A reckless Supreme Court and an oblivious president cast a long shadow over Independence Day celebrations.
The Supreme Court’s decision on Monday expanded presidential immunity, removing the president of the United States from traditional restraints of the rule of law. The decision provided a bleak reminder that a majority of the high court’s nine members did not tell the truth when they stated at their confirmation hearings that no one, including the president, is above the law.
The court ruled in the prosecution of Donald Trump for his role in the January 6 insurrection intended to halt the orderly counting of Electoral College votes that certified Trump’s defeat and Joe Biden’s victory. The 6-3 majority could have issued a narrow ruling on the government’s indictment of Trump. Instead, its confederacy of radicals dressed up as conservatives dismantled nearly every protection we have from an executive with authoritarian instincts. Repairing the damage the Roberts court has inflicted on the nation will take years or even decades, and may be preceded by unprecedented abuses.
The decision came four days after Biden’s calamitous debate performance. If a candidate for governor or Congress or the state legislature were to put on a public display of confusion lapsing into incoherence in a debate, party leaders would intervene before voters delivered a firm rebuke on Election Day.
Biden’s campaign’s post-debate talking points were nonsensical. His defenders claimed after the cataclysm that it is hard to debate a liar spewing his trademark falsehoods. The opposite is true. A candidate who knows his brief and can form full sentences will refute his opponent’s prevarications to great effect.
No amount of renovating changes what we saw for 90 grim minutes. Biden has lived at the highest level of national politics for more than 50 years. This is his fifth campaign for national office. The Delaware Democrat knows how to prepare for a debate. If Biden is not the addlepated alter kaker he appeared to be in Atlanta, he would have told his team of debate coaches he needed to concentrate on themes, not figures.
Those debate pros would have helped Biden if they had reminded him of the difference between COVID and Medicare. One of the many gobsmacking moments of the night came when Biden said he would make “sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the COVID, excuse me, with, um, dealing with everything we have to do with, uh, look, if…we finally beat Medicare.”
Biden might have delivered his answers in Esperanto for all the sense they made. On abortion, Biden said, “There’s a lot of young women are being raped by their in-laws, by their, by their spouses. Brothers and sisters, by — it’s just ridiculous. And they can do nothing about it.” The president’s meanderings were more incomprehensible than ridiculous, and frightening. His explanation of Roe v. Wade would have earned him a failing grade on any law school exam.
Dr. Footlights usually improves a candidate on the night. So does a week of sleep and preparation. What we saw was Biden likely as good as he can be in a sustained unrehearsed event, lost without a teleprompter.
In a nation that disagrees about many urgent issues, Biden has united us on one: 80% of voters agree that he is too old for another four years as president. He is an old 81. As the comic icon Jackie “Moms” Mabley said of one of her fictional husbands, he is oooold. Older than his age. So old he looks like Santa Claus is his son.
Every partisan tool who asks us to ignore what we witnessed inflicts damage on our nation and the aspirations of free people around the world. Biden’s greatest failure was his inability to refute Trump. The loathsome demagogue made it clear once more that he despises America. We are not a failing nation. We are not a third world country. The felon slanders the United States and the people who live in it at every opportunity, and Biden extracts no price. As Biden flailed, Trump defamed Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the great man of our time, and Biden did nothing.
Last weekend, the New York Times added to our collective fear with the news that Biden relies on his son Hunter for advice on the way forward. That is the same Hunter Biden who, his recent trial confirmed, lured his girlfriend and his brother’s widow (that’s one person) into using crack. Whether or not Hunter Biden is in recovery, he possesses depraved instincts and should be far from decisions that will determine the result of this election.
Vice President Kamala Harris will meet the moment. She and her best prospect for a running mate, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, will do what Biden cannot — take the fight to Trump and remind Americans of the perils he embraces.
Kevin Rennie can be reached at kfrennie@yahoo.com
