If you’re running out of people to ask about that most recent contentious issue of the day, you can always rely on Hillary Clinton. After all, she’s got plenty of time on her hands these days and there are no signs that she’ll be launching any sort of campaign of her own. So that’s who MSNBC turned to recently for a fresh take on the Biden classified documents report which concluded that Joe Biden is too old and senile to be held accountable for his crimes. Clinton delivered a small bit of a surprise when she failed to immediately offer an unqualified rebuttal of the report and complete support of Biden’s cognitive abilities. She told Alex Wagner that Biden’s age is a “legitimate issue” before engaging in some whataboutism implicating Donald Trump similarly. But she quickly patched things up a bit and seemed to reject the idea that it was time for Uncle Joe to exit the stage, assuming he could find the exit without his wife. (NY Post)
Former First Lady Hillary Clinton said she believes President Biden’s age is a “legitimate” campaign issue even as the commander-in-chief is under fire over a damning special counsel’s report accusing him of being senile.
“I talked to people in the White House all the time, and you know, they know it’s an issue, but as I like to say, ‘look, it’s a legitimate issue,’” Clinton told MSNBC’s Alex Wagner earlier this week. “It’s a legitimate issue for [ex-President Donald] Trump who’s only three years younger, right? So it’s an issue.”
The former Democrat presidential nominee and secretary of state also said during Wednesday’s interview that it might be hard for Biden and Trump to connect with younger voters, the president should highlight his background as an “experienced” leader.
Some of the headlines making the rounds following that appearance might have left people with the impression that Clinton was throwing Biden under the bus. In reality, though, nothing could be further from the truth. Calling Biden’s age a “legitimate issue” is pretty much the bare minimum that anyone could do without totally beclowning themselves. No serious person could look at Biden’s mumbles, stumbles, and falls, particularly over the past year, and fail to realize that something has been seriously amiss.
Clinton then switched gears and began offering campaign advice to Biden. She suggested that he “should kid more” about his age while stressing that age brings experience and wisdom. For many older politicians, that’s actually not bad advice. But the problem is that the person would have to have the ability to pull off that sort of delivery. Joe Biden could do that at one point and he’s attempted some humor along those lines recently. But his performance during the hastily assembled presser after the report was released probably drove a nail into the coffin of that approach. He was simply an angry mess.
I suppose we can ignore for now the irony of the person who was trounced by Donald Trump offering campaign advice to the person who purportedly beat him. And it’s very possible that Hillary has fond memories of Biden’s performance when he was her husband’s veep. For all we know, the Clintons may have not had any idea about the millions of dollars that Uncle Joe was vacuuming up from our adversaries and the wagons full of secret documents he was hauling back to his house. (And if they knew about the latter, Mrs. BleachBit is nobody to talk about mishandling classified documents.)
After offering those sage bits of advice, Clinton doubled down on her expression of full support for Biden. She insisted that she’s all in on the current president. She said that she supports him “on the merits” because he’s done “a really good job as president.” It’s amazing to think that anyone could look at the conditions today on the streets, on the border, or even just at Joe’s approval numbers and reach that conclusion, but what else can she really say?
Suggesting that Joe should step down without a viable replacement at hand would make it look as if Clinton were abandoning her own party. And they clearly don’t have a replacement standing by with a viable path to the nomination. But we should also remember that Clinton will certainly be seated as a superdelegate at the DNC this year. If it turns out that it’s time to give Joe Biden the old “heave ho” under the bus, I’m guessing that Hillary Clinton will be in there swinging with the best of them.