Dear friends,
The State of the Union helped to relieve some concerns about Biden’s age and cognitive state. It is also comforting to get more context for the remarks by Robert Hur, the special counsel who recently slammed the president for having a poor memory.
The transcripts of Hur’s interviews with Biden show that he did not recall when or how a particular box got into a particular room. He wasn’t always clear about which year he was in which job. Full disclosure: I refer to my own resume to ‘recall’ when I finished grad school or left one school for another.
As many commentators suspected after Hur made his damning public remarks, the report highlighted uncertainty without acknowledging the quality and character of what Biden did remember.
In the report, Hur made a lot of the idea that Biden
had mistakenly said he “had a real difference” of opinion with Karl Eikenberry, who was the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. In fact, Mr. Hur noted, Mr. Eikenberry, like Mr. Biden, had opposed a surge.
This involved events of 2009. On the same day of questioning, after the remarks to which Hur referred, Biden correctly stated his agreement with Eikenberry and related that he urged Obama to speak with him directly. This was not in the report:
[I]t was added argument why he should listen to my argument. I’m talking about — you know, “I had a long conversation with Eikenberry, yes, I urge you to call him before you make a decision. Karl can speak for himself and he has eloquently in some of his cables, let me relay just a few things. Adding troops will not speed up the ability to train Afghans because…” etc. So these are criticisms of the proposal that was being made to the president by, by others in the administration wanting him to double down in Afghanistan.
In the first instance, which was included in the report, Biden referred to “key foreign policy types, particularly — whether it was Eikenberry or whether it was — anyway.” In the second instance, he refers to Eikenberry by his first name, clearly acknowledging his thinking on the matter and their agreement.
I am not the only one who feels confident in the president’s cognitive capacity.
Voters of Tomorrow and 14 other youth-led organizations have formally endorsed Biden for re-election. NextGen PAC, Students Demand Action, Voices of Gen-Z, and Blue Future, Jr. are part of the joint endorsement.
Young people can see the differences between two old men.
I’m going to keep this short and owe you some more good news.
with love,
L