Biden’s bill of health and the Democrats’ third rail
The president is in rude health, according to his doctor. In fact, the octogenarian is so youthful, he’s still growing. In a letter detailing the results of a medical exam conducted on Thursday, White House physician Dr. Kevin C. O’Connor recorded the president’s height at six feet — a modest increase on the five feet, 11.65 inches he measured in December 2021.
Summarizing his findings, Dr. O’Connor reported that Biden is a “healthy, vigorous eighty-year-old” who is “fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency, to include those as chief executive, head of state and commander in chief.”
It is, of course, hard to imagine O’Connor delivering any other verdict — just as hard as it is to imagine such a report doing much to assuage the widely held concern about the age of a president who gives every indication of wanting to do the job for another six years. Nor will the results of this physical count for much as compared to the very obvious fact that Biden has lost a step in recent years.
Biden’s check-up came a day after a column by Politico’s Jonathan Martin headlined “Senior Democrats’ private take on Biden: he’s too old.” Martin’s piece was perhaps the most widely read and discussed column in Washington this week. Why? Because it showed Democrats, mostly privately, grasping a third rail: their leader’s age. Martin cites off-the-record chats with Democratic big beasts who acknowledge the problem. One of the few lawmakers willing to put his head above the parapet is Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips. “Nobody wants to be the one to do something that would undermine the chances of a Democratic victory in 2024,” he tells Martin. “Yet in quiet rooms the conversation is just the opposite — we could be at a higher risk if this path is cleared.”
Just as concerns about Biden’s age are nothing new — so too is the one thing that keeps him safe: the incompetence of his deputy. And as for Kamala Harris, a kind of silence hangs over her too. Martin reports on the way in which identity politics shields Harris from more blue-on-blue criticism: “Democrats have seen what happens when anyone in their party openly criticizes Harris — they’re accused by activists and social-media critics of showing, at best, racial and gender insensitivity.”
And Harris certainly seems to think those defense mechanisms will secure here another four years in the job. “Joe Biden… has said he intends to run for re-election as president and I intend to run with him as vice president of the United States,” she said in an interview today, her most explicit announcement of her plans so far.
For both Harris and Biden, silence may be their least bad option. But it will not answer the major questions that hang over both of them and their suitability for re-election.
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Jim Biden’s Saudi side hustle
With all the focus on Hunter Biden’s colorful exploits, it’s easy to forget about the president’s other corrupt relatives, like his brother Jim. According to documents filed with a court in Virginia, Jim was hired by a Philadelphia-based construction company to surreptitiously help settle a $140 million business dispute with the Saudi government. According to sworn affidavits obtained by the Daily Mail, Jim was chosen because the Saudis “would not dare stiff the brother of the vice president who would be instrumental to the deal.” Now that the documents are publicly available, the ball is in the court of the House Oversight Committee, who will surely add Jim Biden’s Saudi business dealings to their long list of queries about the First Family’s many side hustles.
Justice for the Bottlecap Balloon Brigade
Did the president order a hobby club balloon get blown out of the skies with a $400,000 missile? Earlier this week, the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade reported that a balloon of theirs was missing in action and last located somewhere above Alaska, close to where the Pentagon reported a jet shot down an unidentified object last weekend.
Asked this afternoon for an update on intelligence surrounding the objects shot down by US jets in recent days, White House national security spokesman John Kirby declined to comment on the fate of the hobbyists’ balloon. “We all have to accept the possibility that we may not be able to recover it,” he said of one of the objects targeted. “Will the American public eventually find out what these three flying objects were?” asked one reporter. “I can’t sit here and promise you that we will get to that level of fidelity.”
The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade may never get compensation for the loss of their $12 balloon. But they, like the rest of America, deserve answers.
What you should be reading today
Wilfred Riley: Should rap lyrics be used as evidence in court?
Andrew Stuttaford: Searching for the truth on UFOs
Cockburn: Will Biden finally go to Ukraine?
Salena Zito, Washington Examiner: The DeSantis they know
Joe Concha, the Hill: The red wave is already here
Judge Glock, City-Journal: Biden’s bizarro supply-side economics
Poll watch
President Biden job approval
Approve: 43.8 percent
Disapprove: 51.4 percent
Net approval: -7.6 (RCP average)
2024 Republican primary
Donald Trump: 42 percent
Ron DeSantis: 36 percent
Nikki Haley: 5 percent
Mike Pence: 4 percent
Mike Pompeo: 4 percent (Quinnipiac)
