Plan B Forum

The Boston Globe rates the performers.

Is Burisma taking its toll on Papa Joe? I don't think he's going to make it to the finish line.

Scorecard: Grading the debate performance of the Democratic candidates
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politi ... story.html

I didn't watch the debate so I can't comment directly. But recently I've been watching Joe say all the right things but often in a way that concerns me. Most of unfortunately know that we don't have the mental acuity we had when we were 20 years younger and the weight of the added experience is often (not always) not enough to make up for that loss. He'd be 78 - and Bernie 79 - at inauguration.

The Trump thing with Hunter has to be getting to him. The recent announcement that Hunter fathered a child last year (he was 48 for crying out loud! Hasn't he heard of contraception?) and was only outed because he stopped paying child support and the mother had to sue must be distracting. Hunter may be a fine lawyer with a wonderful legal brain but there is at least the perception and IMHO the actuality that his main claim to fame is his last name. There is also the Woody Allen-ish weirdness of dating his brother's widow. I'm not saying it's illegal or even morally wrong (in some societies it's the right thing to do) but according to Wikipedia "In 2016, he began dating Hallie Biden, the widow of his brother, Beau; they ended their relationship by early 2019." The Arkansas child was born in August 2018. You do the math.

I'm not saying that Trump is right about H Biden's position on the Burisma board. But if he's so smart - smart enough to land a gig with a foreign energy company that pays $50K a month for minimal time investment - you'd think that he'd be smart enough to wonder whether his employment was at least partially contingent on his providing access to the corridors of power in the US.

Although I often like what J Biden says, I have the fear that if he is selected we would see nothing but attacks from Trump and some of these would stick. I gave Trump zero chance in 2016 (despite all the evidence to the contrary I still have faith in the ultimate wisdom of a crowd) but I really did not want H Clinton to win the nomination. She would be attacked unmercifully and some of the mud would seem to stick. We have heard nothing in the D campaign about Biden's plagiarism of Neil Kinnock's speeches in 1988. (Kinnock was a one time leader of the UK Labour Party.) Rest assured that Trump has all that in his quiver, just waiting to be fitted to his bow as necessary.