Well, that wasn’t good

Less than 30 seconds into Biden’s first response at last night’s debate, I thought, “Uh, oh.” State of the Union Joe was nowhere to be seen. The (more than?) slightly befuddled old man the Republicans have been banging on about was on full display. It was heart breaking.

Yes, he is an older man. He’s 81 and no one that age has ever been President of the United States before. The Tangerine Wankmaggot is only three years younger and it is clear from his rambling rallies that he has a few screws loose. Of the two, Biden is obviously the most fit for purpose. His accomplishments in office are many and benefit real people, rather than the really rich.

But, watching with a sinking heart last night, the split screen conveyed a different message. If you knew nothing about either of these men and viewed the debate with the sound off, the guy on the left hand side of the screen looked much younger,  healthier and confident. (Although not necessarily in the photo above. None of the photos I could find of the split screen conveyed how slack-jawed Biden looked too much of the time.)

I could write my own lengthy analysis, but why should I when others have captured the essence of the disaster.

There’s this piece in the Guardian which pretty much sums it up with: “In 90 miserable minutes, Joe Biden achieved two things that had seemed impossible. He lived down to expectations that were already rock bottom. And he managed to make Donald Trump sound almost coherent. Trump did not win the debate but Biden certainly lost it.”

The Independent has a good analysis of what went wrong. Biden was punishingly overprepared by his aides – days and days of having so many facts and numbers thrown at him that anyone might struggle a bit to pull the right one out at the right moment. This was more than a bit.

The Wankmaggot boasted that he did no prep whatsoever for the debate. This seems unlikely, but could very well be true, given that attempting to remember facts played no role whatsoever in his debate performance. As it says in the Indy piece: “The supposed facts he often pulls out of the air may be questionable, but that’s not what matters when the lights are on and the cameras are rolling.”

Debate moderators really should be obliged to do some basic fact checking. Not easy I know when the lies (including everyone’s favourite “I did not sleep with a porn star”) are so fast and furious.

Pretty much the first thing the folks at MSNBC did when the debate was over was remind everyone that Reagan, Dubya and Obama all had terrible first debates when they were the incumbents and went on to win second terms. Okay, fair point, but…

Then the whispers became deafening. “Biden’s got to go!” “Brokered convention!” (Shades of the last one they ever had, which was also in Chicago in 1968 and most of us remember how well that went.)

Should he go? No. Biden thinks he is the only person who can beat the Wankmaggot and, honestly, I think he’s probably right. (The only person I can think of who could do it is Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, but he has no interest in the job and is laser focussed on ensuring his seat in the Senate stays with the Democrats.)

There’s a reason Biden won in 2020. His team let Joe be Joe.

Yes, I admit, I was scared last night. The terrifying prospect of another Wankmaggot term in office seemed more possible than I’d allowed myself to believe. That was last night.

Let the man sleep. Give him a vitamin shot. Let him spend a couple of days somewhere nice with his wife. He’ll wake up. Let Joe be Joe.

As Jimmy Kimmel apparently said last night – or so a Facebook post by a friend this morning suggests…