Biden is no joke, will vote for him again [Official Commemoration Thread]

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/12/2...electing-merrick-garland-as-attorney-general/

6 hours ago
President Biden Regrets Selecting Merrick Garland As Attorney General
by Josh Blackman
12.29.2024 1:30 AM

The Washington Post has an in depth profile of President Biden's administration. Apparently, Biden regrets selecting Merrick Garland as Attorney General, and would have preferred former Alabama Senator Doug Jones.

In private, Biden has also said he should have picked someone other than Merrick Garland as attorney general, complaining about the Justice Department's slowness under Garland in prosecuting Trump, and its aggressiveness in prosecuting Biden's son Hunter, according to people familiar with his comments.

During the 2020 presidential transition, Biden's attorney general selection pitted some of his closest aides against each other. Former senator Ted Kaufman (D-Delaware) and Mark Gitenstein, both longtime friends of Biden, advocated for the president naming then-Sen. Doug Jones (D-Alabama) as attorney general, arguing that as a politician he would be better able to navigate the bitterly partisan moment.

But Ron Klain, Biden's incoming chief of staff, pushed for Garland. He stressed that Garland — a federal judge with a sterling reputation for independence and fairness — would show Americans that Biden was rebuilding a department badly shaken by Trump's political attacks.

Biden was persuaded, and some Democrats believe the decision had devastating results. Had the Justice Department moved faster to prosecute Trump for allegedly seeking to overturn the 2020 election and mishandling classified documents, they say, the former president might have faced a politically damaging trial before the election. (Others blame the Supreme Court and a Trump-appointed judge in Florida for repeatedly siding with the former president and delaying the cases; the Justice Department declined to comment.)​

This episode demonstrates that this notion of the Department of Justice as "independent" has always been a ruse. The Attorney General works for the President. Garland's efforts to make the institution separate from the President backfired, in a way that left no one happy. Moreover, Biden expressly viewed the criminal prosecution of Trump as a way to harm his primary political opponent. The stuff about protecting democracy was just a veneer, as evidenced by the silence about insurrection and fascism in the lead-up to January 6, 2025.

By the way, when is Garland going to resign? Garland should have stepped down when Biden criticized him for the Hunter Biden prosecution, but didn't. Attorney General Loretta Lynch stayed on until January 20, 2017. Will Garland continue to ride this out till the bitter end?


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lol. "But look how clearly the article states that Biden intended to use the Justice Department to destroy his political adversary!"

https://althouse.blogspot.com/2024/12/in-private-biden-has-also-said-he.html

17 minutes ago
"In private, Biden has also said he should have picked someone other than Merrick Garland as attorney general..."
by noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse)

"... complaining about the Justice Department’s slowness under Garland in prosecuting Trump, and its aggressiveness in prosecuting Biden’s son Hunter, according to people familiar with his comments.... Had the Justice Department moved faster to prosecute Trump for allegedly seeking to overturn the 2020 election and mishandling classified documents, they say, the former president might have faced a politically damaging trial before the election.... Biden has often looked to Franklin D. Roosevelt as a model, while governing in an age dominated by pop culture figures like podcast host Joe Rogan, tech billionaire Elon Musk and Trump himself.... Substantively, few analysts deny Biden’s accomplishments. He mobilized the government to vaccinate Americans against covid-19, bringing the country out of a devastating pandemic. He avoided a recession that many economists had considered inevitable. He rebuilt the transatlantic alliance, rallying the world to help Ukraine battle Russia’s invasion.... But Biden’s critics fault him for failing to grasp that his record itself was not enough, that he needed to tell a story that would resonate in a tribal America...."

Writes Tyler Pager, in "Joe Biden’s lonely battle to sell his vision of American democracy/In his presidency’s final chapter, Biden has mused about whether he should have handled some decisions differently" (WaPo)(free-access link).

This feels like an effort to puff up Biden. Few analysts deny Biden’s accomplishments?! Maybe the trick is to ascribe special meaning to the word "analysts" — if you don't think this is an impressive accomplishment, you're not an analyst. Or maybe the idea is that any accomplishment is an accomplishment, so what's to deny?

But look how clearly the article states that Biden intended to use the Justice Department to destroy his political adversary!

Posted by Ann Althouse at 6:45 AM

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lol

Schumer denies Dems misled public on Biden’s cognitive decline: ‘He’s a great guy’

https://nypost.com/2025/01/05/us-ne...-on-bidens-cognitive-decline-hes-a-great-guy/

excerpt:

“He’s a patriot. He’s a great guy. And when he stepped down, he did it on his own because he thought it was better, not only for the Democratic Party but for America. We should all salute him.”

For years, prominent Democrats had repeatedly shot down consternation about Biden’s age and mental acuity. Last February, for instance, Schumer was adamant that Biden’s acuity was “great” and decried any suggestion to the contrary as “right-wing propaganda.”
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more at the link

 

Majority of Americans say Biden’s presidency will be remembered as ‘below average’ or ‘poor’: poll

https://nypost.com/2025/01/07/us-ne...-be-remembered-as-below-average-or-poor-poll/

excerpt:

Biden’s ratings were tepid even when only responses from Democrats were considered.

A majority of Democrats (54%) said the president would be remembered as “average” to “poor,” while 44% felt his legacy would be “above average” to “outstanding.”

“Biden’s fellow Democrats are less enthusiastic about his presidency than they are about other recent Democratic presidents, and Biden is the only recent Democratic president who currently has a net-negative evaluation among independents,” the pollster said.
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more at the link