t’s time to put to bed the debate over whether it was intention or incompetence that forced Joe Biden’s convention speech into a slot well past prime time.
All the evidence points to intent.
Organizers scheduled too many speakers and knew what they were going to say because it was all loaded into TelePrompters.
No matter their lame defenses Tuesday, they had to assume there would be time spent on applause and transitions, so Biden’s finishing well after midnight on the East Coast could not be a surprise to them.
Then again, who can fault the organizers for wanting to hide him?
Biden is well past his prime, as he demonstrated repeatedly with his angry shouting and repetitive asides of “I’m not joking” and “That’s not hyperbole.”
Little-watched late show
Put it this way: If it was your job to convince America the party can be trusted to find a new leader who is ready to guide the nation for four more years, would you want Biden’s dreary performance to be seen by as many as 40 million voters?
Even worse, would you want to take a chance that the same Joe who delivered the June debate debacle would show up and destroy the fiction that he and the party are even modestly competent and honest?
Biden’s speech was the only part of that convention that I watched. My only interest was seeing if he was going to step down from the presidency.