to the question presented by the moderators, thought about it, and answered with a very rational, evidence based reply. He stood at the podium for a solid 90 minutes, and sounded even more solid the end of the debate than he did at the first question. It is a fact he had a slow start, but again, which of us would have hit the ground running with a bad cold? In many ways, it sounds as if a percentage of the Democrats, who are whining and saying “throw Biden Under the Bus”, are unhappy because he only showed up, and gave a quite adequate, if not fiery, performance! Do they not understand that it is policies that matter, and actions? That a presidential candidate debate is designed to make it easy to compare the policies of the two candidates, and it is NOT a beauty contest? Apparently the answer is “no”. They are saying that Optics are more important than substance…and that is an embarrassment and a shame on the party.

On the other hand, moderators AND CNN served the Mango Twatwaffle very well. From the first word he spoke at the podium, to the last word of his closing presentation, he lied constantly. It is trivial to find, online, analysis of his answers and the vain search for truth in them. Not only did he lie constantly, many folks are claiming he presented a far more vibrant picture of health and intellect than President Biden. This is nonsense. He was able to spew lies out at firehose strength simply because there was no thought involved. He simply dumped the same, tired (and debunked) Lies that he has been spewing since 2015. In addition…he did not, once, answer a direct question by the moderators. I am not sure he even bothered to listen to the questions, as, every answer was mostly an attack on the Democrats and Pres. Biden. I also never heard him say, even once, what achievable policy he would implement to deal with some of the issues they were questioned about. For example…His plan for immigration reform is to scoop up every one who is not a WASP, and deport them.

When I listen to the media discussing yesterday’s debate, I have to wonder how many of them are as gullible as the deep in Cultists. Many of the opinions pushing removing President Biden as a candidate sound like chilling echoes of the lies pushed by the Pumpkin Dictator-wannabe. This lack of cohesiveness and willingness to work together is precisely why the Democrats continually fail to take enough power to keep the Republicans in check. Unless this changes, we shall see how these dems like living in a fascist dictatorship, run by a psycho for whom revenge is the number one priority. Unless this is a really appealing option, I suggest that the Democrats as a whole focus on President Biden’s successes, positive plans, and encouraging actions…and do not fall into the trap of giving the Republic*nts yet more power. Four more years of a Biden presidency will continue the path of healing and return to a good path, and, regaining some of the respect from the other nations lost by the previous administration. Pushing President Biden out will be the worst possible option. Think about this…WHO would replace him on the ticket? VP Harris, while doing an excellent job, is such a focus of misogyny and bigotry that her polling numbers are lower than President Biden. No one else I can think of has the broad knowledge and understanding of domestic and foreign policies that they would be able to step in and do as good a job as President Biden. We have some excellent younger folks coming up, but they all need a bit more experience to achieve enough wisdom to run this elephant of a country and interact wisely with the world’s leaders.

 

Update: I apologize for having such a short fuse that pushed me to write the above essay. I stand behind what I have written, but, it might have been better had I let it brew for a couple of days before I posted. The calls for Biden to be replaced, and, The drumbeat of negativity claiming he totally blew the debate started before the debate ended, and got so widespread that even the BBC and other world media were pushing it. I was amazed that no one saw fit to mention the things that jumped out at me, and this bandwagon DID get on my last nerve. So..let us take a look at a few things that sprang out at me:

1) The announcement by the White House that he had come down with a bad cold. In spite of feeling bad, though, he bucked up, and showed up. I am sure he was on symptom relief medications, like Robitussin DM, Pseudophed, and the like. They work great, but do affect one’s ability to focus a bit. As of Thursday evening, I had heard only one, very passing comment mentioning this…and no discussion on how it might have affected his performance.

2) Many were talking about how he “shuffled out to the Podium” and stood there, mouth agape as if he was lost. If they actually watched what happened, President Biden did take his time, strolling out to the podium. I suspect the meds he took slowed him a bit (I know they do it for ME!) but, then, he also felt no need to hurry. In any case, he WALKED to the podium…he did not, by any stretch of the imagination, “shuffle”.

As for the mouth agape thing…Again, when I was looking at President Biden, it was notable that he had such a look of amazement on his face, it was no wonder his mouth was ajar. He was, I suspect, thinking that the Pumpkin Dictator had been rehearsed enough that there was a chance for him to behave like a rational adult. Obviously, that was impossible, because the 90 minutes was nothing more than a continual spew of the same bull that he has been spraying around since 2015.

3) The difference in the two men’s styles was stark. #45 talked rapidly, and did a great gish gallop. However, his speeches had little or nothing to do with the question actually posed by the moderators. The only time they got him close to answering the question was when they pressed him for an answer for the second time in the segment…And even then, he NEVER answered directly…his replies were a dump of word salad, packed with words weaseling out from the answer he gave.

President Biden, on the other hand, listened to the question, considered it, and provided a quite rational, on point reply. Now, there were a couple of times when he stumbled a bit, and mis-spoke. Watching him in those moments, I felt that he knew the stutter was about to rear its ugly head, and was focused more on keeping it in its box, than exactly what he was saying. Part of the screw up with words likely came from the fact that, as President, he is in the center of a huge crowd of problems, all looking at him, and screaming for attention. I know when I am talking, if I am thinking of a different problem than the one at hand, I am very likely to refer to the OTHER issue, rather than the current issue. And *I* am only 69 years old!

I have been interested to see that, starting on Friday Night, a LOT of people who really crapped on Pres. Biden for his performance were rolling back their criticisms, and, having taken a second look at the debate, are (perhaps grudgingly) admitting that, taking all things into account, he really did not do that bad a job at this artificial beauty contest that televised debates really are. This last point is an important one, and I will likely address it in a separate essay, as this is begging to resemble Proust!

God help us ALL!

Be safe; wear your mask; get vaccinated and boosted and social distance!

Bee Man Dave