"Biden withdrawing or not" becoming like "Chomsky dead or not"

Earlier today, in stories published less than 15 minutes apart, we first had, from the NYT:

Followed by Agence France-Press at Irish site RTE — and with different header and update, apparently via the NYT story, at Barron's:

Well, obviously both of these can't be true.

What we almost certainly have are dueling leakers, whether Biden White House staffers or family, or a mix, hitting dueling outlets, not so much because they're concerned about the future of the Democratic Party, or the future of democracy (dying in darkness along with the Washington Post), but the present of their status as first-tier insiders. This is the classic DC leaking game on steroids.

And, here's why:

Franklin Foer, who chronicled Biden’s first term in a book: “To his closest advisers, Joe Biden is a figure frozen in time…To admit his end is to provoke a crisis in their own professional life. If I’m not whispering in Biden’s ear, then what am I?”

There you go. (From the Counterpunch link below.)

And, yes, it reminded me of the rush to proclaim Chomsky dead two weeks ago, which left at least one alleged Chomsky insider with egg on his face.

Looking under the hood on this one, the NYT does NOT cite White House press spox Karine Jean-Pierre; the AFP does. The NYT cites a "key ally" in the lede; that's someone outside the White House. Probably not Pelosi, as the piece ends with saying they haven't spoken, though that could be a ruse. Schumer's also mentioned, so probably not him but see above. Or Dear Leader. Don't think it's Jill.

AFP does cite KJP for its denial. But then has a "senior Democratic operative" saying, along the lines of cover-ups, it's not the debate, it's the aftermath. Senior Dem operative could be the NYT's "key ally." And, would again make sense as Schumer if the NYT is running a ruse; he's NOT mentioned by name in the AFP article. Or, Dear Leader. Or one of Dear Leader's henchmen, like Axelrod. I don't think, riffing on Counterpunch, that it's Ted Kaufman.

Oh, speaking of Obama, or Obamas? Get a fucking clue and a fucking grip, Blue Anon. Michelle Obama ain't running.

Oh, and speaking of Obamas, Dear Leader side? If he could clear the field for Biden four years ago, by early spring, why couldn't he get Biden to honor the one-term idea and step out, four months ago this spring?

DC media insiders blame others for Biden's lack of imperial clothes

This tweet of mine summarizes where we're at. 

Nepo mommy / DC Media Insider Susan Glasser (& hubby, nepo dad / insider Peter Baker?) ignoring they either knew, or shld have known, abt Dementia Joe's problems long ago & never wrote about it, & now are saying,
"Where were all these folks?"
Hypocrisy alert .@NathanJRobinson https://t.co/Rt1vj7c3t0

— TheRealSocraticGadfly 🍉☢️🌻🌲 (@real_gadfly) July 2, 2024

I want the tweet I was quoting to show up, too, then it's explainer time:

This is such a key point. Where were all these folks when Biden’s decision to run again could have been headed off? When so many took a pass on thinking about the implications of someone asking for a second term that would have him serving to age 86… https://t.co/AHwglJOXyB

— Susan Glasser (@sbg1) July 1, 2024

There we are.

Susan Glasser, per her Twitter bio, is a staff writer for the New Yorker. Hubby Peter Baker is chief White House correspondent for the New York Times. Nepo baby offspring is Theo Baker, who has written for both mom's and dad's sites, as well as The Atlantic and elsewhere. He's a work, a tool, a knob, a piece of shit, and a bigger piece of shit on Zionism issues after Oct. 7, 2023.

And, as screengrabbed by someone else in response to Glasser, here's her running flak for Dementia Joe five months ago:

That's who these people are. And, they're unapologetic about wiping their hands, Pilate-like, while throwing people under the bus, or Roman chariot, or on a cross.

And, journos like Rick Perlstein, who should know better, expect me to not duopoly exit, or to never have done it 24 years ago, per yesterday's post? Really? Or, the likes of Will Bunch salute the Philadelphia Inquirer's call for Trump to resign while pretending Biden's new clothes are still splendiferous?

That said, the non-columnist types like Glasser and Baker will claim we're just here to report, not opine. Yeah? Well, your reporting didn't dig that deep, did it, and that was presumably willful, wasn't it?

The reality?

Tim Alberta gets it, and since he's a blue check with more than 280 words, I'm quoting the whole damn thing, with link here in case I misposted:

Okay folks. This stuff is no longer just nauseating; it's downright dangerous.

Joe Biden limped his way past a fractured 2020 primary field, the party finally coalescing around him because 1) he was the safest pick against an opponent they feared to an existential degree, and 2) his explicit promise to be the “bridge” (wink, wink) to the next generation of Democrats, several of whom flanked him on stage in Detroit as those words left his mouth and interpreted them exactly as Dem primary voters did.

Then he won in November by 43k votes against a spiraling, self-sabotaging incumbent who talked about injecting bleach as the country was falling apart.

Biden’s 2020 campaign was not some strategic masterstroke; there were no tactical or messaging breakthroughs that serve as blueprints for Poli Sci 101 lectures. The guy barely left his house between March and November! Sorry, but squeaking past the Bad News Bears doesn’t make you the ‘27 Yankees.

And yet the people around him have spent 3.5 years hailing the president as some sort of Jedi master: supernaturally tuned to the psyche of the electorate, singularly equipped to govern the country, uniquely able to save democracy from Donald Trump in 2024.

It’s nonsense.

Joe Biden is not Barack Obama. He's not Ronald Reagan. Heck, he's not even Bill Clinton. Spare us the lazy ahistorical comparisons and the romantic underdog narratives.

The truth is, the president is old, unpopular, and trapped by a dilemma of his own making. He picked a vice president in whom he’s lost confidence; is facing an opponent who insults him and his family in ways that his Irish pride can’t get beyond; and has surrounded himself with sycophants who refuse to tell him the truth.

Joe Biden has a distinguished record of public service. He has, in certain important ways, been an effective chief executive. But this mythologizing of the man is an insult to the public’s intelligence—and, in and of itself, a threat to our democratic institutions.

The reason for panic right now isn’t because a bunch of pundits and elites are oblivious to the thinking of regular people; it’s because those regular people always had a hunch the pundits and elites were lying to them about Biden’s capacities and now it’s been confirmed. https://t.co/IOfApjXDYw

— Tim Alberta (@TimAlberta) July 1, 2024

If only others would, too.

Yes, I also ran this yesterday, but, it needs to be read again.

Rick Perlstein fellates Josh Marshall

In his weekend link dump, Kuff fellates American Prospect fellating Zionist Josh Marshall. No, really; the word "Israel" is nowhere in the story. Perlstein also doesn't call Marshall out when he claims his audience is "left-wing," even though Marshall earlier admits that he's hated on the "socialist left." (A left-neoliberal audience is NOT "left-wing," Josh.

He's even more hated on the anti-Zionist left. That, in turn, is a mix of funny/ironic/sad because, in his Twitter feed, Perlstein himself seems at least moderately anti-Zionist, certainly on the current war. I don't know what Josh has written about the war itself, but before it, he was a full-on blank-check Zionist.

So, to riff on Perlstein? Yeah, he's had success, fiscally etc. So has Daily Kos, without Markos bigfooting the site in the foreground anymore.

Has either one had POLITICAL success other than as new font of online #BlueAnon tribalism?

Hell, no.

It's no wonder that Kuff, himself a BlueAnon tribalist who continues to maintain radio silence on Gaza, including Texas' own DPS busting up pro-Palestinian protestors at Texas universities, loved this piece. 

In response on Twitter, Perlstein gave me the old "this is the institutional framework, the duopoly is it" spiel on that. I told him that, as a member of the print media, I mentioned third parties from time to time. On Zionism, he admitted that "others were that bad, too."

As for Perlstein? Sadly, I thought he was better than this. And, I think I'll pass on his latest book when it comes it. It sounds like little more than a suaver Dan. Froomkin.

Philadelphia Inquirer swings and misses on presidential withdrawal editorial

The Inquirer, in a house editorial touted by the likes of its often-good, but BlueAnon, columnist Will Bunch (see here for my take on him as an author, and here for my take on him as specifically BlueAnon as a columnist), and Blue MAGA shiv slinger Yashar Ali (who's been quiet this year, maybe due to his financial problems), in the wake of Joe Biden's catastrophe at last week's debate, called for Donald Trump to withdraw from the Republican nomination contest.

And, that's the whiff.

Large chunks of the GOP, sotto voce, as well as the Never Trumpers who have spoken out, yes, want an alternative. But, pretending that many Democrats don't want an alternative to Biden is the whiff, part one. Why not call for BOTH to resign? 

Or, since you, I and the kitchen sink know that won't happen, why not call for a MASSIVE #DuopolyExit in the general election? That's the even bigger whiff.

I'm not a wingnut, but this is the dictionary entry for why wingnuts call the mainstream media biased.

And, yesterday, Ted Van Dyk at the WSJ got it non-partisanly right: "Biden Should Withdraw and So Should Trump." If you're wondering who he is? He's a Dem insider back to the days of working for Vice President Hubert Humphrey. As an advisor on the Hump's 1968 presidential campaign, he knows how things play out.

To put it bluntly? That Inquirer editorial was written BY BlueAnon FOR BlueAnon.

As for the Ralph Naders of the world pretending that Hillary Clinton was a clusterfuck as a campaigner? Yeah, Wisconsinites know. Does that make Dementia Joe a genius as a campaigner back in 2020?

Hell no. Ralph's a hypocrite:

Oh, to Ralph Nader trying to bag on Democrats?
Fuck you.
You officially jumped in the Joe Biden lesser evilism tank last year .@RalphNader 2/x https://t.co/aegPHOCmgH

— TheRealSocraticGadfly 🍉☢️🌻🌲 (@real_gadfly) July 1, 2024

And, per the next tweet in that thread, Julian Castro knew the reality five years ago.

Tim Alberta gets it, and since he's a blue check with more than 280 words, I'm quoting the whole damn thing, with link here in case I misposted:

Okay folks. This stuff is no longer just nauseating; it's downright dangerous.

Joe Biden limped his way past a fractured 2020 primary field, the party finally coalescing around him because 1) he was the safest pick against an opponent they feared to an existential degree, and 2) his explicit promise to be the “bridge” (wink, wink) to the next generation of Democrats, several of whom flanked him on stage in Detroit as those words left his mouth and interpreted them exactly as Dem primary voters did.

Then he won in November by 43k votes against a spiraling, self-sabotaging incumbent who talked about injecting bleach as the country was falling apart.

Biden’s 2020 campaign was not some strategic masterstroke; there were no tactical or messaging breakthroughs that serve as blueprints for Poli Sci 101 lectures. The guy barely left his house between March and November! Sorry, but squeaking past the Bad News Bears doesn’t make you the ‘27 Yankees.

And yet the people around him have spent 3.5 years hailing the president as some sort of Jedi master: supernaturally tuned to the psyche of the electorate, singularly equipped to govern the country, uniquely able to save democracy from Donald Trump in 2024.

It’s nonsense.

Joe Biden is not Barack Obama. He's not Ronald Reagan. Heck, he's not even Bill Clinton. Spare us the lazy ahistorical comparisons and the romantic underdog narratives.

The truth is, the president is old, unpopular, and trapped by a dilemma of his own making. He picked a vice president in whom he’s lost confidence; is facing an opponent who insults him and his family in ways that his Irish pride can’t get beyond; and has surrounded himself with sycophants who refuse to tell him the truth.

Joe Biden has a distinguished record of public service. He has, in certain important ways, been an effective chief executive. But this mythologizing of the man is an insult to the public’s intelligence—and, in and of itself, a threat to our democratic institutions.

The reason for panic right now isn’t because a bunch of pundits and elites are oblivious to the thinking of regular people; it’s because those regular people always had a hunch the pundits and elites were lying to them about Biden’s capacities and now it’s been confirmed. https://t.co/IOfApjXDYw

— Tim Alberta (@TimAlberta) July 1, 2024

If only others would, too.

The latest word on Thwaites Glacier's dangers

Per Grist, new papers show that the "cork in the bottle stopper" glacier of the Antarctic is being eroded in two different ways.

One is the "grounding line," where Antarctic glaciers move off land and to above the sea. That's being cut back, and also, metaphorically, lubricated better, so a warming glacier flows to sea faster.

The second is tidal pulsing. That's where tides lift the portion of a glacier over the ocean. But, this can also lift the portion back further, over land, and loosen it, and cause effects similar to that of grounding line changes.

And, Thwaites appears extra susceptible to this.