Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

The willow is too close to the house.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Come on, man.

The National Guard is not Batman.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Books are my comfort food!

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Giving up is unforgivable.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House" / Hunter Biden Is Not Holding Back

Reader Interactions

86Comments

  1. 1.

    Josie

    Thank you for front paging this. He is definitely his father’s son, and that is a very good thing.

  3. 3.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    I had to look up a “handle” of vodka.

    Based on his statement and the latest (albeit patchy) stats on vodka consumption in Russia, he was doubling that…and that was already awfully high.

    Addiction is a bitch.  I’ve seen close friends lose children to it in various forms.

  8. 8.

    kindness

    Yow!  I saw this the other day but didn’t bother to look up how much a handle is.  A handle is a 1.75 liter bottle.  That’s a lot of vodka to be drinking in a day.  Damn.  I liked drinking, especially when I was younger.  Thank the FSM I didn’t like it that much.

  9. 9.

    NotMax

    @, href=”https://balloon-juice.com/2025/07/26/hunter-biden-is-not-holding-back/#comment-9668888″>comrade scotts agenda of rage

    Trivia:

    Assload and buttload are actual units of measurement.

    …a large cask used for liquids (esp. beer, wine, or water) or a specific unit of liquid measurement equivalent to 108 imperial gallons,…. So yes, a buttload is a whole lot of liquid and it’s very specific.

    :)

  13. 13.

    Anne Laurie

    Interesting Hunter Biden critique, from a hater:

    Finally, a Democrat Who Could Shine on Joe Rogan’s Show

    Should be a gift link.…

  17. 17.

    Cliosfanboy

    @John Cole: We’re all glad you chose recovery. We’d all miss you if you were not here.

     

    But then, there’d be no “here,” would there??

  18. 18.

    Elizabelle

    @Anne Laurie:  Does not seem to be a gift link, and article not available yet on archive.ph

    Anything to not just be talking about alcohol and measurements in this thread.

  27. 27.

    bjacques

    @rikyrah: all the real rebels are on CBS.

    I’m most of the way through the Hunter Biden interview; I’ve been watching/listening in the background while working the last few days. It’s a balm for this jackal soul, especially the f-bombs.

  28. 28.

    prostratedragon

    @rikyrah:

    Along those lines, Joyce Vance, “Rewriting History”. There’s to be a new subcommittee, with subpoena power, formed after the recess to prove that all of 🤡’s problems are from a treasonous Democratic conspiracy led by Obama.

    Keep those Epsteins rollin’!

  31. 31.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud: I am totally allergic to podcasts and long-form interviews, but I devoured this one. I learned a lot.

  33. 33.

    chemiclord

    @Anne Laurie: I remain wholly skeptical that the winning path for Democrats going forward is to even partially emulate the behaviors and personality defects of Republicans.

    It’s simply not the winning move that the “Fight, Damn You!” caucus wants it to be.  It’s how… well… you get fucking demagogue authoritarians, no matter where on the political spectrum they ostensibly claim to start from.

  35. 35.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @rikyrah: In other words, a goddamned commissar. Or to put it in language the First Felon’s masters would understand, a stukach.

  39. 39.

    chemiclord

    @schrodingers_cat: ​
    One of humanity’s most critical failings is our almost pathological desire to judge the messenger before processing the message. Two people can say the exact same things, and the visceral reaction comes entirely from who the person who said it was.

    One example I could think of was two separate posts on Bluesky about the Big Beautful Bill, one from AOC, and one from Hakeem Jeffries. They damn near said the same thing word for word, and the response on AOC’s post was fawning admiration, “we are not worthy of your radiance” worship. Jeffries was told to STFU, stop making posts and fight, that he was worthless, etc.

    On another example, I am completely unimpressed with Hunter Biden’s interview. He’s not saying anything particularly novel, he’s not particularly taking any responsibility for his fuckups, yet people who should fucking know better than to buy his snake oil are happily lapping it up because he knows how to tug a few heartstrings. Hell, the article Anne links in this thread even goes, “Yeah, he takes no responsibility for his actions, and if this were some MAGAt, I’d think he’s a complete piece of shit, but I like his tone, so… hey, bygones be bygones, am i rite?”

  41. 41.

    zhena gogolia

    @chemiclord: He “tugged my heartstrings” by telling the truth about a few things I haven’t heard truths told about.

    I’m not an admirer of his, but I appreciated the candor.

  42. 42.

    Scout211

    @chemiclord: One of humanity’s most critical failings is our almost pathological desire to judge the messenger before processing the message. Two people can say the exact same things, and the visceral reaction comes entirely from who the person who said it was.

    You’ll likely get pushback on this, but I agree with you. In fact, Fox News has been capitalizing on this very notion for decades.

    I would add that once a person is perceived negatively, changing  that perception is very difficult, if not impossible.

    ETA: clarity

  43. 43.

    Lobo

    I trust people who have been through the hard knocks of life more than the silver spoon representatives.  Biden is my anger translator and I would trust him far more than others.  That’s why some of our more effective representatives right now are minorities or those who have faced hardship.

  44. 44.

    twbrandt

    James Talarico, a Texas democrat, was on Rogan’s podcast and did a terrific job. This is a series of clips from that interview (I would never subject you lovely people to three hours of Rogan) that is worth your time I think.

  45. 45.

    schrodingers_cat

    @zhena gogolia: Agreed. Hunter Biden is saying things that need to be said. They go against the dominant media narrative. They are representative of many rank and file Democrats like me.  He is giving those of us who are told by the media and many people on this site even to STFU, a voice.

    That’s why it is important, because some people even on our side will listen to something only when a white man says it or writes about it.

    I mean look at the reception you got and the response this post is getting, many times from the same commenters.

  46. 46.

    Scout211

    @Lobo: That’s why some of our more effective representatives right now are minorities or those who have faced hardship.

    I agree with you.  They are very effective.  But that effectiveness is only with a segment of the party. We have many different types of voters and many don’t think like commenters here.   And in purple districts, those effective speakers’s messages may not be popular with the majority of the voters there.

    We keep discounting a segment of our voters in district that are swing districts when they don’t think like we think or vote like we vote.  So when our congressperson’s messages in those districts are not what we want to hear, we discount the congressperson.

    My words here won’t change anything, but I just wish we could see the big picture more often.  We need to get the majority back, even with representatives we don’t like or leadership we don’t like.

  47. 47.

    Lobo

    @Scout211: I totally agree.  I have lived in red states and you go with what the area will stand.  It’s not a one size fits all.  Like many issues it is an “and” not an “or”.

  48. 48.

    Elizabelle

    I think it would be great to revisit the Hunter Biden interview in a few days, once more of us have had time to listen and think on it.  (Open thread material!)

    For those like myself who are stupid enough to still scan the FTF Vichy NY Times website:  it is astonishing how blatantly the headlines slander Democrats for being weak and unpopular, but they say it even more viciously.

    Fuck AG Sulzberger and editor Joseph Kahn.  May Satan call them home soon, too.

  49. 49.

    Suzanne

    @Baud: So I’m being subtweeted here, in a typically dishonest way.

    On yesterday’s thread, a commenter (not Zhena) said at #132:

    I see some here are still upset about Joe Biden dropping out and whom to blame.  I’m curious…are you blaming people because Trump won?  Because after that debate, there was no way Biden was going to win.  Now I love Joe Biden.  He was great in almost every office he held.  But the MSM had sharpened their knives and had them out for Joe because that is exactly what the MSM does to Democratic presidents.  Joe wasn’t going to beat Trump.  Age clearly had caught up with him.  Substituting Kamala was our best chance.  It was racism and misogyny that killed Kamala (with that same MSM’s help).

    I responded directly to them immediately below by saying “I see you chose violence today.”

    A third commenter asked at #238 what I meant by that, and I responded:

    We’ve been asked — months ago — to stop beating the decayed, stinking corpse of the horse that is the topic of Biden leaving the race. It brings a ton of heat and very little light. Yet some cannot release it. So at this point, in internet parlance, bringing it up again is “choosing violence”.

    Others also expressed the wish to not discuss this topic, as it’s been discussed to death.

    This has nothing to do with Zhena and never did. I never addressed her, no one was talking about the Hunter Biden interview (which is indeed newsworthy), and, Zhena, I apologize directly and sincerely if you interpreted my words as being addressed at you. That was not my intent.

    Now, resuming my policy of ignoring high school mean girl instigating behavior.

  50. 50.

    Elizabelle

    I see John took out some initial paragraphs that had jackals discussing alcohol and a term of measurement.  Good.  Talk about a distraction.

  51. 51.

    zhena gogolia

    @Suzanne: Thanks for the apology.

    ETA: But I do reserve the right to discuss any topic when new information arises, which I believe was the case with this interview — the context of Clooney’s intervention.

  52. 52.

    zhena gogolia

    Joe Biden’s place in history is still being contested, witness Jake Tapper’s book. Tapper and others are trying to paint Biden as an arrogant, selfish pol who didn’t have the best interests of the country at heart. I refuse and will continue to refuse that interpretation of Joe Biden.

  54. 54.

    Suzanne

    @zhena gogolia: I think that’s reasonable. Context matters,

    I think that other commenter did a bit of a bomb drop to be inflammatory. I, as well as some other commenters, expressed that it’s not helpful.

  56. 56.

    Another Scott

    @chemiclord: @Scout211:

    It really depends, I think. Our brains have evolved to jump to conclusions (to keep us from being eaten by leopards hiding in trees). Sometimes it is a useful skill, sometimes it isn’t.

    Counterpoint – (repost) DeLong reposts dsquared’s One Minute MBA:

    Fibbers’ forecasts are worthless. Case after miserable case after bloody case we went through, I tell you, all of which had this moral. Not only that people who want a project will tend to make inaccurate projections about the possible outcomes of that project, but about the futility of attempts to “shade” downward a fundamentally dishonest set of predictions. If you have doubts about the integrity of a forecaster, you can’t use their forecasts at all. Not even as a “starting point”. By the way, I would just love to get hold of a few of the quantitative numbers from documents prepared to support the war and give them a quick run through Benford’s Law.

    Application to Iraq This was how I decided that it was worth staking a bit of credibility on the strong claim that absolutely no material WMD capacity would be found, rather than “some” or “some but not enough to justify a war” or even “some derisory but not immaterial capacity, like a few mobile biological weapons labs”. My reasoning was that Powell, Bush, Straw, etc, were clearly making false claims and therefore ought to be discounted completely, and that there were actually very few people who knew a bit about Iraq but were not fatally compromised in this manner who were making the WMD claim. Meanwhile, there were people like Scott Ritter and Andrew Wilkie who, whatever other faults they might or might not have had, did not appear to have told any provable lies on this subject and were therefore not compromised.

    Some messengers deserve to be discounted based on their history. (I personally may carry that too far – I avoid RW commentary and news sources unless there’s no alternative (e.g. TheHill). Life is too short, my day is too full, to spend much time considering arguments from 47’s enablers. That said, I’m glad others are keeping an eye on them – but it’s not for me.)

    FWIW.

    Eyes on the prizes! We’ve got elections to win!!

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  57. 57.

    schrodingers_cat

    Since there is a direct personal attack on me in this thread, I will say this in my defense.

    There is a reason I don’t interact with certain personalities (its more than one handle, btw). They have made unsubstantiated personal attacks against me, said the nastiest shit and been hailed as valued commenters by frontpagers. The message it sends is loud and clear. I have to protect myself because a frontpager is not going to do that on my behalf.

    This goes way before Biden dropped out of the race, years before. And  I have never made personal attacks against these handles myself, only disagreed with them on issues. So that’s all I will say about it.

    ETA: I will continue defending Biden’s record and stand up for what I believe in.

  58. 58.

    Eyeroller

    @zhena gogolia: I thought I read somewhere that Jake Tapper admitted that he “hates” Democrats.  Did I imagine this? Or perhaps it was harsher than what he actually said since I didn’t see the original source and was relying on a secondhard report?  Even if he has a “distaste” for Democrats, that should disqualify him as a political reporter, much less as an “objective” author of a book about somebody he clearly dislikes.

    I obsess a lot over mainstream media but I think they are a major source of our ills.  Not just Fox, the FTFNYT, CNN, the broadcast networks, etc.

    In the case of Biden in particular, the coverage, never particularly positive, turned sharply negative everywhere at the time of the Afghanistan withdrawal and was relentless ever after that.

  59. 59.

    Elizabelle

    @Eyeroller:  I hope Peter Baker and Mrs. Peter Baker (Susan Glasser of The New Yorker) rot in hell, and soon, for their Afghanistan “coverage.”

    Sadly, their son has already won a major journalism award, before graduating college.  We are stuck with another journo nepo baby.

  60. 60.

    chemiclord

    @Another Scott: It’s the “based on their history” that’s the problem.  Sometimes (hell, I’d argue most of the time) we dismiss people for largely bullshit reasons.  Like, Kamala Harris’s laugh, or the contents of Nancy Pelosi’s freezer, or that AOC got a little frustrated that she lost a committee position to an old white guy battling cancer, or that a certain politician doesn’t word a rebuke in exactly the right way.

    I find most of the inter-party sniping of that vein.  Unless you’re a Manchin who comes from a +40 GOP lean state, this coalition is in a lot of agreement; and we self-destructively take massive umbrage on the relatively little daylight that exists.  Fuck, even on the widest gap issue we have (Gaza), I’d bet if we actually stopped shouting at each other, we’d mostly be in agreement on that, outside of the instigators that are actively and intentionally fanning the flames.

  63. 63.

    ruckus

    @Lobo:

    Humans that get everything handed to them are often rather useless because the only thing they normally know is being handed everything. Now they won’t think they are useless, most humans will think they must be great because they got handed everything. Survival is still a concept of living beings, even if one has to actually accomplish nothing to survive. Now most humans have to at least due minimal actual work of some type to accomplish living. Was true  when caves were home and is true when buildings are home, it’s just a tad easier and more comfortable now.

  64. 64.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Another Scott: the only Republicans I can stand to read without grinding my teeth are Tom Nichols and Rick Wilson. I also wind up reading IP Watchdog for professional reasons, although it has a very strong business Republican bias, and sometimes I am tempted to slap them upside the head (depending on who wrote the particular article).

    IP law has weird political alliances, though, as Hawley (R) and Blumenthal (D) are sponsoring an anti-AI bill at this point (due to the massive copyright infringement by the generative AI industry)

  65. 65.

    ruckus

    @Scout211:

    Good points.

    It is seldom that someone is held in the same regard by everyone. Because that’s not really humanity. We vary widely it what we see, what we believe and what we do with what we see and what we believe. I was a mental health counselor for a few years, part time and the differences between patients could be amazing. We are humans, we often see the same situation entirely different, we understand (or not) things and people from our individual  perspectives. We are human and while we may see something the same as (many?) others, that’s not how it always works.

  66. 66.

    PeteS

    Stick with this one. Somewhere around the one-hour mark he really gets going. Three hours plus is a lot but I have paused at almost halfway and will return. Yes, he sounds like his dad quite often, they share some verbal mannerisms. But Hunter is not running for office and he lets loose. Good for him!

  67. 67.

    Martin

    @Anyway: It was. We’ve had several discussions of it already. My take hasn’t changed – Hunter is a perfectly reasonable person and I don’t disagree with many of his takes, and yet nobody in his inner circle including the actual President of the United States had any agency whatsoever and were ruthlessly fucked over by literally everyone else. Just this whopper:

    “I’ll tell you what, I know exactly what happened in that debate. He flew around the world, basically, and the mileage that he could have flown around the world three times. He’s 81 years old. He’s tired as shit. They give him Ambien to be able to sleep. He gets up on stage and he looks like he’s a deer in the headlights. And it feeds into every fucking story that anybody wants to tell,”

    1. If you’re tired as shit, why do you need Ambien to help you sleep.
    2. That trip ended June 15, the debate was June 27. You can’t recover from a trip in 12 days?

    That story doesn’t make sense. It’s an excuse, I’m sorry. Isn’t the most charitable answer here that Joe was unknowingly fighting stage 4 cancer which we know causes fatigue, memory loss and mood changes in people? I’m pretty sure any of us with stage 4 cancer wouldn’t be remotely at the top of our game.

    The problem is that the most charitable answer is also one that suggests that Biden shouldn’t have been the candidate, because he had stage 4 cancer and Hunter is in no universe going to accept that Joe shouldn’t have been the candidate, and so we’re getting this blame everyone else tour. Do I think the consultants suck? Yeah, I agree with him. Do I think the media was out to get him? To some degree yeah, I agree with that. I don’t totally agree because there is now reporting that the people in the WH saw Joes performance falling off way back even in 2020 in a ‘good day, bad day’ kind of sense and a lot of journalists saw that off camera and saw how Joe was on some days being managed in a suspicious way. In hindsight their reporting on that doesn’t seem particularly unfair. There were issues with Biden’s health that the staff were trying to cover and we didn’t want to hear that. I don’t really think that can be denied any longer.

    Since Hunter is unable to be objective here, how much of what he’s saying can we trust, or are we just confirming our own views?   I think people are again getting too personality invested here.

  70. 70.

    divF

    @chemiclord: I’m try to teach a whole new generation the phrase, “narcissism of small differences.” I find that it speaks to many of them.

  71. 71.

    Another Scott

    @Martin: Your #2.

    TheHill.com:

    “What happened in the 10 days before his debate, and what were the White House staff thinking? He went to Europe and back twice and then he went to California once and he was 80 years old,” [Bill Clinton] continued. “What the heck is he doing that for? Why was that allowed to happen? So there’s a lot of questions.”

    Thirteen days before the debate last year, Biden returned from a trip to Italy for the Group of Seven (G7) summit on June 14, six days before heading to Camp David. Prior to the G7, the former president had a loaded schedule in France for the 80th commemoration of D-Day.

    “I wasn’t very smart. I decided to travel around the world a couple of times … shortly before the debate,” Biden said at the time, apologizing for his debate performance while talking to donors at a fundraiser about a week after the event. “I didn’t listen to my staff … and then I almost fell asleep on stage.”

    Deadline:

    Biden traveled earlier in June to Normandy, France for D-Day anniversary celebrations from June 4-9. He returned to the United States, then traveled back to Europe for the G7 summit in Italy from June 13-15. He flew from there to Los Angeles for a fundraiser. He traveled to Camp David, the presidential retreat, on June 20, and he remained there for a week which included debate preparation.

    Biden had a brutal travel schedule, and it was a mistake to do that before the debate. Politico says he had a bad cold and could hardly speak 2 days before the debate as well.

    FWIW.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  72. 72.

    Another Scott

    @zhena gogolia: I just finished it this afternoon.  He’s a sensible guy who has suffered a lot, but also learned a lot of good lessons.  He’s a strong advocate.

    Don’t know if I’ll watch the next episode (in his garage in California), but agreed that this was well worth watching in full.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  73. 73.

    Anyway

    @Another Scott: I’d never heard of the interviewer or “Channel 6”. Found it interesting that the HB interview was on a decidedly-outside-the-mainstream outfit

    ETA – I watched the clips, didn’t make it through the whole thing.

  74. 74.

    tam1MI

    @schrodingers_cat:  Hunter Biden is saying things that need to be said. They go against the dominant media narrative. They are representative of many rank and file Democrats like me.  He is giving those of us who are told by the media and many people on this site even to STFU, a voice.

    It must be driving the likes of Jake Tapper insane that the interview has garned approximately 3 million and rising views.  That’s more people, by orders of magnitude, that bought Tapper’s pathetic little book.

    Hunter’s interview, and the reaction to it, are shattering the media’s precious narrative that “everybody” hated Joe Biden and “everybody” wanted him gone.  For that alone, he should be commended.

    (And get him his own podcast already!)

  75. 75.

    Martin

    @Another Scott: Right, but your defense is also an indictment:

    “What happened in the 10 days before his debate, and what were the White House staff thinking? He went to Europe and back twice and then he went to California once and he was 80 years old,” [Bill Clinton] continued. “What the heck is he doing that for? Why was that allowed to happen? So there’s a lot of questions.”

    If the job is to go to Europe and California and then prepare for a debate, ‘he was 80 years old’ is not a defense, but an indictment. Bill Clinton in that defense is saying Biden was too old to do the job.

    You cannot scale the job of the leader of the free world down to your preferred candidate. The whole point of democracy and of the task of the party is to find the person who is best capable and qualified to do the job. Biden is not entitled to that job – nobody is, not Biden, not Trump, not Obama, and not the offspring or spouse of any of these people either. Clinton here is saying that Biden is entitled to a smaller version of the job on account of his age. Sorry, but no. And that’s not ageism – if 80 year old Biden can do all of that, then fine, he’s capable and qualified. Clinton is out there admitting that he’s not capable and blaming his age for that.

    And I think the real problem here is that trip to California for the fundraiser on June 15 (again, 12 days before). That’s when the donors started to worry because Biden was reportedly really struggling at that fundraiser and then 12 days later he looks no better in the debate. They could wave off one of those being having a bad day or the other, but not both. The ‘good day/bad day’ Biden that was being rumored about was shifting into the bad days being more frequent. Clinton knows this. He knows the fundraiser was a problem and I think he’s trying to blame the staff for that – but it was a $28M fundraiser, and the campaign needed the money. Of course the campaign took him to that.

    And we keep getting this ‘he had a cold’. Ok. You know what else he had? Fucking stage 4 cancer. You don’t think THAT played a role in his energy levels, his balance, his memory – all of which can be affected by cancer? And there is no shame in having these problems when you have cancer, or having these problem just by virtue of the fact that you’re 80. We seem to have arrived at a point where Biden’s defenders are acting as though there is some shame or moral failing in having these struggles by denying them so strongly, like the parent who refuses to accept their kid has a disability because they see that disability as a personal failing. None of his defenders ever bring up the cancer as an excuse for why he had a bad night because unlike a cold, if the public knew he had stage 4 cancer, there’s no fucking way they would have voted for him on that alone. And his defenders know this, and so it cannot be mentioned because their argument would fall apart as soon as soon as they did.

  76. 76.

    Martin

    @tam1MI: Hunter’s interview, and the reaction to it, are shattering the media’s precious narrative that “everybody” hated Joe Biden and “everybody” wanted him gone.  For that alone, he should be commended.

    Nobody actually said that though. That’s you projecting. I don’t recall any Democrats ever saying they hated Biden. I certainly don’t. I don’t recall a single person here who thought he should step down suggesting they hated Biden – in fact, my recollection was that always came with a great deal of praise for what he had done, and that it was just an unfortunate circumstance. After Biden dropped out wasn’t there a huge hagiographic effect around him by the party? Did I hallucinate all of those tributes to him at the convention?

    Here’s polling from August 2023, so 10 months before the debate and months before the primaries started.

    77% of Democrats 18-44 thought Biden was too old to run for president. 62% of Democrats 45+ thought Biden was too old to run for president. Here’s a big warning to the party:

    Despite widespread apprehension about Biden’s age among younger Democrats, 77% say they will at least probably vote for him if he is the Democratic party’s nominee, although only 28% indicate they will definitely do so.

    Only 28% of Democrats 18-44 will definitely vote for Biden, and 43% of all Dems. Note, this is before Oct 7, before any shit around Israel policy and uncommitted and all that, etc. and the party ran into the primary knowing that a majority of Democrats weren’t sure they’d vote for Biden in the general if he was the nominee and 18% said they’d probably or definitely would not support him in the general.

    That’s a long way out, and there are no stakes 16 months before an election so you would expect those voters to tighten up behind the candidate, but the media’s narrative that voters were skeptical of his age and ability to do the job wasn’t pulled out of their ass – it was what democratic voters were telling them, that the party was building on some awfully soft ground. And a lot of people simply would not hear it.

  77. 77.

    Another Scott

    @Martin: You keep bringing up the cancer, as if it were somehow being hidden from us.  I don’t think it was being hidden from us – I think he and they didn’t know.

    (If you haven’t seen the whole Hunter Biden interview on “Channel 5”, it’s worth the time.)

    My bringing up his travel wasn’t an excuse for his age, it’s more of a sign of his strength no matter his age.  But even very strong people need time to recover.  Those of us who have traveled internationally know how tiring it can be.  Heck, just traveling 3 time zones can be tiring.  But, whatever.  (I’m remembering that in one part of the campaign he (or Harris, can’t swear which) had events in 15 different cities in 12 days.  Just brutal – how anyone at any age can do that is a bit amazing to me…)

    I don’t think that Biden was “entitled” to re-election.  I think he did a great job and would have gotten my vote were he on the November ballot.  Anybody But Trump was the correct choice in November 2024…

    Biden had a brutal travel schedule, one that probably only HRC in her prime (at age 62) could have easily matched.  He’s a tough dude and probably would have been fine if he hadn’t also gotten sick with a cold.

    But counter-factuals are fun.

    FWIW.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  78. 78.

    Geminid

    @Another Scott: The counterfactual that grabs me: what if the Biden campaign had not agreed to an early debate, and gone the typical three-debates-in-the-Fall route?

  79. 79.

    Another Scott

    @Geminid: Or if Clooney had written his OpEd in July 2023 rather than July 2024, or if Bibi hadn’t won the election and re-taken the Prime Minister’s seat in December 2022, or …??

    One thing I think many forget about Biden’s term was that the legislative and other accomplishments didn’t come all at once, or all in the first 100 days – there were continuing battles to get things done.  Nobody knows how successful a lame-duck Biden would have been in getting his signature legislation, fighting COVID and supporting public health, rallying support for Ukraine, getting a Black woman on the SCOTUS, etc., etc., done.

    Every decision has consequences….

    Thanks.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  80. 80.

    Geminid

    @Another Scott: Yes, of Biden’s four major bills, the first was the ARA passed in February, 2021. The Infrastructure bill passed in November, 2021 (shoulda been April but that’s a whole other story).

    The CHIPS+ bill passed July of 2022, and the IRA passed in August. Congressional Democrsts showed good discipline in pushing these through with a five-vote House majority and a 50-50 Senate.

  81. 81.

    Martin

    @Another Scott: Every fucking time I bring up the cancer I make a point to say ‘unbeknownst to Biden’. We didn’t know. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t know.

    But now we do know. We don’t need to continue to defend our beliefs at the time, we have new knowledge. We can now, knowing what we know, go back and reevaluate things. If you are inclined to defend the ability of 80 year olds to do challenging jobs, you don’t need to do that any longer – a 50 year old with stage 4 cancer probably would have struggled as well.

    But Hunter doesn’t seem to be willing to do that. He’s not wiling to accept that maybe his dad was struggling because of the cancer. No, it’s the consultants and the media and the Pod Saves guys and George Clooney.

    One of the problems I have with the way we discuss a lot of things in democratic politics is that it’s almost all heat and no light, and Hunter provides very little light. He has a perspective that is worth considering and factoring into the entire body of data, and yeah, that’s gotta include Jake Tappers book – you don’t get to pick and choose.

    I’ve said before that I agree with a number of Hunter’s takes here, but he’s also not a disinterested source – I mean he got WAY more personal investment in his narrative than Jake Tapper does. So I think Hunter has some solid observations and I think he’s also lying to himself. Both can and often are true. Everyone lies to themselves some of the time. I’m not interested in putting him or anyone else in the party in a good guy/bad guy bucket, because that’s not helpful.

    I think the lesson here is that a LOT of people in the administration, in the party, around here, etc. really, really like Joe, and really, really wanted him to be okay (as I did as well) and engaged in a lot of magical thinking until it couldn’t hold and Democratic voters kind of paid the price for that. There was no conspiracy or ill intent, just a lot of inability to step back, remember all this is in service to voters, and to do the job. It happens. What is everyone doing to correct for that so it doesn’t happen again? I don’t find Hunters interview to be in service to answering that question.

  82. 82.

    Martin

    @Geminid: I think same outcome, personally. The campaign was going to pick up pace no matter what. That’s what June was really showing – the fundraisers, etc. As the campaign goes on, the pace picks up, the commitments to appear get stronger, and either he shows up and we see a debate like performance or we don’t see him, which is almost as bad. And that was already a growing concern back in 2023. Like, the accusations that Biden was on drugs in the SOTU didn’t happen in a vacuum, it was that he had a good night, and a lot of people, lawmakers, journalists, donors, etc. had seen him before not having a good night. I think it was in April it was reported that they were setting up teleprompters for Biden for small campaign events – under 50 people where he’d be expected to shake hands, speak extemporaneously for a bit – in part because that’s what made Joe such a good politician for so long – his ability to make those personal connections that he seemed to really enjoy doing and donors were surprised to see that not consistently happening.

    If the good night/bad night thing was accurate, going into the heart of the campaign where there’s a camera on you most of the time, we still would have caught a bad night eventually. And if that was related to his cancer, his cancer wasn’t getting better.

  83. 83.

    Martin

    @Another Scott: Or if the party had taken the polling in early/mid 2023 more seriously and not assisted Biden in clearing the field, and insisted on a proper primary. What if we’d gotten Newsom, Gretch, Pete in a number of debates at the time. We’d also have gotten an outlet for the Israel/Gaza issue which may have helped.

    And I think if votes had rallied around Biden at that time in a competitive primary, the argument to push him out in July would have been much weaker, and the argument of who to replace him much clearer. For all the folks arguing ‘but we had a primary’, I don’t recall any of them suggesting Dean Phillips as the top human runner up (he lost to uncommitted) as a replacement.

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