I agree. Almost nobody disagrees, apparently. Even Vice President Kamala Harris in after the debate conceded that Biden “got off to a slow start.”
Here’s a hint of what Scarborough likes about Biden:
[H]e couldn’t even respond effectively on the issue of abortion, where for some reason, he darted wildly to the issue of immigration. And on immigration, as I said yesterday morning, any Democrat that can’t turn to their Republican opponent and blast them for killing the strongest, toughest border bill in the history of America, drafted by a rightwing Senator from Oklahoma, may not be up to the job. [my emphasis]Scarborough is part of the MSNBC commentariat, who have been pushing hard on the liberal-democracy-vs.-authoritarianism theme and stressing how that is the central, most important issue of the election. And they’re right. But that is broad framing in an election campaign. And the Democrats have to “operationalize” it into specific issues to engage voters with it. Most Trump voters are in favor of “democracy,” though for hardcore Trumpista insurrectionists, that mean a Herrenvolk democracy for white people.
For the radical right in the Europe and the US, anti-immigrant xenophobia is a key rallying point. The political history of countries including Britain, France, and Italy over the last decade has shown that when center-right parties have pandered to that issue hoping to take support from the far right, it actually tends to reinforce it the far right, since they have identified themselves so strongly with that issue.
But for NeverTrumper Republicans like Scarborough (he switched his registration in Independent in 2017), Biden’s adopting the radical right’s stance by backing “the strongest, toughest border bill in the history of America, drafted by a rightwing Senator from Oklahoma” is a key reason to admire him.
I would like to be able to say that Biden is getting a bad rap on his performance last night and that he actually came across well in many ways. But this reminds me of a column from decades ago from a famous etiquette columnist, Judith Martin, aka, Miss Manners. She had a humorous, satirical style.
I searched for a link to my favorite column of hers from the 1980s that was my single favorite. Although, I have to say that Google’s Gemini AI not only tells me it can’t find it but that I might have just made it up in my head. But ChatGPT tells me it was a column of October 27, 1988. (So, bite me, Gemini!) But I’m sad to report that the Washington Post’s online indexing system apparently uses legacy/pre-ChatGPT technology, so I haven’t been able to find the actual column yet.
In that story, a reader asked her what the correct etiquette is when you’re at a party and the hostess trips and her face fall right into the punchbowl. Should one say something or just ignore it? Miss Manners advice was that one should ignore it only if it is common to see hostesses falling face first into the punch bowl.
That’s how I feel about Biden’s debate performance. I have no doubt that he is a more capable President than Trump, who routinely says false and crazy things while Biden stutters and occasionally looks his age of 81. Admittedly, he’s not a young guy like China’s Xi Jinping, who just celebrated his 71st birthday.
Still, I think Miss Manners would say that it’s appropriate to recognize that he really came off badly in yesterday’s debate against Trump. (2) Though no punch bowl was involved.
I wrote earlier about a column by Digby Parton describing Trump’s “reality TV” version of Trump’s political persona. It turned out to be a good prep for last night. Trump really has constructed an alternative entertainment sphere that his followers are willing to accept as a version of reality. Unfortunately, for most people the results of his actual policies and actions as President are the opposite of beneficial.
So it’s appropriate to refer here to Digby’s own analysis of Thursday evening’s Biden crackup:
I don't know what was wrong with Joe Biden. It's hard to imagine that they ever would have asked for a debate if this was the way he is normally. We've seen him recently holding press conferences and giving speeches and he seemed to be fine. They said he had a cold so maybe he really was on drugs — Nyquil or Mucinex or something that made him seem so shaky and frail. Whatever it was, it was a terrible debate for him and if he does stay in the race (which is almost certain in my opinion) the campaign is going to have a lot of work to do to dig out of the hole that was dug last night. The media smells blood and they are circling like a bunch of starved piranhas. If this goes as these things often do, the public may have a very different take than the insiders today. Still, the media narrative could change public consensus over the course of the next few days. (3)And not having the presiding journalists fact-check obvious and serious misstatements and lies did not work out well:
Actually, CNN inadvertently became one of the greatest disseminators of disinformation in American political history. Millions of people heard Donald Trump's lies and since they were met with silence from the journalists on the stage upon whom people depend to tell them the facts, many of them probably came away believing he must have been telling the truth.
Jessica Valenti calls out a particularly important case:
We knew [Trump] would lie, and we knew he would claim that Democrats want to kill newborn babies—because that’s what he’s been saying on the campaign trail. So why, then, didn’t the moderators step in and fact-check him? This is not about getting a number wrong or exaggerating some political accomplishment; he told a lie that puts abortion providers’ lives in danger.
Apparently CNN decided that the role of moderators last night was to keep moving ahead and not live fact-check—they left that for the post-debate conversation and coverage. BBC U.S. Special Correspondent Katty Kay put it best:
“Fact checkers on line are working very hard…But without the lies being called out in real time, the public doesn't know what's true and what isn't.” [Katty Kur quote]That means that we needed Biden to play the role of fact-checker, and point out the absurdity of his lies—especially on abortion, which should have been the president’s strongest issue of the night. That’s what was so disappointing about the abortion exchange: the question about Roe was a gift to Biden. It should have been the easiest question of the debate, and he should have had a powerful, emotional soundbite at the ready.
Instead, Biden said one or two garbled sentences about six week bans before pivoting to immigration and talking about a young woman who was murdered. [my emphasis in bold] (4)
Notes:
(1) Joe: We know Joe Biden can govern, but can he run for president in 2024? MSNBC YouTube channel 06/28/2024. <https://youtu.be/BWwhNR14Cgg?si=pvo272VOupfGcY7Y> (Accessed: 2024-28-06).
(2) For the record, this was what ChatGPT told me. But LLMs (large language models) like Gemini and ChatGPT aren’t really able to do fact-checking in the way that legacy human brains do.
“Miss Manners, the pen name of Judith Martin, addressed the humorous anecdote of a hostess' face falling into a punch bowl in her column on October 27, 1988. This column, known for its witty and insightful take on etiquette, provided readers with an amusing yet instructional story, exemplifying Miss Manners' unique style of blending humor with social guidance.”(3) Parton, Heather Digby (2024): CNN's debate was no fair fight. Salon 06/28/2024. <https://www.salon.com/2024/06/28/cnns-debate-was-no-fair-fight/> (Accessed: 2024-06-2024).
(4) Valenti, Jessica (2024): Debate Nightmare. Abortion, Every Day 06/28/2024. <https://jessica.substack.com/p/debate-nightmare> (Accessed: 2024-06-2024).
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