There is a scene from January 2024 in the new Joe Biden scandal book “Original Sin” in which the commander-in-chief is clearly not in command.
Congressional leaders and Biden’s top foreign policy officials are gathered for a high-level meeting regarding Russia’s continued war against Ukraine. It was (and is) one of the most important challenges facing America and the West.
“Biden was difficult to hear. He stumbled over words; he started sentences and then stopped abruptly; he trailed off,” the authors report.
“When it was time to go around the table so that congressional leaders could ask questions, the president deferred to National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, asking them to weigh in with answers.”
One House Democrat afterward said the meeting “was a disaster. It was a s***show.”
Four months later, Mrs. Jake Sullivan — aka Maggie Goodlander — would rent an apartment in Nashua, announce her candidacy for the 2nd Congressional District, and declare her solid support for four more years of the Biden presidency.
And that, in a nutshell, is the story of New Hampshire’s role in the so-called “cover-up” of Biden’s age during the 2024 campaign.
“So-called” because in November 2023, two months before the ‘s***show’ meeting, a New York Times/Siena poll was already reporting 62 percent of Americans said Biden “lacked the mental sharpness” to serve as president, and 71 percent said he was already too old for the job.
Some “cover up.”
And yet New Hampshire Democrats like the two Maggies — Goodlander and U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan — were all in on publicly claiming something the public knew wasn’t true.
In January 2024, Hassan published an op-ed praising Biden’s performance and urging Democrats to write in a candidate who tried to kill their First in the Nation presidential primary.
“We have long known that staying on the sidelines is not an option and we will put our country first,” Hassan said.
Reading about the depths of Biden’s mental decline by January 2024, the phrase “put our country first” has a very different feel today.
The one Granite Stater who makes the most appearances in “Original Sin” is former U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster. The key word is “former.” It’s hard to imagine a Democrat who had to face voters in the future openly admitting she was publicly supporting someone she believed was utterly unfit to serve.
Two weeks before Biden’s infamous debate fiasco, the book reports, Kuster was telling fellow Democrats privately that Biden was mentally out of it. After the debate, she privately called the decision to let Biden onstage “malpractice.”
“How did you not find a positive COVID test?” she joked.
But that didn’t stop Kuster from posting her praise for Biden on social media. “Tonight, the choice was clear—President Biden and Vice President Harris are the leaders we need to move our country forward to build a future worthy of pride. Onward!”
Still, the most interesting case is Goodlander, because she is the Democrat who knew the most about Biden’s dangerous decline. A former member of Navy intelligence, she understood the global risks facing America. The spouse of Biden’s top foreign policy advisor, she was no doubt aware of the president’s poor mental performance. (The book recounts how Biden repeatedly called Jake Sullivan “Steve.”)
And yet she was consistently one of the most over-the-top Biden supporters. During her campaign for Congress last fall, she repeatedly compared Biden to George Washington. When he was finally forced out of the presidential race, she falsely claimed that Biden made the decision on his own and for noble reasons — not pressured by his party.
The new book reports that, rather than a president, America had what the authors call a “politburo.” It consisted of longtime Biden political flaks like Mike Donilon and Steve Richetti, along with some policy wonks. Among them: Jake Sullivan.
Sullivan’s job was to fill the gaps in the president’s competency, and yet, despite knowing about his egregious incapacity, Goodlander promoted Biden’s reelection.
Will Goodlander pay a political price? Based on the response to the new book, it’s unlikely. The entire Democratic Party is distancing itself from the Biden fiasco it created, and the mainstream media is largely giving them a pass. Politicians who were clearly aware of Biden’s infirmity are being allowed to claim, like Claude Rains in “Casablanca,” they were “shocked” to learn of the president’s mental incapacity.
Until journalists start asking politicians like Goodlander uncomfortable questions (she’s declined to respond to a dozen requests for comment from NHJournal), the ludicrous claim that Democrats didn’t know what 70 percent of Americans voters did about Biden’s fitness for office will stand.
