Biden campaign must brawl and fight and brawl some more

What is the toughest, hardest and meanest competition on Earth? What is the toughest and most brutal test that exists outside of war?

The answer is an American presidential campaign.

It is a brutal test of character, discipline, nerve, stamina and determination. The process is a profound psychological test for everyone involved. The pace is relentless, the demands constant, and the malice very real. Each day is a battle, and every moment matters in a fight where the stakes are existential.

What is the 2024 election about? Is it about Donald Trump or President Biden?

It’s not.

It is, in the end, about us. It is about “We the People.” It is about the United States of America and the obligation owed by us to both our ancestors and our descendants. Period.

Presidential campaigns are surreal experiences. Everyone who has ever been in one — at the center of the fight — understands what I mean. There are days that last months, and months that go by in a day. It never stops. Ever. The campaign grinds on, always. It moves forward as relentlessly as time towards the appointed hour of decision.

American politics isn’t sport. It’s not a game, and the competition isn’t fair. Usually one side has a tail wind, and the other, a head wind. Events accumulate at the feet of the incumbent, regardless of whether their instigation lay at the feet of his predecessor. The media is mostly corrupt, and American journalism faces a crisis of credibility every bit as great as American politics.

What makes American presidential campaigns unique is their longevity, and across a vast span of time, torpedoes will materialize out of thin air from unexpected directions and hit directly. The explosions can reshape the race in an instant. They can become the defining moment, and in the end, the defining moment is always a character test.

Such an unexpected explosion rocked the Biden campaign with the release of special counsel Robert Hur’s report that made spectacular allegations against President Biden. Here is how The Washington Post story about the report began:

President Biden, during interviews with the special counsel investigating his handling of classified documents, had trouble recalling the years he served as vice president. He could not pinpoint, even within several years, when his son Beau had died. His memory about a crucial debate on troop levels in Afghanistan was hazy.

The first day of questioning, at the White House in early October, Biden could not recall when his vice-presidential term had ended. “If it was 2013 — when did I stop being vice president?” he asked, apparently not recalling that he left office in January 2017.

The next day, as the interviews continued, he could not remember when his term began, saying, “In 2009, am I still vice president?”

Before continuing, the first thing that must be said is that the Justice Department is broken. The second thing that must be said is that the report is evidence-free, speculative gossip dressed up as fact, and reported like a biblical revelation as opposed to tawdry nonsense. James Comey’s narcissism delivered the White House to Trump in 2016, and now another Justice Department lawyer seems to have tasted the sweet scent of fame-seeking and self-importance that titillates so much of the MAGA bar, from Alina Habib to Sidney Powell. This has long been a feature of right- wing legal hypocrisy. Perhaps Hur should be evaluated as something of a trendsetter. He abandoned the smear techniques of Ken Starr and Newt Gingrich, and the sexual hypocrisy along with it, for a more insidious line of smearing.

The Trump campaign will brutalize the president, and trust me when I tell you that they won’t be fair, just or restrained. The special prosecutor’s report will be weaponized as it was intended to be. We have reached an appalling moment during which the smear dressed up as an official pronouncement is regarded as truth, as opposed to calumny. We are in deep trouble as a nation.

The 2024 campaign is now officially underway. Joe Biden’s campaign is now officially in the game. The allegations, though spurious, have the potential to be deadly. Though they are unfair, they are potent. Whining, complaining, crying, screaming and shrill denunciations against them won’t change that fact. Only President Biden can answer them, which he did last night:

He must now be in the fight constantly. The basement campaign of the Covid election will not work.

The president is in the awkward and unfair position of proving the allegations false. He must. Every single day.

I worry about the campaign ahead. The Biden campaign cannot become aggrieved or victimized. They cannot look affronted, angered or defensive. There is no space for weakness of any type. The Biden campaign must brawl and fight and brawl some more. The greatest liability is now in the middle of the ring. It is either true or not. The burden is on the president. A lack of rebuttal will become evidence of truth. Joe Biden has to demonstrate he is able. Period.

The election of Donald Trump will portend catastrophe. Everything is on the line.

The president has either been smeared or revealed. Either way, he has no choice. He must refute the negative.

The Biden campaign needs to be hard, furious and ferocious. It must destroy MAGA. That can’t be done in a defensive crouch.

There are 272 days until the election. America is in trouble. Trump must be defeated. The alternative is inconceivable.

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