Jon Stewart, who returned on Monday as host of “The Daily Show” for the first time in nearly nine years, is catching fire from the left because he dared to touch the rail on Joe Biden’s age.
I know, shudder.
“We are not suggesting neither man is vibrant, productive or even capable. But they are both stretching the limits of being able to handle the toughest job in the world. It is not crazy to think that the oldest people in the history of the country to ever run for president might have some of these challenges,” Stewart said, among other things on the age topic, pointing to the ages of both Biden, 81, and disgraced ex-president Donald Trump, 77.
The truth hurts, apparently.
I mean, it’s not like Stewart is wrong when he observed, for example, about Biden: “This guy couldn’t remember stuff during his deposition. Do you understand what that means? He had no ability to recall very basic things under questioning.”
Actually, that one was the setup to a run of clips showing Trump, in various depositions, telling lawyers that he couldn’t remember things, even, hilariously, once bragging about having a great memory, and to rub it in, there were snippets of Trump’s three adult children also not remembering.
Seems to run in that line of DNA.
Stewart proposed a run of titles for the show’s ongoing coverage of the 2024 election – “Indecision 2024: American De-mock-racy,” “Indecision 2024: Electile Dysfunction,” “Indecision 2024: What the f#@k are we doing?”, “Indecision 2024: Antiques Roadshow.”
Me, I’m pulling the lever for “Electile Dysfunction.”
Another segment featured soundbites from a roundup of top Democrats telling interviewers about how Biden, behind the scenes, is “sharp” – the favorite word, clearly a talking point suggested by the handlers – and in the words of Vice President Kamala Harris, “coordinating and directing leaders who are in charge of America’s national security, not to mention our allies around the globe.”
Stewart’s response gets to what a lot of us have been thinking: “Did anyone film that? Because if you’re telling us behind the scenes, he’s sharp and full of energy, and on top of it, and really in control, and leading, you should film that. That would be good to show to people, instead of a TikTok where he goes, ‘chocolate-chip cookie!'”
Nothing that Jon Stewart or any of the rest of us have to say about how we have two old, very much out-of-touch white guys as the major-party presidential candidates will change how this 2024 election is going to play out in terms of the choices that we’ll have.
The polls suggesting that voters are somehow more concerned about Biden than they are Trump on the age issue is a reflection of how Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents are hoping against hope that the president will step aside, not because he hasn’t done a good job as president, but because, c’mon, man, the guy is 81, and seems each day to be a little less up to the task than he did the day before.
The concerns about Biden’s age are legitimate, but the other reality to 2024 is, Donald Trump is an existential threat to American democracy.
What I’m getting at there: when push comes to shove, basically, when the nominations are made official in the summer, the Democrats and Biden-leaning independents, and crossover moderate Never Trump Republicans, will do what they need to do, just as they did four years ago, when 81 million of us voted for an old, out of touch Joe Biden pretty much just because he’s not the old, out of touch, Vladimir Putin wingman Donald Trump.
That we’ll come in line later doesn’t mean we can’t also lament how things have gotten to where we are now.
“The stakes of this election don’t make Donald Trump’s opponent less subject to scrutiny,” Stewart said. “It actually makes him more subject to scrutiny. If the barbarians are at the gate, you want Conan standing at the ramparts, not chocolate-chip-cookie guy.”
Share
Chris Graham
