Inside the Beltway: Is Obama upstaging Biden?

NEWS AND OPINION:

Is former President Barack Obama “stealing the spotlight” from presumptive President-elect Joseph R. Biden, now in the middle of being a presumptive president elect?

“Barack Obama refuses to let Joe Biden enjoy his victory in the 2020 election. Just days after Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election, Obama launched a publicity tour in support of ’A Promised Land,’ the 768-page first volume of his third memoir,” observes Andrew Stiles, a senior writer for The Washington Free Beacon.

“Obama’s conveniently timed book tour is yet another attempt to undermine the political ambitions of his former running mate. Obama, for example, had repeatedly advised Biden not to run for president in the first place. In 2016, according to The New York Times, he ’quietly pressured Mr. Biden to sit out the race, partly because he believed Mrs. Clinton had a better chance of building on his agenda.’ We all know how that turned out,” notes Mr. Stiles.

He also points out that during his campaign, Mr. Biden suddenly announced his plans for the emphatically named “BidenCare.” Was it pushback?

Things could get challenging for Mr. Obama, says the columnist.

“Sitting on the sidelines watching his former VP do his old job is going to be excruciating,” predicts Mr. Stiles.

PLAYING UP THE PLAYLIST

Meanwhile, the spotlights remains on former President Barack Obama. He celebrated the release of the aforementioned new memoir by revealing his favorite tunes when he was in office — titled “A Promised Land Playlist” — which includes a black-and-white portrait of Mr. Obama borrowed from the cover of the book.

The list appears to have been very meticulously curated indeed.

It is not the first time Mr. Obama has shared his musical favorites, The Obama Foundation, in fact, features his picks from previous years at its website. Curious about all this? Here’s the new 2020 version:

“The Weight” by Aretha Franklin leads the list, followed by “The Thrill is Gone” (BB King); “Halo” and “At Last” (Beyonce); “The Times They Are A-Changin’” (Bob Dylan); “Only in America” (Brooks & Dunn); “The Rising” (Bruce Springsteen); “Lose Yourself” (Eminem); “Luck Be A Lady” (Frank Sinatra); and “Always Tomorrow” (Gloria Estefan).

Also on the list are “Rhiannon” (Fleetwood Mac); “My 1st Song” (Jay-Z); “My Favorite Things” (John Coltrane); “Freddie Freeloader” (Miles Davis); “Home” (Phillip Phillips); “Michelle” (The Beatles); “Cherish the Day” (Sade); “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours” (Stevie Wonder); “Sir Duke” (Stevie Wonder) and “Beautiful Day” (U2).  Listen here.

’LOCKDOWN’ HAS BEEN BANISHED

“COVID-19 lockdowns are no longer called lockdowns,” points out Marc Morano, founder of the ClimateDepot.com — an astute website which tracks climate, political and culture-related aberrations around the world.

“Lockdown advocates are all in on not saying the word ’lockdown,’” says Mr. Morano, who is now collecting a whole lexicon of replacements now favored by Democratic politicians and advisers who hope to retool the image of the very unpopular lockdowns imposed during the coronavirus pandemic.

The new words are (drum roll please): “Dimmer switch,” “emergency brake,” “freeze” and “retightening.”

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED

The 2020 presidential election will take a toll on the American psyche in more ways than one.

“Public trust in government, media, and even science was already declining before Election Day. This trend will dramatically accelerate if Americans don’t get answers to questions such as the following: Why would the voters deliver the Democrats a comprehensive down-ballot drubbing yet hand the White House to the worst presidential candidate in living memory?” asks David Catron, a columnist for The American Spectator.

He cites all the contributing irregularities in the election, from mail-in ballots and polling place mysteries to Smartmatic/Dominion software used to count votes. That software, incidentally, was by a company with ties to Venezuela and includes a feature which lets officials calculate just how many votes they need to win an election.

“In the end, to accept Joe Biden as our legitimate Chief Executive, we must believe the voters hammered the Democrats in congressional, state, and local elections, yet decided to elect the ’leader’ of their party president. We must believe that he dramatically underperformed among minority voters, yet received 10 million more votes than Barack Obama,” Mr. Catron says.

“We must believe that virtually all of the reliable election bellwethers were wrong. We must believe that all of the elections in the swing states were conducted honestly and that the Venezuelan software used to tabulate the votes was secure. All of this beggars belief. Joe Biden may be inaugurated in January, but he certainly wasn’t elected president.”

FOXIFIED

Yes, Fox News is still tearing up the ratings, emerging as the most-watched network in prime-time and throughout the day last week according to Nielsen. Fox garnered 3.6 million prime-time viewers, followed by CNN with 2.3 million, MSNBC (2.2 million), ESPN (2.1 million) and Hallmark Channel 1.6 million.

Prime-time hosts Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity are the ratings kings, drawing 4.4 million and 4.2 million viewers, respectively. Fellow host Laura Ingraham averaged 3.2 million nightly viewers, and has bested her MSNBC prime-time rival Rachel Maddow for 43 consecutive weeks.

POLL DU JOUR

• 40% of registered U.S. voters have “a great deal” of confidence that the 2020 presidential election was held fairly; 8% of Republicans, 32% of independents and 74% of Democrats agree.

• 8% have “quite a bit of confidence”; 4% of Republicans, 11% of independents and 10% of Democrats agree.

• 11% have a moderate amount of confidence; 13% of Republicans, 10% of independents and 11% of Democrats agree.

• 10% have “only a little” confidence; 17% of Republicans, 11% of independents and 3% of Democrats agree.

• 29% have no confidence “at all” that the election was fair; 57% of Republicans, 33% of independents and 2% of Democrats agree.

Source: An Economist/YouGov poll of 1,500 registered U.S. voters conducted Nov. 8-10.

• Helpful information to jharper@washingtontimes.com.