not so privately.

Do they have any other bright ideas?

that he thought the prep team had overworked Biden and made a mistake trying to get him to give policy-wonk type responses. I posted some of Tom's tweets then.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219068704

He was prepped to answer every lie Trump spouted. That's a fools errand because Trump can lie faster than anyone can answer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop#:~:text=The%20Gish%20gallop%20(%2F%CB%88%C9%A1,or%20strength%20of%20those%20arguments.

Trying to answer all those lies puts the debater on the defensive and Biden should have been more on the offensive.
Oh and arguing about who's the better golfer? What was he thinking?

Last edited Mon Jul 1, 2024, 05:30 AM - Edit history (1)

it seems obvious the "Biden should withdraw" crowd didn't want a debate...they wanted Joe to return insult for insult, threat for threat...a barrage of zingers...no substance just "Gotcha!"...yes, Joe was nursing a head cold/a sore throat, however, anything resembling a debate was impossible from the get-go..the so-called moderators, Tapper/Bash (like Kaitlin Collins before them), were unable/unwilling to shut down Trump's bottomless pit of lies (and lies about lies)...referring to Trump as "Mr. President" they never insisted he stay on topic, thereby giving him a platform to spew his rally garbage... and yet, Biden was directed to answer questions or they would (and did) cut his mic...maybe Joe was over-prepared or just maybe he wrongly assumed Tapper/Bash would do their jobs...moderate, instead of pimp for Trump...

No surprise there.

I don't think it had to be zingers and insult comedy.

Instead of Biden fact checking each lie, he could have said, 'that's a lie and tomorrow the facts checkers will explain it'. then he could have gone on to tout his accomplishments and plans for the future.
That's being aggressive, putting your own talking points first.
Another form would be to put Trump on the defensive when he lied, 'I'll cede 10 seconds if Mr. Trump can name the bill he signed to do xy or z'.
And then go back to self promotion.

Again the tactic with a "Gish Gallop" is not to try answer all the bullshit.

nt

Necessary to read The Politico w a huge boulder of salt.

going to be bad. When I saw Biden come out and saw how pale he was and how generally awful he looked, I thought it was going to be a bad night. He never should have gone out on that stage in that condition.

He came out looking pale and waved to the moderators but some say to an empty audience.
He was over loaded with information and not feeling well didn't help. He'll get tRump in September and then again in November

There was a lot of reporting on how they had him "holed up" preparing all week.


Didn't like that, can't get someone too wound up for something like this.

And, totally agree if the reporting was to try to intellectually counter everything Trump lied about was huge mistake.

It wasn't a great performance, but he had to go through with it.

If they said it, I believe it.

spent valuable time talking about $35 insulin and other relatively small details, nothing on climate change or abortion. and not framing the critical choice in this election between democracy and fascism

Those things are what's on the minds of many Americans right now.

As for firing Dunn and Klain, they've been with Biden his entire career. He's not firing them. They're as much family as Jill, Hunter and the rest.

given the stakes of this election

Whoever had this idea in the first place should be assigned to some other task, like fetching Cofeve.

Trump does not “debate.” He does the Gish Gallop. No one can control him, and so far no moderator ever has.