The knives came out after Biden botched debate

Joe Biden was going to lose, even before his catastrophic debate with Donald J. Trump, according to one of the “tell all” books, by New York Times reporter Jonathan Allen, and The Hill senior political correspondent Amie Parnes.

He was gaslit by the same people who gaslit America, they write in “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” Morrow ($32). But it’s less than “tell all,” disappointing if you are expecting juicy gossip about what transpired between June and December of last year. 

Before telling about the book, this about me: 

I’m probably in the top 20% of Americans who roll around in politics like pigs in mud. In Philadelphia, I used to be in the top 10%, but since my departure from the Daily News, my contacts have gotten rusty. Or jailed. Or dead. 

Perhaps because I do pay attention, there was not much the authors told me that I didn’t already know. I read the book because it came out first. I will not read them all.

If you are looking for gossip about how Nancy Pelosi shtupped Corey Lewandowski, you will be disappointed. She didn’t. “Fight” doesn’t go there, but there are a few tasty morsels that I will share later.

But if you want to know how Pelosi screwed Biden, there’s a load of that.

One thing irritates me — there are dozens of times when the authors reported on what people were thinking. It’s a technique that Bob Woodward mastered in his vast political reporting. 

In their “notes,” the authors said they can’t read minds, “but many of our sources told us what they were thinking or shared what someone else said about his or her thinking.”

In other cases, they said, documents shed light on what people were thinking. The authors claim they interviewed more than 150 people, and I believe them. To get the most best info (yeah, I usually would never write “most best,” but it works here) they interviewed people on background.

That means people are quoted, but their names are not  used, although sometimes other identifiers are used — a “high-ranking campaign official,” as an example.

The book moves swiftly in a crisp journalistic style. It takes no prisoners — their prose leaves the bodies of lots of powerful politicians, Democrats and Republicans — lying on the field of battle, sometimes with sympathetic curlicues.

Number One villain is Nancy Pelosi, an old dear friend of the Bidens, who silently slipped the shiv between Biden’s ribs, and then tried to torpedo Kamala Harris.

But, the authors say, she was acting like a mother hen trying to save her chicks, the chicks being the Democratic Party. If she didn’t know Biden was heading toward defeat earlier, the debate was like a cocked .38 pointed at her temple. Biden was going to sink her party, and open the door to Donald J. Trump, the Nazi/fascist/misogynist/homophobe etc., the destroyer of dynasties — Republican Bush and Democratic Clinton.

“Biden was, in fact, a bridge — from one Trump term to the next,” the authors sardonically note.

If you want heroes, they were few, but Bill and Hillary Clinton were riding with Biden and didn’t dismount until he stood down. Among the Bigs, they were true friends.

Unlike Barack Obama, who came up small, if at all.

This is going to be upsetting to the MAGA blockheads who insisted for years that Obama was the Geppetto pulling Biden’s strings. What they (deliberately?) chose to ignore was that the two men were never close, and in 2016, after Obama endorsed Hillary rather than his own vice president, their relation was as icy as Greeland.

The old line that victory has many fathers, but defeat is an orphan was painfully borne out even before the TV lights were turned out after the disastrous June 27 debate.

[Personal disclosure: I did not see it as bad as everyone else. I think it might have been because Republicans had set expectations so low for Biden I half expected him to poop his pants. In effect, he did, and I missed it.] 

Another big takeaway in “Fight,” which MAGA will not like, is that until the debate almost no one in the upper echelons of the Democratic party was aware of the extent of Biden’s mental fragility. Neither were White House reporters, who were kept at arm’s length by Biden’s staff.

But should they have known?

Yes.

Did they work hard enough to get that story?

Clearly, no, they did not, even as they silently scoffed at press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s insistence that the codger ran rings around his young staff. 

The constant MAGA chatter that “the media” knew and covered it up is not supported by fact. Just like the fantasy that the 2020 election was stolen. Not supported by fact.

But does it matter to Trump, who after surviving the near miss in Butler, Pa., actually began to believe, as “Fight” suggests, he was anointed by a God he seldom worships in church?

Did it matter to voters? After Butler, and after various criminal complaints were lodged against him, Trump’s popularity rose. He is the Teflon Don.

Democrats did not seem to learn, or care, that each barrage made him stronger.

It may be their bottomless hate for Trump prevented Democrats from changing course and acting strategically. Their “save democracy” mantra was landing like Lizzo on an Eskimo Pie.

The Democratic Party in disarray shattered against the Mountain of Trump.

Dems had a couple of problems.

1-  Bush was deeply unpopular and had no good answers to Trump’s two main talking points — the economy/inflation, and the porous southern border. 

2- Kamala Harris was even less popular than Biden, and was under his orders to show no daylight between their positions. She remained loyal, to her disadvantage, before a grumpy electorate that wanted change.

Despite the handicaps, after Biden was forced out stepped down, desperate Democrats quickly rallied around Harris (whom Pelosi and Obama felt would be a weak candidate). They all got the when we fight, we win fever and raised more than $1 billion. For a few brief moments, on her post-convention sugar high, she actually took a small lead. As you know, it was not to last.

The debate was June 27. Biden stepped down on July 21, creating the most dynamic three weeks in the history of the American presidency.

Promised tasty morsels:

— When Biden traveled, he sat for a makeup artist at 8 a.m., to make him look less corpse-like.

— Jill Biden: “the trappings of the most elite levels of Washington power had grown on her.”

— A disinterested Barack Obama did not watch the Biden-Trump debate until his cell phone started blowing up.

— Trump was furious to be out of the spotlight as the Democrats were thrown into chaos.

— Biden’s most trusted adviser was Hunter, the druggie artist, deadbeat dad, and sexual pervert. It was Don Jr. for Trump. Barron importantly connected Trump with the youth podcasters.

— Obama’s aides took potshots at Biden and Harris. Bill and Clinton were loyal until the last cow came home.

— Kamala came thisclose to calling Trump a “motherfucka” at one moment during their debate.

Too bad she held back. She would have been guaranteed a place in “Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.”