 |
| (NBC News) |
Several news outlets reported yesterday that U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) dodged questions about former President Joe Biden on the June 1, 2025, edition of NBC's Meet the Press. That is not how I see it. In my view, Warnock is a politician who knows the opposing party is trying to take a non-issue (Biden knew he had cancer and hid it, Biden and his staff knew he had declining mental acuity and hid it, etc.) and turn it into an issue. Warnock knows, of course, that Biden will not be running in 2028 -- and he likely knows the Republican Party wants to focus on the former president because their own guy, Donald Trump, has almost no positive record on which to run. Warnock simply was trying to turn attention back to issues that will be a factor in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential and congressional elections.
If anyone wants to write about Joe Biden's performance in office, they should address a 2024 survey of presidential historians and experts who ranked Biden No. 14 among all U.S. presidents. And who was ranked last? Why, that would be Donald Trump -- right behind another postmodern Republican, George W. Bush, who now looks good in comparison to Trump. How strong was Biden's performance when considered by people who actually know history and the presidency? Well, he ranked just ahead of Woodrow Wilson and Ronald Reagan (yes, THAT Ronald Reagan), was tied with John Adams, and was just behind James Madison and Bill Clinton. Topping the list are Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and George Washington.
Why doesn't Joe Biden get his due from the American public? It appears that chunks of our electorate are so ill informed that they believe one of our most successful presidents was a failure -- likely because they have heard that claim umpteen times from Donald Trump, a president who actually was a failure. How pitiful was Trump's showing in the survey? Here is how NPR put it:
On the survey's 0-100 scale of "overall greatness," a rating of 50 means a president was average, while zero means a president is considered a failure. Only the top three presidents — Abraham Lincoln at No. 1, followed by Franklin D. Roosevelt and then George Washington — scored above 90. The drop-off was sharp from there, with no one else above an 80 rating. Roughly half the presidents were rated below 50.
Trump's overall rating was 10.92, easily the worst showing, while Biden's 62.66 had him tied with John Adams. Some of Biden's appeal could be due to the person he followed in the Oval Office: Trump was seen as "by far the most polarizing of the ranked presidents, selected by 170 respondents," according to a summary of the survey. Translation: Trump was so historically bad that he helped improve Biden's score.
I think it is way past time Americans grasped that Joe Biden was one of the most successful presidents in history, whether they were paying attention or not. If Republicans want to make political hay out of Biden as an issue, I say, "Good luck with that." I'm going to do my part to help ensure their efforts to con the public fail by publishing an article about the Presidential Greatness Project in an upcoming post. I have little doubt Republicans will attempt a con game because that's about all they have left in their quiver. They certainly can't govern and don't really try at this point. Plus, they've turned their party over to one of the most notorious con men of all time, so we can expect Trump to be involved. But that does not mean he and the GOP have to succeed in their efforts to deceive.
If I have anything to say about it, they will fail. And my upcoming post on the presidential survey will show why Joe Biden was a great president, not just a good one.
For now, let's return to Raphael Warnock and his efforts to throw the Republican deception train off track. In a jointly published article at Fox News and Yahoo! News, Fox's Hanna Panreck writes under the headline "Warnock dodges questions from NBC host on whether Biden should have dropped out earlier." (Fox News' presence as a source likely explains the slant in that headline and in the body of the story.):
Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., was pressed by NBC News host Kristen Welker on whether former President Joe Biden should have dropped out sooner or run for re-election at all, dodging the question and insisting that he was focused on what's in front of him.
Welker quoted former Harris campaign aide David Plouffe, who told authors Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper in their new book that if the former president dropped out in 2023, the Democratic Party could hold a "robust primary." Welker noted that Plouffe name-dropped Warnock as a potential candidate and asked him to respond.
"Kristen, here’s what we absolutely know about last year’s election. It’s over, and I’m going to spend all of my energy focused on the task in front of us. We are headed into a very critical week. The Republicans are trying to push forward this big, ugly bill that’s going to literally cut as many as 7 million Americans off of their health care," Warnock said, referring to Trump's "big, beautiful bill."
Plouffe told the authors that Biden "f----- us," and said "it was a disservice to the country and to the party for his family and advisers to allow him to run again."
Welker pushed back on Warnock, noting that he didn't give a "direct answer" to her question.
"Well, I take very seriously, my job. The people of Georgia hired me to stand up for them, and this really is a critical week. This big, ugly bill is going to strip people of their health care. It’s going to rob working-class people of the resources they need, they're literally trying to take health care from children," Warnock responded.
In my view, that's a reasonable answer. I think Warnock knew Welker was regurgitating a GOP talking point, and he wasn't going to play that game. Here is more from the Fox/Yahoo! report:
Several Democrats have been asked to respond to questions about the former president's health and whether he should have run for re-election or had dropped out sooner.
Democratic leadership, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said \they're trying to look forward and move on.
Schumer dismissed the questions surrounding Biden's decline on CNN, MSNBC, and during a press conference in early May.
"We’re looking forward. We have the largest Medicaid cut in front of us. We have the whole federal government," Schumer told CNN's Kasie Hunt during an interview. He used the same phrase on MSNBC and during the press conference.
Jeffries issued a similar response during a press conference in May, telling reporters, "We're not looking backward, we're looking forward at this particular moment in time."
Some Democrats, including former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, acknowledged the former president might have harmed the party's chances by remaining in the race for as long as he did. Buttigieg said that Biden "maybe" hurt Democrats in running for re-election. However, he defended the former president against allegations of decline.
No comments:
Post a Comment