Joseph R. Biden Jr. faces a potential “go” or “no go” conundrum next week and it has everything to do with the health of the individual he wants to defeat in the presidential election.
Donald Trump is infected with the COVID-19 virus, a potential fatal affliction. He checked into the hospital, then came out. Trump is not nearly “out of the woods,” as his doctors have said.
So here is the issue facing Biden: Does he participate in a joint appearance with Trump if the docs do not declare that Trump is virus-free? My own desire would be for the event to be postponed, or canceled if Trump is not cleared to go.
But this is a complicated matter that depends largely on the credibility of what we are being told by the administration.
Suppose the medical team tells Trump privately that he continues to be infected. Suppose, too, that Trump doesn’t reveal what the docs have said. Is the public supposed to presume that Trump is healthy enough to appear with Biden on a debate stage?
Are we supposed to believe a medical staff fully — which comprises military officers — if it does clear the president who by definition is the commander in chief and who has issued an order to tell us that the president is in the clear? Do these doctors adhere to the order given by the commander in chief?
The White House has zero credibility on these matters. I don’t believe anything that comes from Donald Trump’s mouth, or from any of the political hands who work directly for him.
If the president is still infectious, the session need not occur. Indeed, after witnessing the spectacle that unfolded in the first event, a repeat of that cluster fu** would do no good whatsoever.
Joe Biden says he wants no part of a joint appearance with an opponent who remains highly contagious. Who can blame him?
I am going to suspend reality for a few moments and pretend I am working for a newspaper and that I am going to write an endorsement for president of the United States.
Here is what it would say:
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Americans took a gamble in 2016 when a businessman/TV celebrity became president of the United States.
The gamble did not pay off. Indeed, the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, has been an abject failure as the nation’s chief executive. Accordingly, Americans have a chance in just a few days to make a serious course correction.
They can do so by electing Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president of the United States.
Biden served two successful terms as vice president during the Barack Obama administration. Prior to that he served for 36 years in the U.S. Senate, being elected to the body at the age of 29; he would become old enough to serve by the time he took office.
Joe Biden’s love of country has been on full display for his entire time — nearly 48 years — on the national stage.
He vows to restore our nation’s soul. Biden wants to revive what the late Sen. John McCain — one of Biden’s best friends — used to call “regular order” in the governing process. Donald Trump knows nothing about regular order and the slipshod governance that has resulted has delivered all the proof we need of Trump’s ignorance about government and his inability to learn how it works.
Whereas Trump has spoken directly only to his base of supporters, Biden vows to be president for all Americans. He said at Gettysburg, Pa., just this week that he will be president even for those who vote against him. When has Donald Trump ever pledged such a thing?
Trump has botched the nation’s pandemic response. Biden plans to institute a national policy on Day One of his presidency. He vows to institute a mandatory mask policy on all federal property. Biden promises to fast-track testing nationally and to push Congress to invest in the equipment required to protect all Americans from getting infected.
Biden wants to re-engage our allies. He intends as well to challenge our adversaries, not coddle them the way Trump has done. Biden promises to return to the Paris Climate Accords and to return the United States to the World Health Organization.
Let’s also take note that Joe Biden has chosen a capable, dynamic running mate in U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, who clearly is not the flaming lefty that the Democratic ticket’s foes have sought to portray her.
Biden has experience helping revive a fallen economy. He took on that task by managing the nation’s response to the Great Recession in 2009, the first year of the Obama administration. It succeeded famously. He vows to deploy that experience to revive an economy that has collapsed under the weight of the pandemic.
Joe Biden, lastly, will deliver a sense of empathy and compassion to a grieving nation. We have lost more than 200,000 of our citizens to a killer virus. Donald Trump has been MIA as comforter in chief. Joe Biden has suffered intense personal tragedy already, with the death of his first wife and his young daughter shortly before he took office in the Senate. He feels the pain of those who suffer during this pandemic.
The nation needs that compassion from the president.
Joe Biden isn’t the perfect candidate, but we shouldn’t demand presidential perfection. We should demand — in the context of this election — that we choose someone who knows how government works and who is capable of working across the aisle with those of the other party.
That candidate is Joseph R. Biden Jr. who, with Kamala Harris as his governing partner, can deliver the goods for a nation that has suffered from too much government incompetence.
I guess you could say I have come full circle on this early-voting matter.
There once was a day when I would resist casting my ballot early, fearing that my candidate(s) would do something stupid or possibly illegal between the time I cast my vote and Election Day.
Those days have been plowed asunder over concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. I now am anxious to vote and to vote early.
Texans can begin voting next Tuesday. My wife and I will venture to First Baptist Church in Princeton to cast our ballots. My hope now is simply to cast my vote and to ensure that it is recorded properly in the Collin County election system, which is as high-tech an apparatus as you’ll see anywhere.
Am I concerned about voting in person? Yes, but only a little. We voted at the church in this year’s primary and we were impressed with the care the poll workers took to ensure we were masked up, that kept appropriate “social distance” and that we didn’t touch anything that didn’t relate directly to the act of voting. Through it all the poll workers were spraying every surface they could find with disinfectant.
We are going to have our voices heard no matter what. I guess my preference would have been to vote by mail. We have chosen instead to troop down the street for just a few minutes to vote in person.
We have heard the message from Joe Biden and others who back him: Vote early, either in person or by mail … just be sure to vote.
I am sharing two pictures that showed up on my Facebook page today. They depict two presidents of the United States.
You know who they are.
The guy in the first picture is revered by the evangelical Christian movement. They like Donald Trump’s court appointments. They like his so-called “conservative” values he mouths when he hears them touted by right-wing radio and TV talking heads. The evangelicals give him a pass for the flings about which he has boasted, such as with the young woman pictured with him. Hey, no problem, they say. He’s one of us! Good grief!
The other president served a single term from 1977 to 1981. He teaches a Sunday school class at his church in Plains, Ga. Jimmy Carter also builds houses for poor folks as part of Habitat for Humanity.
The evangelical Christian movement sought actively in the 1980 campaign to deny him a second term as president. They preferred another fellow, Ronald Reagan, whose own commitment to matters of faith had been questioned as well, as he rarely darkened the doors of churches.
Jimmy Carter is the real deal. He just turned 96 years of age. He has battled cancer and has been the target of pundits who claim unfairly that he was a “failed president.”
I do not consider myself an “evangelical,” although I do profess my faith openly and joyfully. Still, I am left to wonder about the priorities of those who stand with a lying, conniving philanderer and who scorn a man who practices the faith in which he is committed deeply.
Donald Trump’s senior team of policy advisers and campaign operatives is dropping like flies to the COVID-19 virus.
To date, 24 of them have tested positive for the killer bug. They include none other than Donald Trump his own self.
How come? Because Trump doesn’t listen to the advice he gets from the experts with whom he has surrounded himself. He doesn’t like masks; he won’t maintain social distance; his policy gurus follow the Old Man’s lead.
Over on Biden’s side, the infection count among senior Biden policy aides and campaign staffers is, um … zero!
No one has been publicly identified as testing positive for the virus. Hmm. Why is that? Oh, wait! It’s because Joe Biden does follow the advice of medical experts. He wears a mask. He practices social distancing. He forgoes big campaign rallies with thousands of cheering Bidenistas.
Vice-presidential political debates always should be deemed critical to a campaign, given that the principals involved are vying to be next in line to the presidency of the United States.
Tonight’s encounter with Sen. Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence has taken on new urgency. I’ll state the obvious reason first: the age of the president and his Democratic Party challenger.
Donald Trump is 74; former VP Joe Biden is 77. I am not being ghoulish in determining that the age of the presidential candidates is a critical part of the VP debate. We need to assess whether either Sen. Harris or VP Pence is ready to become president at a moment’s notice.
We also have this COVID-19 matter. Perhaps you’ve heard, but Donald Trump is infected with a potentially fatal virus. He spent three days in the hospital. He returned to the White House and is continuing to pose an immediate threat to those around him by, um, refusing to wear a mask or observe “social distancing.”
This brings me to an essential question that Harris — or perhaps moderator Susan Page — needs to pose to Pence.
The VP heads the White House coronavirus response task force. Pence needs to answer this question: If you are seeking to stay in office, how is it that you not only have failed to protect Americans — more than 200,000 of whom have died from this disease — but you also failed to protect the president of the United States?
A host of related questions can arise from that. Why haven’t you insisted at Donald Trump observe medical experts’ warnings? Are you leading by example? Is the task force performing a worthwhile function if POTUS is ignoring your advice? How can you defend the president’s conduct when he jeopardizes the health of those around him?
I believe Pence’s record as head of the response task force needs careful examination in tonight’s encounter.
I have long held to my assertion that Donald Trump’s words aren’t worth heeding.
He has shown just today that my belief holds water, that Donald Trump isn’t to be heeded on anything.
Trump has contradicted medical experts regarding COVID-19. He mocked Joe Biden for wearing a mask, then came down with the virus. He went home after just 70 hours at Walter Reed Medical Center and I believe he is spreading the disease as we sit here within the White House.
Then he fired off an astonishing Twitter message that ended White House negotiation with congressional Democrats over a possible coronavirus relief package until after the Nov. 3 election.
There you have it. This man is nuts. Donald Trump cannot be trusted to tell the truth; he cannot speak rationally or reasonably. Trump is out of his mind.
It might be the meds he is taking to combat the COVID-19 virus that has infected him. Trump reportedly is taking steroids, which might have affected his judgment.
Be that as it is, I will continue to ignore anything that flies out of Donald Trump’s pie hole.
Suffice to say that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton doesn’t have quite the same hold on Texas Republicans as, say, Donald J. Trump.
Consider what has happened since seven top Texas AG’s office aides have alleged that Paxton has engaged in activity that abuses the power of his office, including bribery.
The top dogs in the AG’s office have called for a federal investigation into Paxton’s conduct. Gov. Greg Abbott calls the allegations a “serious matter.”
But then U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, an Austin Republican, has called for Paxton to resign his office. Hit the road, Mr. AG, says Roy. Paxton has responded that he isn’t quitting. He calls the allegations phony and vows to fight them for all he’s worth.
I would prefer that Paxton quit. Not because Rep. Chip Roy says so, but because I also believe the allegations are “serious” and they sound credible to me.
It’s not every day that seven top legal minds put their names on a letter alleging behavior that smacks of outright criminality. One of them is the top aide, Jeff Mateer, who quit the attorney general’s office this past week the moment the letter went public.
There’s also the pending trial that Paxton must endure. He is accused of securities fraud. A Collin County grand jury indicted him in 2015, but years of wrangling over where to hold the trial has delayed justice in this case.
I guess the bottom line is that Paxton should quit the AG’s office. How does a state attorney general serve as the state’s top lawyer with an ounce of credibility when he faces the prospect of a federal investigation into whether he took or offered a bribe?
Donald Trump simply couldn’t settle for just being a national security threat by virtue of his behavior regarding the Russians and North Koreans.
Oh, no. He had to become infected with a potentially fatal virus and then flout medical experts’ guidelines and rules about how to conduct himself. He has become a one-man “super spreader” of the disease that is afflicting more than a dozen of his key White House advisers, members of the U.S. Senate, top officers among his military command staff.
Trump returned to the White House on Monday, shucked the mask he was told to wear, stood and offered a stiff salute while gasping for breath, then went into the White House to mingle with staffers and employees. Did he observe “social distancing”? Hah! Not even …
Now he wants to take part in a presidential encounter with the man who appears poised to defeat him Nov. 3, Joe Biden. That will occur on Oct. 15. Maybe!
I am not at all sure it ought to happen, with Biden and Trump standing/sitting on the same stage. Perhaps they could do a “virtual” confrontation, with the adversaries sitting in their own environments. Whatever.
I am simply flabbergasted that Trump continues to offer the happy talk that he “we have done a tremendous job,” that the virus is “under control,” that it will “disappear like a miracle.”
Let me be crystal clear. Donald Trump is not cured of anything. He continues to expose those around him to a potentially fatal disease. He came out of Walter Reed Medical Center prematurely. I do not believe the White House medical staff that expressed “support” for Trump’s decision to leave the hospital; I was struck by the absence of the word “approve” when discussing the decision to exit the medical center.
Trump is a menace. He said he would listen to the medical experts, but hasn’t exhibited any sort of wisdom in heeding his own advice. He is threatening our national security by ignoring the recommendations provided by the medical experts all around him.
He isn’t making America great with his reckless, feckless behavior.
On a day when Donald Trump decided to quit working with Democrats in Congress over a coronavirus relief package — sending the stock market straight into the dumper — Joe Biden delivered a high-minded speech about unity and our national soul on the site of a revered Civil War battlefield.
One of these fellows is campaigning like a winner; the other is acting like an expected loser.
Hmmm. Who is whom?
It looks to me as though Joe Biden’s decision today to speak to our nation’s better angels without once mentioning Donald Trump’s name is the winner here. Trump? Well, he’s looking more desperate with each passing day.
Does this mean Biden should coast during the campaign’s final 28 days? Hardly. It means only that he took time today to forgo a partisan attack and sought instead to speak to our higher ideals.
As for Trump, he wouldn’t know a higher ideal if it bit him on his ample backside. He has no view of what’s noble or good. He deals in invective and innuendo. He campaigned that way en route to victory in 2016 and has governed that way as president.
Trump decided today that he wouldn’t negotiate with congressional Democrats to find a solution to a coronavirus relief bill; he will talk after the election, he said. To what end is this man refusing to talk to the “other party”?
I cannot or will not predict this presages a Biden victory. Trump, after all, faced grim odds before heading down the stretch four years ago against Hillary Clinton … and then he won!
Oh, but I do hope we are thrashing our way out of the darkness.
