I wasn’t going to do one of these today because I really don’t have time, but this comment from Althouse today isn’t worth a whole post but can’t be allowed to pass. She wrote,

“By the way, is it “entirely possible that Biden could have a much stronger debate in September”? Not only is it entirely possible for Biden to have a much stronger debate in September, it’s entirely possible that if you calm yourself, clear your head of preconceptions, and cue up last Thursday’s debate and watch it again, you will perceive it as a much stronger debate than it seemed on first watch.”

Oh, Ann, Ann. What the hell is the matter with her? She’s still flogging her initial reaction that Biden was “bad” but not “that bad.” Sure it was “that bad.” Even if there had been just a single attack of confused gibberish like the one that prompted Trump’s killer line about Joe not even knowing what he meant, it would have made the debate a historic political disaster. What part of “All Biden had to do was show he wasn’t too addled and feeble to be trusted to lead the nation, and he couldn’t do it” escapes her? That quote makes me wonder if she’s losing it.

And there is no chance, absolutely none, that Biden is going to improve in three months. How would that happen? I had an older friend a few years ago who showed symptoms similar to Biden’s in a da- long meeting we had about his play that I was preparing to direct. It was one of the longest, most depressing three hours of my life. Less than three months later, he could barely speak and was completely disoriented.

That was dementia, but what is Ann’s excuse? Excessive hope? A massive blind spot? Denial? Contrarianism? Her not-so-secret Democrat taking over, like Pazuzu?

It’s unethical for opinion writers who people trust to offer recklessly absurd opinions.

Meanwhile, counting down…

5. Foolishly, I looked in briefly on the Sunday morning current events shows. It is astounding that Democrats and corrupt pundit are still flogging the same “Protect Joe!” talking points. “It was just one bad night.” Other than that, Mrs Lincoln…“Other Presidents had bad first debates.” Not like that they haven’t. “Trump lied constantly, and Joe told the truth.” A lie itself! “It was the moderators’ fault for not factchecking Trump.” Yeah, like Candi Crowley came to Obama’s rescue in 2012. “Style is not important, what matters is what a wonderful President Biden has been.” Oh, dementia is a style now? I did not know that!

And, of course, the obligatory, “If Trump wins, it will be the last election the nation ever has.” All of these assume near total ignorance, gullibility or stupidity on the part of the public.

What a low opinion progressives have of the proles….

4. One of the most important SCOTUS opinions in recent years came down last week and the news media largely ignored it, presumably because it seems like “inside baseball” and because nobody felt competent to explain it without putting everyone to sleep. Instead reporters fulminated over the Jan. 6 case. Nevertheless, in Loper Bright Entreprises v. Raimondo, a 6-3 decision along conservative/progressive lines, the Supreme Court overruled Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, an infamous (to Big Government foes), sweeping and unanimous 1984 decision that opened the door wide for the current regulatory state. By striking it down, the Court truly hobbled the power of administrative agencies. The Court’s Left obviously liked Chevron because it allows the Executive Branch to, in effect, pass laws “for the greater good” without having to deal with those annoying balance of powers and legislation thingies.

Here, Scott Greenfield clearly and expertly explains why he feels the Court did the right thing. My sister, a retired lawyer who was on both sides of Chevon cases, raised an ethical matter Greenfield doesn’t mention. She feels that this decision, toppling a 50-year-old major SCOTUS holding, combined with the Dobbs decision reversing Roe, essentially kills the essential Supreme Court doctrine of stare decisus,“to stand by things decided.” That, she reasons, means that nobody can rely on any Court decisions, which is why these laws are popping up in Republican states mandating religious instruction despite their obvious defiance of established jurisprudence and why Clarence Thomas is agitating to reverse many long standing opinions near and dear to liberal hearts, like Obergefell v. Hodges, declaring same sex marriage a constitutional right.

The other side of that argument, naturally, is that it would be foolish to allow bad and destructive decisions (Like Plessy v, Ferguson, which Brown v. Bd. of Education reversed, or Roe) stand simply because they had lasted too long. Then again, who decides what a “bad and destructive decision” is?

3. ‘Welcome to Bad Analogy Theater!‘ Apparently trying to compete with Barack Obama’s absurd comparison between his losing debate with Mitt Romney in 2012 and Joe Biden’s cognitive breakdown while debating Donald Trump, Senator Jon Fetterman this morning tried to draw an analogy between his much maligned debate performance against “Dr. Oz” in the Pennsylvania Senate race in 2022 and Biden’s collapse.

Fetterman’s point was simple, in fact, facile…in fact, stupid. Sure, he lost a debate when he garbled answers and still came back to win, but a) stroke victims get better with time, 81-year old dementia sufferers get worse; b) Dr. Oz was always an underdog, a political novice, and not a former President with a strong following, and c) the job of U.S. Senator is a lot less challenging than being President; in fact, we’ve had ancient, doddering, senile Senators before, most recently the late Diane Feinstein They can’t do too much damage. By the time Sen. Strom Thurmond retired at 100, he was basically a doorstop.

2. Unethical, as in dishonest and dumb, headline of the day (New York Times): “Election Updates: Democrats use the weekend to help Biden get back on track after debate.” How do you get a dementia sufferer who needs to campaign for President and who can’t string three thoughts together without a teleprompter “back on track”? Have Democrats performed a brain transplant? The translation for “help Biden get back on track” is “Lie like crazy and hope the stupid public buys it.”

My favorite piece of deliberate mendacity from the piece? “I think that the president had a difficult night, just like every single one of us do,” Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland said on CBS News. “Joe Biden is not going to take himself out of this race, nor should he.”

I had informed by wife that if I ever had a “difficult night” in which I appeared as far gone as Joe Biden, she was to hit me from behind with a brick. Now that she is gone, my son has received the same instructions. No, Governor, if all of us have “difficult nights” like Biden had, we decide to retire, move into assisted living, or look for the nearest wood-chipper. We do not run for President.

1. One of my favorite hypocrites, feminist lawyer Roberta Kaplan, is back in the news. Kaplan, you may recall, killed the #MeToo-inspired organization TimesUp, which she helped found and served as its chair, by secretly helping then-Governor Andrew Cuomo’s efforts to discredit the women accusing him of sexual harassment. When this fact came out into the open, as facts have a tendency to do, TimesUp lost its board and its donors, and #MeToo has been on life-support ever since. Oh, Roberta did represent Jean Carroll in her “Get Trump!”- fueled lawsuit against Donald, earning her a pretty penny, so it hasn’t been all downhill for “believe all women.” But now comes the news that Kaplan has been kicked out of her own firm for alleged “inappropriate comments to her colleagues” and other “workplace misconduct” toward others. Such conduct is frequently called “harassment.”