7.18.24

AS HE BATTLES COVID, WHICH
MESSAGE IS BIDEN HEARING:
“GET WELL.” OR, “GET OUT.”

SO, THE PRESIDENT HAS COVID.
     After suffering “mild symptoms” Wednesday, President Joe Biden tested positive for the Covid-19 virus and left the campaign trail to recuperate and “self isolate,” while working from his Delaware home.
     You’d expect an outpouring of good wishes for a swift recovery, with piles of sympathy cards, calls and emails to the commander-in-chief from political comrades, world leaders and ordinary citizens.
     Biden purportedly sent a tweet over X, the loathsome social messaging platform, declaring that "I am feeling good and thank everyone for the well wishes."
     But I’m not aware of an avalanche of get-better cards for Biden, at least there have been no hints of that sort encouragement in the icy, just-the-facts news reports about his illness so far.
     Indeed, the subliminal theme suggests that the Covid development is just one more sign of frailty and decline perceived on national television June 27 when the 81-year-old Biden flubbed his debate with Donald Trump.
     Indeed, the contrast between Biden and Trump seems to grow daily as the Republican convention roars to a finish, delegates euphoric about Trump’s narrow escape from an assassin’s bullet last weekend.
     Trump: the inspiring survivor, proudly wearing a bandage over the ear injured in a sniper’s attack, his fist-pumping cry still echoing throughout the convention hall and nation: fight, fight, fight.
     Biden: the Democratic Party’s sick old man, forced to retreat from the campaign trail, carefully, slowly picking his way down the ramp from a presidential aircraft that brought him home, one deliberate step at a time.
     Still, you’d expect a modicum of national concern for Biden.
     After all, Covid still kills – nothing like the nearly 4,000 weekly deaths when the pandemic was at its peak several years ago. But the virus continues to arrive with a special grudge against old people.

I’M IGNORING, OF COURSE, the elephant in the room – well that’s the wrong political mascot – I’m ignoring the donkey in the room.
     Ever since the debate debacle, Biden has been fighting for his political survival, with growing demands he give way to a more vigorous (i.e. younger) and articulate replacement.
     Democrats are terrified that not only could Trump win a second term, which would be guaranteed to be far more malevolent than his first, but that Democrats could forfeit control of both chambers of Congress.
     Adam Schiff, the California Congressman now running for the Senate and one of Trump’s fiercest and most effective critics, this week issued a sober plea to Biden to leave the race.
      “A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy,” Schiff said. “And I have serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November.”
     Powerhouse Congressional leaders - House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer – were reported to have held separate, private meetings with Biden, warning of dire outcomes.
    And today, word spread that former President Barack Obama has told allies that he’s worried about his former vice president’s impact on the race.
    Polls show not only do many Democrats want Biden to give up the race, but there is genuine anger at the way he has stubbornly, pridefully refused to step aside, or engage in the conversation, at least so far

AT 1:39 P.M. TODAY, Karine Jean-Pierre, White House press secretary, announced that Biden would continue working at home, saying that Dr. Kevin C. O’Connor, the presidential physician, noted that that Biden “is still experiencing mild upper respiratory symptoms.”
     “He does not have a fever and his vital signs remain normal,” O’Connor said.  “He will continue to conduct the business of the American people.“
     So, the medical term – “self isolating” - that describes Biden as working at  home to avoid spreading the infection, has political symbolism as well.
    Bereft of the good will usually accorded everyone who’s under the weather, Biden continues a second day to manage his bout with Covid while cut off from the public and increasingly friendless, politically,
    The incoming messages seem less likely to wish Patient Biden a cheerful “Get well,” than to take the form of a stern demand that Candidate Biden should “Get out.”

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