Back in the bad old days of the Cold War, when Russia was the USSR, its government was a black box, and the country was run by old-guard communists not kleptocrats, there was a class of experts, called Kremlinologists, whose job it was to figure out what was really happening behind the scenes, using whatever cryptic clues were visible to the outside world. If, for example, Radio Moscow began suddenly playing solemn classical music without explanation, Kremlinologists knew that some important Communist Party official, maybe the Premier, had died.
The current leadership of the Democratic Party reminds me a lot of the old Soviet Politburo. There is the official line, the public face, which and says and does all the things you would expect in order to maintain message discipline. And then there is the actual leadership apparatus, which is something else entirely. The decision-makers who run the thing are very careful, and rarely tip their hand as to what’s really on their mind, or their agenda.
Thus we bystanders are like Kremlinologists, struggling to figure out the meaning of this new scandal, if that’s what you want call it, involving Biden’s careless handling of classified documents, which have apparently been laying there in plain sight for six years without anybody caring. But now, all of a sudden, it’s a Big Deal. The usual media players have gotten the word and are pushing the story hard, to the President’s detriment. This would have been unthinkable even three months ago.
FTR, I could not care less. Those guys handle classified documents like the rest of us handle the utility bill. BFD.
Basically, there’s no effing way that everybody who’s anybody was unaware of these documents. But for some reason Biden’s own people have now decided to make a issue of them
If I were the guessing kind, I would conclude that the Party is done with Biden. He did the job he was hired for, deposing the hated Trump, but that’s ancient history now, and his usefulness is at an end. He hasn’t gotten the gentle hints that maybe he ought to pass on a second term, so they’ve had to turn up the heat.
But what’s the long game? Kamala “Zero Percent” Harris as President is non-starter. She is wildly unpopular, and would lose to almost any GOP challenger with a pulse.
At the same time we see Gavin Newsom, whose ambition is surpassed only by his mediocrity, who looks like an actor playing a used-car salesman, making noises clearly intended to raise his profile.
The Democrats are in a spot. Things are not going well on many fronts, and Biden’s poor management is at least partially to blame. Barring the elevation of some electrifying dark horse newcomer, Newsom is the Blue Party’s best hope to win in ’24, assuming Biden takes the hint and retires.
But Newsom doesn’t travel well. Outside California he has really high negatives. Lots of his fellow Californians aren’t very happy with him either. It’s going to be either Trump (Gawd I hope not) or de Santis on the GOP side, and both are really strong campaigners with a large, active base.
Regardless of what happens, we are pretty much assured that there are fun times ahead!
© 2023 by Scott P. Snell
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