New York Times Decides We Need To Hear Bill Maher's Insights About Biden Situation
Trollin' trollin trollin', keep them doggies trollin'...
Imagine you have some column inches open on the opinions page of the nation’s leading newspaper. You have a crisis with the Democratic presidential candidate and a raging debate about whether he should be replaced on the ticket and who should replace him, a mere four months before the election. And oh yeah, his opponent is a convicted felon and an autocrat who hates democracy, which makes the election stakes galactically high. In terms of modern politics, this is an insane timeline and an unprecedented situation.
Time to hear from noted political analyst Bill Maher!
Bill Maher: Why I Want an Open Convention
Bill Maher is a chaos monkey. The last thing the Democrats want is an open convention, with floor fights playing out in front of the TV cameras and every delegate posting shitty iPhone video to Twitter. If Biden does step down, they want a successor going in to the convention for everyone to rally around and focus. The convention isn’t until near the end of August this cycle. Imagine a bruising fight over a nominee with hurt feelings and all the rest going into Labor Day weekend. It’s a recipe for disaster.
Anyway, the Times knows this, but it is addicted to the eternal “Dems in disarray” narrative and needs some drama to write about to make our interminably long presidential campaign season interesting for its reporters. It’s about as transparent as plastic wrap.
When Barack Obama announced he was running for president in 2007, many said he hadn’t been around long enough, not realizing that his youth and inexperience was one of the best things he had going for him. He was new, and we weren’t tired of him. And he didn’t have an endlessly long record to pick over.
And how long did it take the bad feelings from the 2008 primary to settle down? For all we know, the PUMAs are still calling Fox News producers to ask if they can come on and announce they will be voting for Sarah Palin.
Let’s move the plotline forward. Democrats could not buy, with all of George Soros’s money, the enthusiasm, engagement and interest they would get from having an open convention –
Soros! Drink!
Suddenly, instead of rehashing the debate from hell — worst episode of “The Golden Bachelor” ever — they would be hosting a competition, something Americans love. Who will get the rose this August in Chicago? Gavin or Gretchen? Suddenly, Stacey Abrams might say she’s in! And so might Tim Ryan, and Josh Shapiro! And Amy Klobuchar and Ruben Gallego! And Mayor Pete and Raphael Warnock! And Wes Moore, and who knows, maybe Andrew Yang says he’s a Democrat again! And that dude from Kentucky, I hear he’s great!
There are so many practical problems with these scenarios — among them, that none of these people has a national profile or a fundraising base or has been vetted nearly as deeply by the press corps and the public as they need to be — that we are not going to even bother going into it in more detail. We assume it is self-evidently nuts.
Luckily some of the potential candidates, at least, know politics better than Bill Maher.
This may sound like I’m doing a bit here …
He is definitely doing a bit here.
… but I’m deadly serious.
Which would be worse, deliberate trolling or being a moron? We’re on the fence.
Maher goes on to say his choice would be Gavin Newsom, who in reality has enough baggage that he needs two planes to fly anywhere.
Thanks to the 12th Amendment, if he’s the candidate, Kamala Harris — for whatever reason, not a popular figure — would have to either drop off the ticket or move her residence if Democrats wanted California’s 54 electors to vote for both its candidates for president and vice president, potentially freeing the Democrats of their other political problem, and freeing the slate for another new, fresh face.
Skip right over Biden’s handpicked successor in favor of another white man? Great idea, that definitely won’t cause problems with the women and Black people and Black women who make up an enormous slice of your base.
Also there was a report this weekend that thanks to campaign finance rules, Kamala Harris is the only candidate who can use the war chest that Biden has spent months and months raising. If there is no way around that, then forget it. The Democrats would be starting with an unbridgeable fundraising deficit.
This is a time for some serious and sober conversations. So of course the Times, whose upper management has reportedly been fuming for years because Biden won’t give the paper a solo interview, gives us this horse-hockey.
It’s so dumb. It’s like giving a fascist like Tom Cotton space on the opinion page to announce he wants to use the military to crush unarmed protesters … oh, right.
We look forward to tomorrow, when the Times gives op-ed space to Karl Rove to tell Democrats the correct path forward.
This rant brought to you by caffeine, rage, and your generous donations.
Arms sore from wanking motions. Like Maher doesn't already have a GIANT platform for his stupid opinions, the NYT wastes more ink on a mediocre while man with a cynical, extremely privileged perspective.
Why do they never bother to find opinions from, I dunno, somebody Black and female or LGBTQ+ or anybody else who is understandably terrified by the fascists on the doorstep?
Kyle Griffin
@kylegriffin1
READ: Justice Sotomayor's warning in her dissent:
"When [the president] uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune. Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority's message today. Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law."