After 491 Days, WSJ Reporter Evan Gershkovich Is Free

I'm overjoyed by the news that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich is coming home! 

The exchange that led to the release of him, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a British-Russian dissident and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist is the largest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War. 

Well done, President Biden, Secretary Blinken, Vice President Harris and everyone else who made this possible. Today was a very good day. xo

P.S. I'm with John Aravosis when he says: 

Can we all agree that it’s time for Americans to stop going to Russia, including media organization sending reporters over when they know damn well they’re gonna get kidnapped and then we’re gonna have to give up horrific Russian criminals in exchange for them?

@potus: After enduring unimaginable suffering and uncertainty, the Americans detained in Russia are safe, free, and have begun their journeys back into the arms of their families.

@vp: Today, we celebrate the release of Paul, Evan, Alsu, Vladimir, and others who were unjustly held in Russia. It gives me great comfort to know that their horrible ordeal is over and that they will soon be reunited with their families. @POTUS and I will not stop working until every American who is wrongfully detained or held hostage is brought home.

WATCH: Pure joy as they are greeted by Biden and Harris, reunited with their families!

Robinette and the City

 

But what would Che say? 

Page 1 Roundup: The Morning After

You may have noticed that I no longer publish the front pages of newspapers anymore -- I don't even read print these days. But I'm still a sucker for seeing how the major broadsheets handle it when something historic happens -- so here's a special edition for you: 

Daily News: President Biden ends presidential bid, backs Kamala Harris

 Top VP candidates to join Kamala Harris on new Democratic ticket

New York Post: Biden drops out of presidential race after Democratic revolt following disastrous debate: ‘Best interest of the country’

The New York Times: Biden drops out of race, scrambling the campaign for the White House

The Wall Street Journal: Biden drops out of presidential race, endorses Harris

The Washington Post: Biden makes stunning decision to pull out of 2024 race

USA Today: Joe Biden endorses Kamala Harris after he drops out of 2024 election

Los Angeles Times: Biden drops out, endorses Kamala Harris as Democratic presidential nominee

Financial Times: Joe Biden drops out of US election and endorses Kamala Harris

(Delaware) News Journal: In a historic move, Joe Biden suspends 2024 re-election campaign

President Biden Drops Out and Backs Kamala Harris

 

Ten days ago I conceded that it was time for President Biden to step aside and let another candidate run on the Democratic ticket. In a surprise to no one who knows his character, he (once again) put his country first and did just that. The response has been overwhelming and could be just what the country needs to preserve its democracy. 

More HERE.

LATEST: Vice President Kamala Harris spoke with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, whose name has come up as a possible vice-presidential pick, sources say

Statement from former President Barack Obama

Statement from Bill and Hillary Clinton 

On a lighter note: 

BRAT Kamala shirts already on Fire Island. The gays move SO FAST

From the New York Times Editorial Board:

Biden Made a Courageous Choice. Democrats Must Seize the Opportunity.

President Biden’s decision to exit the 2024 presidential election is a fitting coda for a man whose life has been devoted to public service. Mr. Biden has served the nation well as its president. By agreeing to step down when his term ends in January, he is greatly increasing the chance that his party is able to protect the nation from the dangers of returning Donald Trump to the presidency.

Majorities of Americans have consistently said they did not believe Mr. Biden could lead the nation for another term, citing longstanding fears about his age and fitness that have only grown in recent months. Had he remained at the top of the ticket, he would have greatly increased the likelihood of Mr. Trump retaking the presidency and potentially controlling both houses of Congress as well. Mr. Biden himself has consistently warned that specter presents a profound threat to the nation and its democratic traditions.

Mr. Biden has now done what Mr. Trump never will: He has placed the national interest above his own pride and ambition.

Mr. Biden’s departure gives Democrats an opportunity to refocus public attention from questions about the president’s fitness to the manifest moral and temperamental unfitness of Mr. Trump — and to the dangers of rearming him with the considerable powers of the presidency.

The next Democratic nominee should acknowledge and offer solutions for the pain and disruptions caused by uncontrolled immigration. America needs immigrants. The nation also needs better policies for controlling their flow into the country.

Voters are angry about the cost of living. Democrats particularly need to offer better ideas for addressing the biggest line item in most household budgets: the high cost of housing.

And Mr. Biden’s successor needs to engage with the American people. Mr. Biden has had fewer unscripted interactions with the public and the news media than any other president in recent decades, often leaving voters with a sense that he was hiding from the public. A new presidential candidate should demonstrate exactly the opposite tendency, showing both a willingness to be open about plans for the future and a real interest in what voters have to say in return.

In a social media post on Sunday afternoon, Mr. Biden said he was endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place at the top of the ticket. She is an accomplished leader and a forceful and eloquent campaigner and is likely to be a far more persuasive candidate than Mr. Biden. She would hold Mr. Trump to account for his lies and destructive policies in a way that Mr. Biden’s infirmities have left him unable to do.

Choosing Ms. Harris would be a reasonable path for Democrats to take; she has been Mr. Biden’s running mate, and while no votes were cast for her as a presidential candidate in primaries, the president’s voters expected her to be on the ticket in November.

Nonetheless, party delegates should have a voice in a decision of this consequence. There are other qualified Democrats who could take on Mr. Trump and win, and picking a candidate without a real contest is how the party got into a position of anointing a standard-bearer that large majorities of Democrats and independents had profound concerns about. While the hour is late, there is still time to put leading candidates through a process of public scrutiny before the party’s nominating convention begins on Aug. 19, to inform the choice of a nominee and to build public support.

Whether the party chooses Ms. Harris or another Democrat, the nominee should convince voters that he or she will emulate Mr. Biden’s approach to working with Congress. In an era of intense polarization, Mr. Biden eschewed the satisfactions of principled stands in favor of the compromises necessary to make tangible progress. He engaged respectfully and honorably with Republicans.

The resulting victories included major investments in improving infrastructure and reducing inequality, as well as laws addressing gun violence, modernizing the air traffic control system, protecting same-sex marriage and investing in semiconductor manufacturing. Similar compromises are needed to rewrite the nation’s immigration laws, to craft an equitable replacement for Mr. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and to pass laws helping working parents.

Most of all, as president, Mr. Biden has stood on the side of the values that have long defined America: a commitment to freedom, a respect for the rule of law and a belief that pluralism is a fundamental source of the nation’s strength. His administration, the most diverse in American history, embodies those values. It has worked to improve the lives of all Americans and to give Americans the opportunity to build better lives.

When Mr. Biden began his campaign in 2019, he told supporters that Mr. Trump would be defeated and that history would come to regard Mr. Trump’s four years in office as an “aberrant moment.” Mr. Biden has played his part, but the democratic project is never complete. That work now passes to the next generation of political leaders and to the American people.

Hair-Raising Headlines

The hits keep coming ...

A(nother) sign? 🙏🙏🙏

It's starting to seem like I HAD IT RIGHT last week.

And this is disturbing on numerous levels. In all my years on this planet I will never understand those whose minds operate this way. 

All I can think is it's a deeply twisted version of this workplace meme, which is a bond that I know firsthand is awfully hard to break. The huge difference is that coworkers actually KNOW each other and form opinions from that -- and it's meant to be kinda tongue-in-cheek. This "mass deportations" mindset is just unbridled hatred and callousness based on nothing but bigotry and xenophobia and is the antithesis of American values, much less the Judeo-Christian beliefs these voters purport to live by. Also: Funny how the outstanding post-pandemic economy suddenly means nothing when there's a Democrat in office. Where's everyone rubbing one out to the jobs numbers and going on and on about their "401(k)s now”???? I really pity these people. 

Biden’s Point of No Return?

What a difference two days make. It's Thursday and with Nancy Pelosi now hinting that she isn't 100% behind President Biden, it's starting to feel like we've reached a tipping point in the "Should he stay or should he go?" sweepstakes.

Four days ago I scoffed when a friend wrote on Facebook:

Pardon the punditry, but I don't see any way that a national presidential campaign can possibly recover from a week-plus of calls from inside and outside the party for the candidate to step down. What is one more interview, one more town hall, even one more debate going to achieve at this point? The GOP could basically spend from now until November doing nothing but running ads quoting Democrats and liberal pundits saying Biden needs to go, over footage from the debate. 

Even if you think he was a solid and electable candidate before the debate, there is no way to take back anything that's been said and reported since. This is essentially a zombie campaign now, that's the political reality.

Now I give in. But let me tell you why I fear this was a complete miscalculation:

First, I still firmly believe that if Democrats had maintained a united front after the debate -- like Republicans have no matter what their candidate does -- President Biden could have ridden this out and had a good chance to win. (Am I the only one who remembers that the other guy didn't get the most votes in 2016 or 2020 -- and that he cost his party the White House, the House and the Senate?)

Secondly, you don't squander an incumbency. You just don't. Instead, let the infighting and accusations of "coronations" begin.

And last and most troubling, I don't see any clean way for the president to be replaced as the Democratic nominee -- and I'm not at all convinced doing so will increase the chance that the Democrat will win in November. (Do people not remember that Humphrey still lost handily to Nixon when Johnson exited?) Yes, I understand that the vast majority of people don't like either candidate. But if there had been a Democrat that more people like, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with. So why do people think we can magically produce and coalesce around one now? 

What Democrats forget -- but Republicans know and are salivating about -- is that the other guy is so despised by so many voters that all it took to defeat him was putting him up against a generic white man, because (as unfair as it may be) things don’t stick to them the way they do to others. (“Crooked Joe” didn’t work. "Burisma" didn’t work. "Hunter’s laptop" didn’t work.) Now the other guy is probably going to get another femme foil, which he and far too many white men live (and love) to demonize. (It's like for these guys a vote against Hillary Clinton was a vote against "that b**ch" who dumped them.) The only person I've ever heard people talk about more contemptuously than Hillary and Nancy Pelosi is Kamala Harris. (I'll let you try to figure out why that may be -- wink-wink.) I am aware that the Veep's numbers have marginally improved, but wait’ll she gets “birthered” and “emailed” for months on end. (And now that Democrats have labeled Biden damaged goods, either way is a win-win for Republicans.) Still, since it now seems the well has been poisoned, the sooner the process begins the better.

Democrats have long been their own worst enemies. And refusing to take yes for an answer is how they managed to lose Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan in 2016 just weeks after the "Access Hollywood" tape aired and Republicans were calling for their nominee to drop out. (Do Dems even remember that?) So in the interest of not giving these voters another excuse to not show up, go ahead and pick another candidate. Let's call their bluff and pray I am wrong about everything.

And to Joe Biden: Thank you for all you've done. You were the best president in my lifetime (to date). 

UPDATE: Biden -- who was gaffe-prone when he was 4 and called Barack Obama "bright and clean" before getting picked by him to be his running mate --  just introduced Ukrainian President Zelenskyy at a NATO press conference as "President Putin." (After realizing his mistake he went back to the podium to say: "No, we're going to beat Putin.") Meanwhile the other candidate calls Biden "Obama" every other time he opens his mouth, but apparently when Joe does it it's the end of the world. (At this point I’m starting to think we don’t deserve democracy.)

God help us all. 

FRIDAY UPDATE: I'm not sure why, but I didn't see this coming. Again, I always believed Biden had the best chance to win again before the backlash, but it really seemed like the dissension was too much. 

Or was it? 

Maybe the naysayers will start to calm down and things will get back on track. Or maybe there’s yet another twist ahead. I really have zero sense of where this is going. All I am certain of is that Biden won’t walk away unless he’s confident his party has the best possible chance to retain control of the White House in November, and so far it seems he still believes he’s the one.