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Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, entered a guilty plea today in the federal tax evasion case against him. This would have been a much bigger deal, of course, if Joe were still actively running for re-election, but now it will be no more than a political footnote, at least as far as the election is concerned.
One week from today, the two major political parties' presidential candidates will debate each other. Although this will be the second general election campaign debate held, it is not technically accurate to use the word "again" in that previous sentence, since we won't see the same two candidates on stage that we did last time. This is unprecedented in modern American politics, and 2024 might very well be remembered in the future as "the year the debates mattered."
This week, the mainstream media proved yet again how good they are at missing the forest for the trees, at least in the political world. The entire week, the chattering classes pushed their new Donald Trump scandal for all it was worth. Now look, we're no fans of Trump (far from it!), but it all just seemed like the attention and outrage were a wee bit misplaced.
It has now been announced that CNN's Dana Bash has won the journalistic sweepstakes and will be conducting a joint interview with Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on Thursday. This will fulfill a promise Harris made to sit down for an unscripted interview with the media before the end of the month.
Which directly leads to the question of what Harris and Walz should be asked about on Tuesday. So putting on our late-summer "If It Was Me" thinking cap, here are the questions I would ask Harris and Walz, if they were sitting down with me for an interview.
Over its first three days, the Democratic National Convention kept building on one overriding theme: joy. Or, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explained to Stephen Colbert last night, for Democrats it was "the rebirth of hope." I almost expected Beethoven's Ode To Joy to be played at some point, but I guess the various DJs didn't have a copy. A far different Alex -- the main character in A Clockwork Orange -- would have been seriously disappointed by this omission, since (as he put it) it would have added: "all the banging and creeching about Joy Joy Joy Joy." The lack of "Ludwig Van" aside, though, it certainly was a joyful event for the first three nights.
The Democratic National Convention has truly been a blowout affair, building each day to an even-more-impressive frenzy, sparked by speaker after enthusiastic speaker, each seeming to bring the levels of excitement inside the arena to new heights. Last night was a continuation of this building sense of joy. A third Democratic president, Bill Clinton, appeared (following Joe Biden on the first night and Barack Obama on the second) -- but (rather astonishingly) he was actually not the biggest star of the evening.
The Democratic National Convention is now half over, after a blowout second night that featured both Michelle and Barack Obama as the evening's headliners. This was after what is normally a pretty boring (and cheesy) process -- the rollcall of the state delegations -- turned into a joyful dance party, complete with a DJ spinning tunes appropriate to each state. All in all, a pretty outstanding night!
Today is the first day of the Democratic National Convention, but I've decided I'm going to report on each day's events the day after they happen, rather than typing furiously into the night with my snap reactions. So today's convention round-up will run tomorrow, and we will likely have to pre-empt the Friday Talking Points column for the final day's review (which of course will be the biggest night, when Kamala Harris gives her acceptance speech).
Instead, I have a few random comments about the news media and how they are currently exhibiting a massive double standard towards Harris and her campaign, in more ways than one.
For the past few weeks, JD Vance has been mightily trying to paint Tim Walz as having somehow claimed some "stolen valor" for his 24 years of honorable service in the National Guard. This required him to completely ignore the fact that Donald Trump got a deferment for non-existent "bone spurs" to avoid going to Vietnam, as well as Trump's naked contempt for those who do serve in the military. But hey, all that was a long time ago, and people have mostly forgotten how Trump denigrated an authentic war hero (John McCain) in 2015, so Vance just kept trying.
Well, that was an hour and a half of my life that I surely would have enjoyed doing just about anything else during... sigh.... Chalk it up as another instance of: "I watch these things so you don't have to," I guess.
Donald Trump gave a marathon press conference today, but didn't actually take a single question until more than 45 minutes into it. He then answered questions for roughly 40 minutes before walking off camera to give someone an autograph.