“Original Sin,” the new book that examines in great detail the physical and cognitive decline of Joe Biden during his term as president, is stirring up a hornets’ nest of anger in all the places you would expect — not just its contents, but whether it should even exist.
If, by some miracle, you haven’t heard about the book, written by CNN's Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson of Axios, available as of Tuesday, May 20, the subtitle will give you a pretty good idea of what it’s about: “President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.”
The book includes, of course, Biden’s fate-sealing debacle of a debate against Donald Trump, something we all saw play out in real time right in front of us — in Tapper’s case, literally in front of him: He was one of the debate’s moderators. But it also has other, behind-the-scenes revelations, like Biden not recognizing George Clooney, one of the most famous people in the world and a Biden friend for years, at a record-breaking fundraiser that Clooney helped put on.
Biden's decision to run was 'an abomination,' a source says
A stubborn Biden, surrounded by a shrinking inner circle protecting him, insisted on running for a second term. We saw how that turned out. This insistence is the original sin of the title.
One source says, “It was an abomination. He stole an election from the Democratic Party; he stole it from the American people.” Others used earthier terms.
A common complaint is that journalists failed to meaningfully report on Biden’s decline — even that there was some sort of media conspiracy. There was some reporting about it — Thompson wrote about it, and was heavily criticized for his efforts.
Of course, in retrospect it’s easy to say journalists failed, though the idea of a media cover-up conspiracy is absurd. Reporters can’t just stroll into the Oval Office and chat with the president the way they might the city manager of Yuma. In Biden’s case, according to the book, even some members of his Cabinet were kept at arm’s length.
Another surprising development was reported on the eve of the book's release. On Sunday, May 18, Biden announced that he was fighting an aggressive form of prostate cancer, a revelation that obviously isn’t in the book.
It’s fascinating, with lots of anecdotes to make its point: that Biden was unfit to serve a second term, and maybe even to serve out the balance of his first.
'Original Sin' raises a couple of questions
All of this raises a couple of questions. The most obvious is, where was all this reporting when it really mattered? Tapper and Thompson have said that only after the election, which Vice President Kamala Harris lost to Trump, would many of the sources who had denied Biden’s decline talk openly and honestly about it. Again, the president of the United States has a lot of resources to stay hidden, should he want to.
The other question is odder, at least to me. Why, when Trump is running roughshod over democracy, are we giving so much time and oxygen to Biden’s obvious decline? Log onto BlueSky and marvel at the vitriol from the left, arguing that the book is tantamount to treason, or somesuch. One friend who is a lot smarter about this stuff than I am said it was like lamenting how much you paid for air conditioning when your house is burning down.
I disagree.
A postmortem is standard after a presidency — as it should be
Are there not always postmortems about elections and the previous presidency? Weren’t there so, so many after Trump’s first term? Of course there are. It's a cottage industry. If newspapers are the first draft of history, aren’t these books in effect the second draft?
It’s not as if Trump’s dismantling of democracy is going uncovered. Yes, it has taken the media a while to get up to speed with the head-spinning array of attacks on the basic rights of American citizens. And playing chicken with the economy. And the open graft. It is, by Trump’s design, hard to keep up. Some may not like how it’s done, but nothing major is going uncovered.
Plus, now the Biden presidency is history — literal history. Can we not learn from it? Shouldn’t we learn from it? Why should it be off-limits?
There is a seeming belief among some on the left that time spent on anything but chronicling Trump trampling the norms and traditions that have kept this country mostly great for so long — which he definitely is doing — is somehow not just a waste of time but a dereliction of duty, in its own way an attack on democracy itself.
Again, I disagree. That kind of thinking is part of what accounted for the whole mess in the first place. Lots of people can pat their heads and rub their stomachs at the same time. It’s actually part of the job requirement for media organizations. We can look back and forward, at the same time. In fact, we have to. So many people say they want fairness in coverage. Don’t complain when you get it.
Reach Goodykoontz atbill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook:facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Media commentary with a side of snark? Sign up forThe Watchlist newsletterwith Bill Goodykoontz.
