National Review senior editor Charles C. W. Cooke, on today’s edition of The Editors, said Biden’s speech last night “underscored . . . how unusual it is to be living through what is a remarkable moment, but without it being commented on.”
Cooke pointed out that “the president of the United States is being shooed away to an outside-of-primetime slot because he’s too much of a liability to put on TV.” He was “removed as the candidate for the Democratic Party because he couldn’t get through a 90-minute debate. But he’s still president.
“This in a TV show would be an entire series of The West Wing,” Cooke emphasized. “This would be the whole movie in a political drama or play.
“The fact that he spoke on the first night in and of itself — let alone the fact that they pushed him out so no one could see it — is unbelievable,” Cooke said. “Former presidents do not speak on the first night of the convention.”
Cooke believes that Democrats have no respect for Joe Biden, and “if Joe Biden were not a liability, if Joe Biden were not deemed too old, he would be speaking either toward the end of the convention in a really plum spot, a la Reagan in ’76, or they would have some nicely choreographed moment where he handed off the nomination to Harris.
“But what have they done? They’re so embarrassed by him.”
The Editors podcast is recorded on Tuesdays and Fridays every week and is available wherever you listen to podcasts.