OPINION:
George Stephanopoulos, the longtime Democratic Party hatchet man and former bushy-headed wunderkind of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, had only one job Friday night: Either save President Biden’s campaign, or sink it.
He did neither.
A younger George Stephanopoulos looking on might have pointed out, “It’s the candidate, stupid.”
Not that he didn’t try. Mr. Stephanopoulos, reborn as a “newsman” for the ABC infotainment channel, did his devil’s best to smoke out the president one way or another after his disastrous debate performance last month.
But in the end, he was not able to throw a lifeline far enough to reach Mr. Biden in the distant, choppy waters of his dementia. Nor was he able to put a kill shot in Mr. Biden’s campaign.
Every time he tried, Mr. Stephanopoulos flinched.
It was almost like he was, to borrow a phrase, “all too human.”
From the start, Mr. Stephanopoulos was hesitant and afraid to confront the man he has spent the past four years boosting and covering for. So instead, he hid behind the former Democratic speaker of the House for his first question.
“Your friend Nancy Pelosi actually framed the question that I think is on the minds of millions of Americans,” he began, tentatively. “Was this a bad episode or the sign of a more serious question?”
Mr. Stephanopoulos then stumbled into his best question of the night, asking Mr. Biden if he rewatched the debate afterward.
Mr. Biden paused, confused, searching. Some have likened this habit of the president’s to buffering, such as when the computer chokes and can no longer perform its most basic functions.
“I don’t think I did,” Mr. Biden finally answered. “No.”
Mr. Biden is not sure if he went back and watched himself in the single most disastrous political debate performance in the history of television? He cannot remember if he saw himself floundering around on stage before tens of millions of Americans?
Either Mr. Biden is lying or his brain is even further gone than anyone realized. But Mr. Stephanopoulos left it there and moved right along to the next question.
Flinch.
Asked if he realized in real time how badly he was doing during the debate, Mr. Biden said he did and proceeded to give five different, unrelated excuses in one long, disjointed sentence — none of which explained anything. It was the sort of answer if you heard it from your own father and actually cared about him, you would take away his car keys, let alone the keys to the White House.
Mr. Biden was most unspooled when talking about his own achievements, once again offering unintelligible lies about the inflation that skyrocketed after he took over from former President Donald Trump.
He boasted that he expanded NATO and “shut [Russian President Vladimir] Putin down” — an assertion so ridiculous it would be funny if so many people were not needlessly being killed every day in Mr. Biden’s Ukraine war.
In fact, Mr. Biden asserted, the only reason he has not begun beating Mr. Trump in the polls is because he is too busy.
“You know, not only am I campaigning, but I’m running the world,” Mr. Biden explained.
“I was also doing a hell of a lot of other things, like wars around the world, like keeping NATO together, like working …“ he trailed off. “Anyway.”
In other words, Mr. Biden has made such a mess of the world that now he is too busy navigating his own messes that he doesn’t have time to campaign against Mr. Trump.
And of course, the only thing truly uniting Mr. Biden and Mr. Stephanopoulos is their fear and hatred of Mr. Trump. At this point, the interview turned into more of a struggle session between the press and the Democratic nominee about how they were going to keep the Republican former president from winning back the White House.
Mr. Stephanopoulos warned Mr. Biden that his 2020 election against Mr. Trump was “deadly close,” and Mr. Biden is fairly worse off this time. Deep in his unchecked delusions, the president referred Mr. Stephanopoulos to the rally his campaign had just held in a small gymnasium at a Wisconsin middle school where a couple of hundred supporters showed up, at least one of whom was holding a hand-painted sign that said: “PASS THE TORCH, JOE.”
“You saw it today,” Mr. Biden boasted. “How many — how many people draw crowds like I did today? Find me more enthusiastic than today? Huh?”
In Mr. Stephanopoulos’ defense, it was hard to even know where to begin answering the president’s question.
“I don’t think you want to play the crowd game,” he replied nervously, and left it there as the interview wound to a close.
Mr. Biden was still struggling, spinning deeper into the delusions of his own mind, no closer to the grave reality of his — or his party’s — situation.
• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.
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