The Outsider Perspective Issue 444 | The Beltway Outsiders

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Good Friday Morning! And a special farewell this week to the great George Wendt, who passed away at 76. He became an American icon with his portrayal of Norm on the hit TV show “Cheers,” which consistently ranks among the best television shows in American history.

The Hollywood Reporter “raised a pint” to Norm, talking about him and the show, which is a good read. Paramount put together a clip of some of Norm’s best entrances to the great show. My favorite Norm scene is where he’s walking out of the bar with a coat full of kittens.

If you’re a younger reader and have not seen Cheers, check it out on a streaming service. It’s a solid option. Also, fun note: Rob Long, who some of you may know as a National Review / WSJ writer, was an executive producer for Cheers and got nominated for Emmys and Golden Globes for his work from Cheers.

This week, I’m going to do a deep dive into the recently released “Original Sin” book, covering some items that I think were missed in the overall discourse—links to follow.

Quick Hits:

Megyn Kelly annihilates Jake Tapper/CNN over Biden health cover-up. I never expected Jake Tapper to have the stones to go on Megyn Kelly’s show for this “Original Sin” book, but he did. If you watch one thing this holiday weekend, make it the entire episode of Kelly wrecking Tapper and CNN’s coverage of Biden and their part in the press acceptance of the cover-up. She has Tapper begging for mercy and admitting wrong on multiple occasions. I shared a clip in the Almanac this week, but the whole episode is something else. Watch for free on YouTube.
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Where you can find me this week

Please subscribe, rate, and review The Horse Race on YouTube — the reviews help listeners, and readers like you find me. Make sure to sign up for the Conservative Institute’s daily newsletter and The American Almanac.

What Did Biden’s Doctor Know? – Conservative Institute

Subpoena Biden’s Doctor And Everyone Else – Conservative Institute

The Intifada Goes To Washington D.C. – Conservative Institute

“Original Sin” and the continuing Biden health coverup.

I’ve been reading “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, And His Disastrous Choice To Run Again.” I’m around halfway through the book right now, but the number of notes I’ve taken and underlining is outpacing many of my other books.

I will touch on one section that Tapper/Thompson only covers in passing (because it wasn’t overly important when they went to press), but I want to discuss my frustrations while reading this book first.

First, the emphasis on a cover-up on Biden’s health is true—but it ignores a very big problem: the cover-up was bad and unconvincing. Conservatives were getting far more accurate reporting on Biden’s health than anyone else, and all they did was show the clips the White House was brave enough to post.

It’s easy to prove this because, according to polls, between 65-80% of Americans believed that Biden was too old to serve. And that included nearly 70% of Democrats in some polls. In short, Americans overwhelmingly looked at Biden, saw the obvious, and made the logical conclusion.

One of the repeated points you see some named Democrats in the book say is they all had the same reaction: “Biden is acting like my mom/dad/aunt/uncle/older friend when they got that age with dementia/Alzheimer’s/senility.” This point was especially true for mega-donors who had time with Biden. Everyone had the same reaction.

The cover-up was not for the American people. It was to keep Democrat lawmakers/donors in line and to give the press something else to report. In that narrow sense, the cover-up was successful. In any other definition, it was a failure.

Second, Republicans have every right to target Biden’s use of the autopen. It’s critical to ask who was running the country and White House, and it’s not a conspiracy theory to want to find out. I don’t think things like pardons can be overridden. Still, there is a massive constitutional question over whether the president was calling the shots on any given policy.

Here’s a direct quote from “Original Sin” on this topic:

In practice, Bruce Reed was the real domestic policy advisor, Mike Donilon was the actual political director, Steve Ricchetti controlled Legislative affairs, and Klain controlled a bit of everything. ….

All of these factors led to a uniquely small and loyal inner circle. Some felt that the insularity was the Politburo’s way of protecting its influence. “Five people were running the country, and Joe Biden was at best a senior member of the board,” said one person familiar with the internal dynamic.

(Emphasis mine) Some aides in the book even excuse this, suggesting that the American people didn’t elect Biden but wanted his staff to call the shots. It’s some bizarre self-rationalization.

The continuing cover-up.

My biggest problem with reading this book is that the cover-up hasn’t stopped. We’ve just shifted from Democrats defending a cognitive decline cover-up, which everyone has given up on, to defending Biden because he just got prostate cancer.

Democrats and the press are reliably lining up to claim that it’s bad form to attack a man with cancer. David Axelrod went so far as to claim that the Biden stuff should be “set aside” for now. That is garbage.

If you believe this nonsense, you’re the mark. “Original Sin” doesn’t cover the prostate cancer part because the Biden family dropped that news, purposefully, right before the book launch. The timing can’t be ignored because it’s a political play that the Bidens have exercised for decades.

They knew Biden had cancer. The only question is when they learned. It wouldn’t be the first time they covered up a cancer diagnosis. I’m going to quote a section from “Original Sin,” that Tapper/Thompson reference but did not explore: the Biden family covered up Beau Biden’s cancer diagnosis to his deathbed:

Beau’s cancer treatment also demonstrated the Bidens’ capacity for denial and the lengths they would go to avoid transparency about health issues, even when the person in question is an elected official, in this case the sitting attorney general of Delaware.

In the summer of 2013, Beau collapsed during a family vacation and underwent brain surgery to remove a tumor. “Beau’s tumor was definitely glioblastoma. State IV,” Biden later wrote about the postoperative findings. “It was a death sentence,” Hunter wrote. Beau began limiting his public appearances that fall. He stopped doing extended media interviews. He appeared gaunt. He had a fresh surgical scar on his head and a new haircut with it.

In September, Beau and Biden’s team internally debated how much to disclose about Beau – the vice president’s son and a state’s top law enforcement officer – but ultimately said nothing. In November, Beau told a local reporter that he been given a “clean bill of health.”

In February, Dr. Wai-Kwan Alfred Yung released a statement to The News Journal that echoed Beau. The attorney general, Yung wrote, had a “clean bill of health” after an exam.

The neurologist told the public that they had removed a “small lesion” from Beau’s brain. In fact, it was a “tumor slightly larger than a golf ball,” Biden later recalled.

Beau would remain the sitting attorney general of Delaware for the entirety of 2014, even as his family secretly flew him all over the country for a variety of experimental treatments. In April 2014, he began having difficulties with his speech. He would often enter hospitals under an alias: George Lincoln.

Beau’s wife, Hallie, told people she didn’t understand why they had to keep his illness a secret. Making it public likely would have led people to rally around the family. He was an elected official. But both Biden and Beau opposed disclosure.

At times, Biden also instructed his team to mislead the media about his whereabouts. They would publicly say the vice president was going to Delaware for the weekend, then returning to DC the next week. That was technically true, but Biden sometimes flew to Houston, where Beau was receiving treatment, to be with his eldest son over the weekend.

Publicly acknowledging Beau’s illness would make it a reality. It was them against the world.

(All emphasis mine) Tapper/Thompson moved on after that story, covering other matters. Beau Biden died on May 30, 2015. While all of this was going on, the Biden family even circled around Beau Biden running for governor in 2016.

Here’s the only thing I’d ask anyone: Does anything in the above section on Beau Biden sound familiar? I read it and got deja vu from the Biden health cover-up. I felt like I was reading a description of the Biden White House, not Beau Biden.

That’s why I’d dare any Democrat: if you want to say that Biden is telling the truth, the onus is on you to prove that on this prostate cancer. The Biden family has already proven multiple times they will go to great lengths to hide and lie about health issues – including having doctors lie on their behalf.

The cover-up is still happening.

Links of the week

Walk a Few Miles in An Israeli’s Shoes – Commentary

My Friend Yaron: Yaron Lischinsky was murdered Wednesday night in Washington, D.C., by an anti-Israel militant. I knew him. Let me tell you who he was. – Mariam Wahba, The Free Press

Far-left Rep. Ilhan Omar refuses to condemn murders of 2 Israeli Embassy staffers when pressed by reporters – NYPost

Attacking Jews at Harvard Doesn’t Just Go Unpunished. It Gets Rewarded. – The Free Press

Qatari Media Figures Praise Washington D.C. Terror Attack On Jewish Event For Young Professionals That Killed Two Israeli Embassy Employees – MEMRI

My family tried living European-style austerity. One state’s insane energy agenda wants that as a model – Bethan Mandel, Fox News

How China co-opted the green movement: Development for Beijing, degrowth for us – Unherd

Journalists Attest to Experiences of Sexual Misconduct with Progressive Journalist Star Wesley Lowery – CJR

Stop making cents: US Mint moves forward with plans to kill the penny – AP

The Decline of the Democratic Coalition, 2012-2024: Farewell to the “rising American electorate.” – Liberal Patriot