Ugh.

Not good.  Not good at all.  That almost felt like watching the NYT needle start to move towards Trump in 2016.  This does not mean Biden surely loses the election.  But it sure ain’t good.  What’s fascinating is the number of cool-headed, sensible liberals/Democrats who are now saying Biden has to step down and we need an open convention.  That’s totally ahistorical and somewhat insane. But, so is everything about this election. I’m seeing lots of Ezra Klein was right. Here’s what he wrote back in February:

Since the beginning of Biden’s administration, I have been asking people who work with him: How does he seem? How read in is he? What’s he like in the meetings? Maybe it’s not a great sign that I felt the need to do that, that a lot of reporters have been doing that, but still. And I am convinced, watching him, listening to the testimony of those who meet with him — not all people who like him — I am convinced he is able to do the job of the presidency. He is sharp in meetings; he makes sound judgments. I cannot point you to a moment where Biden faltered in his presidency because his age had slowed him.

But here’s the thing. I can now point you to moments when he is faltering in his campaign for the presidency because his age is slowing him. This distinction between the job of the presidency and the job of running for the presidency keeps getting muddied, including by Biden himself.

This is the question Democrats keep wanting to answer, the question the Biden administration keeps pretending only to hear: Can Biden do the job of president? But that is not the question of the 2024 campaign. The insistence that Biden is capable of being president is being used to shut down discussion of whether he’s capable of running for president.

Indeed. Trump was not good in the debate.  I kept wishing there was a competent Democrat up there to show him to be the shallow, authoritarian liar that he is.  Lots of Democrats could have done that adeptly.  Alas, Joe Biden was not nearly up to the task.  

Ed Kilgore’s insta-take is spot-on:

Trump was frequently and typically rambling and even incoherent, on issues ranging from abortion to crime to the Middle East and Ukraine. Even on issues that favored him, the 45th president overplayed his hand, raving about migrant crime as though every American is cowering in fear.

But it didn’t matter, because Biden showed up for the debate with a voice and an appearance and a manner that reinforced fears that this octogenarian is too old and feeble to serve a second term. His most effective moments of anger at Trump’s serial lies often bled into stalled sentences and flubbed phrases. Even the most sympathetic viewers had to be riveted by concerns for the president’s condition, temporary though it may have been. We’re accustomed to seeing Trump lose the thread of his own arguments. It was shocking to see Biden come across little better.

So what should have been a post-debate discussion of how well Biden did in defending his record and reminding viewers of Trump’s failures may instead be overtaken by more panicky talk about Democrats dumping their presumptive nominee or Biden himself “stepping aside.” The public focus won’t be on Trump’s continuing struggles with the law, the truth, and his own demons, but on the embattled incumbent.

It was at the very best a lost opportunity, but unless Biden quickly reassures his own party and the country that his debate performance was a hiccup, he’s going to have an uphill climb in the weeks ahead, before getting another chance to debate Trump in September. The Republican nominee ended the evening by dodging a direct question about his willingness to accept the 2024 election results. It should have represented a concern that lingered in the minds of viewers as they digested this strange encounter. Instead they have wonder: is Joe up to this terrible fight?

Ideally I’d have a lot more to say tomorrow, but I’m going to have to keep it to myself.  I will not be blogging from the beach where I will be taking my daughter and her BFF for the day.