Dems left in purgatory as NATO presser neither helps nor hurts case for Biden

Matt Bailey anayalizes President Joe Biden's make-or-break press conference, delivered after the conclusion of the NATO summit in Washington, DC.

TEXT:
President Joe Biden delivered the most consequential press conference in the last several decades. It was make or break. Mr. Biden has been fighting back calls from within his own party to hand the keys to the campaign off to someone more eloquently spoken and, in general, sharper than Mr. Biden’s outward appearance. If he faltered, his candidacy would surely come to an end. Despite his defiance.

To understand the stakes of the NATO-ending briefing, we must understand the developments in the tug-of-war between Democrats that preceded it. On Wednesday July 10th, George Clooney posted a scathing op-ed saying that the Joe Biden who had attended a recent private fundraiser has lost a step and was not the strong candidate he had been in 2020.

Now, We know liberal actors like to cozy up to democratic politicians. Democratic politicians like the panache of being seen with glitzy Hollywood stars. The right does it too, though to a lesser extent. It’s all part of the “celebrity” of politicking in the U.S. So Clooney’s article should be taken with a grain of salt because he’s a movie man, right? Wrong.

Because of his money and stature, Clooney has cultivated close, personal relationships with major democratic players. This includes former President Obama. And as Politico reported Thursday morning, Obama knew of Clooney’s article well before it was published, and did not object to it. This led to more reporting that Mr. Obama is potentially working to stamp out Biden’s campaign from behind the scenes. He is considered more influential among democrats than even the president.

So Biden held a press conference in the shadow of an allegation that Obama undermined a sitting president using a Hollywood star.

But Biden pulled it off. Kinda. Sorta. Not really. The atmosphere in the room was tense as the 46th President went from delivering his post-NATO summit speech on teleprompter to taking questions. And there is a markED shift in his polish as an orator between being on or off-book.

Rather than address concerns about what the public was seeing, President Biden remained defiant. At one point, he refuted a reporter’s claim that he had quote “acknowledged” certain parts of his advancing age. He pushed back, saying he had not. But in a rally right after the June 27th debate, Biden said “I don’t debate as well as I used to.” He also gave a decisive answer about Vice President Harris’ chances at the top of the ticket. Asked if he would step aside if she polled better against Trump, he said no. When asked why he was running, he said to finish what he started.

He did not make any effort to explain away that “bad night with a cold.” Perhaps his team thought doing so would come off like giving excuses, rather than explanation. Show, don’t tell. Biden smartly relied on laying out his foreign policy vision as evidence that his poor debate performance was an anomaly.
There was lengthy, intelligent foreign policy talk that demonstrated he still understands complex global dynamics. But there were also the gaffes. Calling President Trump his vice president for example. Trailing off his thoughts or interrupting himself mid-sentence with “So Anyway,” when he felt he was about to drift out to the cognitive sea.

Are these superficial syntaxical blips? Or signs of a more perilous decline? At a contentious press conference with Karrine Jean - Pierre, she was pressed about a neurosurgeon’s frequent visits to the White House. In the days running up to the NATO presser, there was much bellyaching about the reason for Dr. Kevin Cannard’s at least 8 drop-ins over the past several months. Amidst it all, the public learned something: There are many hundreds or thousands of government workers who qualify to be cared for by the White House’s medical offices.

So benefit of the doubt, right? No one can say for certain the Dr. Cannard was visiting Biden all eight of those times. But there is one thing that seemed to escape reporting: The logs showed that this neurologist signed in to the medical space right below the Residence in the White House. Why is that significant? Because there is a medical center built into the Executive Office Building next door. Would a staffer really feel comfortable being examined mere feet away from POTUS’s living quarters?

For all the build-up, the press conference managed to be very anticlimactic. It did not cause a mass effort to push Biden out of the race. Though donors to a Super PAC threatened to cut off 90 million dollars. And only 3 more democrats called for him to step aside afterward. For some, it demonstrated that despite appearances, he still has the acuity to lead through complex problems. For others, the President still came off as weak, even if he was more articulate than in the past.

Joe Biden had a bar to meet: Competently talk to the media about his vision for the future. Put sentences together in an intelligent manner befitting a sitting president. Here’s the problem: that bar is way too low.

Basic coherence is too low a threshold for the highest office in the land. Sure, Joe Biden might be the most intelligent politician who ever lived. But if he can no longer marry his leadership style to his academic understanding of policy, that is a losing scenario for the democrats. And it's a losing scenario for America.

“But Matt, what about Trump? He word salads all over the place and sounds like a five year old.” I agree. There’s no inner circle trying to insulate Trump from himself. Voters know what they’re getting. It’s naked. Nobody is making excuses for Donald Trump. Is it right for democracy? No. But it’s the more honest approach.

Joe Biden’s press conference created a sort of “chaotic neutral” among democrats on the hill. Purgatory, with many agreeing that Biden can’t recover from this public image crisis, but realizing that as the sitting president who is still doing the job, he is by default making the case that he can do the job. But the anxiety is that letting Joe be Joe might cost them the election.