SAUNDERS: Democrats can thank Barack Obama for their Joe Biden problem

WASHINGTON

Let’s remember the original sin in the Joe Biden saga. In 2008, Barack Obama chose the then-Delaware senator to be his running mate.

Obama, then an Illinois senator, wanted someone with years of Washington experience to balance his first-term decision to run for the presidency. Biden had the glad-handing skills the cerebral Obama lacked — but that didn’t mean Obama wanted Biden to succeed him.

After Obama won the White House, he and his brain trust made it clear that they did not think the then-vice president had what it took to take the Oval Office. As Politico reported in 2020, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe met with Biden in 2015 and warned him against running, lest Biden end his decades-long career with a third-place finish in Iowa.

Obama backed Hillary Clinton, who went on to lose to Donald Trump.

In the 2020 Democratic primary, as Biden competed in a field that included Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Obama made no endorsement.

And Biden won.

That showed the Obama brain trust, or, in Bidenspeak, the “elites.”

I mention all this as numerous Democrats claim to be shocked at the downward turn Biden has taken since his June 27 debate failure against Trump. They’re shocked, they profess, at a slide that they claim first appeared in the last few months.

But really, anyone who watches cable news saw that Biden, 81, has been slipping for some time. It’s sad to watch.

And everyone knows that Biden is going to show his cognitive decline again. It’s not a matter of if but when.

Democrats are left with two unpleasant options.

House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi chose the political path, as she tried to nudge Biden out the door without offending him. So she has offered that Biden is going to have to make up his mind about running. She ignores the fact that Biden has made up his mind. In a letter he sent to fellow Democrats on July 8, Biden made it clear he plans to stay in the race.

George Clooney doesn’t have to be polite. In an opinion piece in The New York Times, the actor wrote that while he considers Biden a friend, the party needs a new nominee because time is not on the president’s side.

(Republicans, please note that the same argument will be used against Trump, 78.)

Clooney’s prescription, however, shows how much the party settled for mediocre talent.

Clooney proposed a convention battle for the nomination, even though Vice President Kamala Harris is next in line. That’s a cynical admission that both the president and vice president aren’t up for the job. That didn’t stop Clooney from hosting a fundraiser that raised $28 million for Biden-Harris.

Up until the situation threatened to undermine a Democratic win in November, operatives on both coasts kept silent. They were banking on Biden beating Trump. It was only after the debate that what passed for a conscience in Washington kicked in.

In his book, “A Promised Land,” Obama wrote that 2008 GOP nominee John McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate was problematic because the rookie Alaska governor’s ineptitude was “troubling on a deeper level” and “her incoherence didn’t matter to the vast majority of Republicans.”

And that’s from the guy who brought America President Joe Biden.

A previous version of this column incorrectly reported Donald Trump’s age.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.