How Goes The Lawfare Strategy?

As I noted on Wednesday, although NeverTrumpers like Andrew McCarthy claim that the Democrats' lawfare strategy has succeeded in making Trump the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican nomination, statements by Biden supporters have consistently taken the position that the indictments and trials were timed to coincide with key campaign events that would tend to favor his opponents, especially Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. By that reasoning, at least as might have been foreseen in the middle of last year, the Letitia James civil trial in New York would have dampened Trump's prospects in the Iowa caucuses and early primaries, while starting the January 6 trial in Washington on March 4, the day before Super Tuesday, would also have favored other Republican candidates.

Instead, it looks like there won't be much of a Republican primary contest at all. On Wednesday, following the Iowa caucus results, Sen Cruz, who ran against Trump in the 2016 primaries, announced “this race is over” before he stated he is “proud to endorse Donald Trump for President of the United States.” Philip Bump writes in the Washinton Post, "A lot of people are invested in presenting the 2024 Republican primary contest as competitive. It isn’t. It hasn’t been."

He goes on to say that media outlets have an incentive to cover the race as competitive, because it brings in clicks, but

No other Republican has landed a blow on Trump, particularly since he galvanized his support at the beginning of last year. This is one reason that Haley and DeSantis so often go after each other; there’s actual ground to be gained. The other reason is that neither candidate wants to irritate Trump’s base of support, just in case Trump gets hit by a meteor or something. The result is that there is a heated battle to win the Pro Bowl while Trump wins the Super Bowl by forfeit.

All of this, the preceding 1,000 words or so in this article, is talking generally about an obvious point. Barring that meteor strike, there’s no realistic outcome to the nomination other than Trump appearing on the November ballot.

In fact, it seems likely that neither the DeSantis nor the Haley campaigns will last even to March 4. DeSantis appears to have stopped all ad buys as of yeterday:

After losing to former President Donald Trump in the Iowa Republican caucuses Monday, coming in a distant second, DeSantis does not have any ads running in New Hampshire, South Carolina, or Nevada, according to ad tracking services.

Not only has his campaign apparently gone silent, but the various super PACs supporting his 2024 bid have also vanished from television in the early nominating states.

Meanwhile, Haley has a new potential problem as the UK Daily Mail has revived old allegations of adultery on her part. Newsweek, an anti-Trump outlet, is trying to put the issue in the best light:

Unproven rumors from more than a decade ago of GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley having multiple affairs have given supporters of former President Donald Trump's MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement fuel for a new attack.

. . . The rumors were never proven and no significant new information has emerged about the old accusations, but that hasn't stopped Trump supporters from spreading them again. Their attacks come as Haley has risen in the polls, with many analysts speculating she could defeat Trump in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.

. . . The affair allegations gained more traction among Trump's base after the Daily Mail picked up the story on Friday, with Ryan Fournier, the co-founder of Students for Trump, and conservative X account @Proud Elephant referencing the Mail's article on social media.

Whether Haley is rising in the New Hampshire polls, as Newsweek claims, is questionable. According to NBC News,

Three high-quality New Hampshire polls have now been conducted after the Iowa caucuses — and they tell a consistent story about the battle in the state’s GOP presidential primary.

It’s not just that all three of them — two tracking polls via the Boston Globe/NBC-10/Suffolk, as well as another poll from St. Anselm College — have former President Donald Trump leading former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley by double digits, or that they all have Trump at 50% or higher.

If the goal of the Democrat lawfare campaign is to give Trump the nomination, why would anti-Trump, pro-Democrat Newsweek try to minimize his chances against Haley in New Hampshire and suggest she might beat him there? The fact is that there's no shortage of Democrats who are worried about Trump's potential performance in November, such as David Axelrod, who likely is speaking on behalf of Barack Obama.

The fact is that the January 6 trial, expected to start the day before the Super Tuesday primaries, looks like it will be overtaken by events, with the Republican nomination decided before that date, even leaving aside the increasing likelihood that it will be delayed past then. The Letitia James and E Jean Carroll trials in New York have had no discernible effect on Trump's primary performance, while if anything, the Fani Willis debacle in Atlanta will vindicate Trump and boost his popularity as well.

Lawfare so far has proven an utter debacle.

Kevin Morris Resurfaces

Retired Hollywood attorney and John Updike wannabe Kevin Morris has been lurking in the background of the news lately. He was interviewed by the Comer committee yesterday in what is generally characterized as a "lackluster" appearance that's said to have done nothing to advance the Republicans' case, although at this point, Hunter's income sources and how they may relate to Joe aren't major campaign issues -- they fade in comparison to the simple questions of Joe's condition, the border, and the economy.

Here's typical reaction:

Morris was there as part of the impeachment probe into Joe Biden, but it wasn’t entirely clear what the Republicans were expecting him to say. Morris admitted to virtually everything that we’ve heard about his relationship with the First Son but seemed baffled about why he was there. James Comer suggested that there were inappropriate connections between “loans” that Morris had made to Hunter and Joe Biden’s political campaigns, but little to no concrete evidence was provided. The Oversight Committee has provided plenty of fireworks over the course of this investigation, but this chapter seemed to be more of a dud than anything else.

Kevin Morris has emerged as one of the more colorful and potentially interesting characters in the story of Biden Incorporated, but his involvement with the Biden family’s affairs has always sounded very “hands-off” in nature. I suppose it was worth talking to him, but I’ll confess that I really wasn’t sure what, if anything, he could be accused of. He’s been on the periphery of the story and is definitely deeply embedded with the Bidens, but he never seems to show up in the truly insidious parts of the story.

The photo above shows him on the left with Hunter and Abbe Lowell during Hunter's surprise appearance on January 10 in the Comer committee hearing room. What struck me was how much Morris, 61, appears to have aged since his days as an aspiring writer pitching his first book only a decade ago. He was 51 then; now he's 61 and looks more like 81. A bicoastal multimillionaire, he's dressed like a used car salesman in a purple jacket, buttoned while he's seated, that no longer fits.

He's squinting inquisitively at the proceedings like an octogenarian not quite sure what they're about. Abbe Lowell, 71, looks ten years younger and far more focused; he and Hunter also knew to unbutton their jackets before they sat down -- but let's recall that Morris is generally understood to be paying Lowell's bills and is generally reported as heading Hunter's legal team. I don't feel 100% comfortable with this, frankly. Hanging with Hunter doesn't seem to have done much for the guy.

The coverage of Morris's tesimony so far leaves out a much more important development: this past Tuesday, the America First Legal Foundation filed a bar complaint with the State of California against Morris, alleging a violation of California’s Rules of Professional Conduct.

[L]ast year, Mr. Morris was publicly photographed appearing to use marijuana, while Biden, a recovering drug addict, was visiting his home. The year before that, it was reported that Mr. Morris had “been funding the 52-year-old’s lifestyle in Los Angeles – including his rent and living expenses.” Mr. Morris had allegedly paid $2 million in back taxes owed by Biden.

However, if Mr. Morris has provided personal funds to an individual who has now been confirmed to be a client – or who would reasonably believe himself to be Mr. Morris’s client – Mr. Morris would have violated both the text of the Rules of Professional Conduct and the well-established norms of the legal profession.

. . . If Hunter Biden or a similarly situated person would reasonably anticipate that Mr. Morris was obligated to provide legal services, the alleged funding of the lifestyle of a client or potential client justifies the immediate opening of a misconduct investigation under Rule 1.8.5.

Current coverage indicates that Morris has provided at least $5 million to Hunter, paying his tax bill, living expenses, and legal costs, although Morris is reported to have repeated his claim that these are loans in yesterday's committee testimony. This also leaves aside the testimony from Hunter's art dealer that most of that art was purchased by Morris.

There's also the question of whether Morris was actually ever Hunter's lawyer, although knowledgeable parties like Chris Clark, who negotiated Hunter's failed Delaware diversion deal, have told the press that he is:

Hunter Biden could not be reached for comment, but his criminal attorney, Christopher Clark, confirmed that Morris is serving as an "attorney and trusted adviser" to Hunter Biden.

It may be that the purpose of getting Morris's lackluster testimony before the Comer committee was simply to nail down his version of events, however uncontroversial this may seem, prior to exposing Morris as a liar. But for now, something strikes me as hinky indeed if Hunter has been relying on the guy in the picture at the top of this post as a "trusted adviser". He looks more like an over-the-hill actor who's been hitting the coke but still thinks he can make a comeback in the role of, say, Silas Marner.

I get the impression that the only guy in the vignette above who knows what he's doing is Abbe Lowell. I'm wondering how long he's going to last here, especially if Morris is Lowell's de facto boss. Lowell must certainly have understood Morris's ethical problem and the risk he faces giving sworn testimony that his payments to Hunter are just loans. I suspect Lowell has, first, an exit strategy, and second, an ironclad arrangement that makes sure either Morris, Hunter, or other Bidens pay his bills.

The Chicago Seven Strategy Still Works

Trump was back in court for the second E Jean Carroll civil trial in New York on Tuesday, and his exchange with Judge Kaplan was true to form:

"Mr. Trump has the right to be present here. That right can be forfeited and it can be forfeited if he is disruptive, which what has been reported to me consists of. And if he disregards court orders, Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial," Judge Lewis Kaplan told Trump, who was reportedly making comments throughout the trial, according to CNN.

Trump responded to Kaplan by throwing his hands up.

"I understand you’re probably eager for me to do that," the judge said.

"I would love it," Trump said, according to reporters in the courtroom.

"I know you would," Kaplan responded. "You just can’t control yourself in this circumstance apparently."

This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of Trump's public demeanor, as well as his conduct in the courtroom. It echoes similar comments by William Barr:

Former Attorney General Bill Barr said it would be a "particularly bad idea" for former President Donald Trump to take the stand in New York because the latter "lacks all self-control."

In a Sunday interview with Fox News' Shannon Bream, Barr was asked whether Trump would personally defend himself in court if his indictment went to trial.

"I'm not his lawyer, generally I think it's a bad idea to go on the stand," Barr replied. "And I think it's a particularly bad idea for Trump because he lacks all self-control, and it would be very difficult to prepare him and keep him testifying in a prudent fashion."

As I pointed out last October, Trump's strategy, at least in the New York civil cases, is based on the Chicago Seven defense, something Alan Dershowitz recognizes, and Dershowitz worked for the defense on that case. I quoted him in that post:

[T]he trial turned into a farce, because they had picked a judge named Julius Hoffman, who was a very right-wing jurist to preside over the trial, and he hated these radical defendants, and the radical defendants hated him, and Abby Hoffman came up with a tactic, he said basically to his lawyers and everybody else, "Look, we can't win this case in front of Judge Julius Hoffman. Let's see if we can go about getting it reversed on appeal, and the best way to do it is to provoke this judge, he has a short fuse, and provoke him into making error after error."

And that's exactly what [Abby] Hoffman did, he stood up, he made speeches, he wore costumes, he did everything possible to provoke the judge, and the judge fell into the trap, and I was one of the lawyers on the appeal, and we won the appeal, and he held the lawyers in contempt, and we won the appeal on contempt. So we had a total victory, and [Julius] Hoffman really was laughed at by his fellow judges, and he was condemned by jurists and appellate judges. So I call this the Chicago Seven tactic, and I think this is what Donald Trump is using now.

Unlike Judge Kaplan or Mr Barr, Dershowitz recognizes Trump's strategy as fully calculated. Both Trump and Dershowitz recognize Trump can't get a fair verdict in either of the New York civil trials, so on one hand, he's aiming to provoke Judge Kaplan, and it looks very much as though he'll succeed. But in addition, as Abby Hoffman was at the time, Trump is media savvy, and he's playing his courtroom performance for the media. Trump understands the media needs him as a story, and he's getting free coverage every day, while at the same time he calls attention to the other bizarre characters in the drama, this time "whack job" E Jean Carroll.

During the Letitia James trial, he's been able to play himself against Judge Engoron. Whether Judge Kaplan will prove as effective a foil, Trump is nevertheless now able to bring up Ms Carroll and her absurd allegations, which if nothing else prove delicious entertainment and keep the focus on Trump. He doesn't need campaign ads, and he doesn't need to debate. His name is in front of the public all day, every day, for free.

This is the error of NeverTrumpers like Andrew McCarthy. I quoted him yesterday in his apostrophe to Trump's supporters:

You need to put yourselves in the shoes of the country as a whole. Most Americans do not see this as you do. They vote, but they don’t follow politics closely. They are not attuned to the partisan machinations, the way incumbent Democrats convert the legal system into a campaign weapon. They know only the broad outlines of news coverage.

Trump knows well enough that most Americans won't necessarily understand whatever subtleties may be involved in HR 2 vs the Senate Lankford compromise, but they know entertainment when they see it, and they see it every day with Trump. Trump is a truthteller, a Huckleberry Finn, a Holden Caulfield, James Dean as Caleb Trask in East of Eden, or John Belushi as Bluto in Animal House.

Andrew McCarthy and William Barr misunderstand this as Trump's lack of self-control, when it's more like Bluto's pure irrepressibility. The American people understand this completely, and they'll be in the process of rejecting the NeverTrump alternative, that paragon of self-control Gov Haley, within the next few weeks.

Andrew McCarthy On Trump's Iowa Win

The National Review continues to be solidly NeverTrump, and it's brought out an old NeverTrump stalwart, Andrew McCarthy, to, prognosticate on the Iowa outcome:

. . . I took in a wide array of television and web coverage of former president Trump’s 30-point win in the Iowa caucuses last night.

What I found most curious was the Trump crowd’s crowing that Democrats woke up this morning to the news that their plan has failed — because, the irrational exuberance goes, Trump looks strong while Biden is floundering. This misapprehends the Democrats’ plan, which, in fact, continues to be working to perfection.

The plan was built on the four indictments and sundry civil suits, all brought by Democratic partisans (led by the Biden Justice Department). The point of the lawfare siege, which is the target of Trump’s constant ire and is thus scoffed at by his fans as ineffective partisanship, was to get Trump nominated. In that sense, the siege has been effective beyond the Democrats’ wildest dreams.

But doesn't this neglect what appears to be an across-the-board consensus view that a key aspect of the lawfare strategy is to start the January 6 trial by March 4, the day before the Super Tuesday primaries? For instance, via the Daily Beast, which commented before the US Supreme Court denied Jack Smith's request to rule immediately on Trump's immunity claims:

With Trump’s election fraud case set to start March 4, and the screening of potential jurors set for Feb. 9, the Supreme Court at this point would have to hear the case over the holidays—and speed through one of the most historic decisions in modern history.

. . . Any delay—even by a day—would seriously hamper one of the most significant aspects of Trump’s upcoming trial in Washington for lying to the American public in an attempt to stay in power. Days and hours matter because Trump’s D.C. trial is set to start the day before the massive primary election contests on Super Tuesday.

. . . It’s terrible timing for Trump, who will be portrayed by seasoned prosecutors representing the U.S. government as a man who betrayed the very Constitution he swore to protect and defend. And it’s an unprecedented opportunity for Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and the few other candidates desperately trying to replace him as the GOP frontrunner.

In other words, as best anyone can surmise, a key Biden intent in the overall lawfare strategy is to head Trump off by Super Tuesday in hopes of promoting NeverTrumper candidacies by Haley and DeSantis, whom Biden, at least at the time he developed the lawfare strategy in the middle of last year, apparently felt he'd have an easier time beating. As far as we know now, the March 4 deadline for Jack Smith to start the January 6 trial is still a must-do. But wasn't this supposed to be in order to hurt Trump, not to help him?

By McCarthy's argument, no, starting the January 6 trial just before Super Tuesday will simply inflame Trump's base and further lock in his nomination. His reasoning is this:

The biggest factor in Trump’s early clinching is the Democrats’ lawfare. . . . Before the first indictment, Ron DeSantis was within striking distance. Once the indictments began, the base rallied to Trump and he blew the field away. As Phil notes, even DeSantis now concedes that the indictments “distorted the primary.”

Sometime in the next week or two, we will get a verdict and judgment from Judge Arthur Engoron, the elected progressive Democratic judge in elected progressive Democratic New York attorney-general Letitia James’s civil fraud lawsuit. . . . Trump will run for election judicially stamped as a fraudster who’s been put out of business (much of the country won’t care about the details, or know that the judge is a partisan hack).

. . . But here’s the thing: Hard as this is, Trump-sympathetic Republicans need for analytical purposes to set aside their seething over the Democrats’ exploitation of punitive legal processes against the former president. You need to put yourselves in the shoes of the country as a whole. Most Americans do not see this as you do. They vote, but they don’t follow politics closely. They are not attuned to the partisan machinations, the way incumbent Democrats convert the legal system into a campaign weapon. They know only the broad outlines of news coverage.

To support his argument, McCarthy relies mostly on the New York civil trials, the one now ending under Judge Engoron and the one getting under way in which E Jean Carroll insists yet again that Trump raped her. He leaves aside the question I've raised about the Jack Smith January 6 trial and why the Democrats want it to take place before Super Tuesday to damage Trump's prospects for the nomination, and even more significantly, he leaves completely aside the problem of the Fulton County trial and the new and salacious allegations of misconduct against DA Fani Willis.

The Fulton County trial is quickly degenerating into farce, and the sexual allegations are dominating the headlines -- as of today, likely even more than Trump's Iowa win. This is the best political entertainment since Monica Lewinsky, and the country as a whole is tuned in. But again, the consensus opinion seems to be that it will hurt the Democrats in the general election if the Fulton County case is dismissed or delayed. Here is Andrew Fleischmann in the Daily Beast:

So what happens next? Judge McAfee has stated his intention to hold a hearing in February to look over the truth of these allegations. If they are true, the case will not be dismissed, but it is likely that he will disqualify Fani Willis, which, under Georgia law, will require disqualifying her entire office. The case will then go to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, which will decide who the case can go on to next.

. . . But even if everything goes as smoothly as humanly possible, it is difficult to imagine trying the former president before the November election. And it’s also possible the case may go to someone who will choose to dismiss it.

Mr Fleischmann's assumption is that the Fulton County case must be tried before the election -- and his unspoken premise is that if he isn't found guilty before then, he'll be elected and pardon himself. He clearly thinks this is a potential outcome in the likely timeline of events. The same set of arguments applies here as to the need to start the January 6 trial before Super Tuesday -- otherwise, it will be very hard to prevent Trump's nomination and subsquent general election victory.

I think Andrew McCarthy's theory that the Democrat lawfare strategy is meant deliberately to inflame the Trump base and get him nominated as the candidate most likely to lose in November is too clever by half. Other Democrat opinion is clearly that the lawfare strategy was intended to use ongoing trials early in 2024 to deny Trump the nomination or, failing that, somehow to convict him of a crime before the election, sentence him to prison, and ensure he loses the general election.

The problem has been two practical obstacles. The first is that the prosecutors and judges have been party hacks who, like Judge Julius Hoffman in the Chicago Seven trial, have played into the defense strategy of discrediting the judicial process. This was and is, given appropriate overreaction and misconduct, an effective strategy. The second is that the lawfare strategy appears to have been developed and implemented only in mid-2023, and given the nature of legal proceedings, the trials are vulnerable to delay, when to be effective, they need to deliver credible results, either in key testimony or outright convictions, before definite 2024 election dates. This is increasingly unlikely. Murphy's general laws state, in part,

• Nothing is as easy as it looks.
• Everything takes longer than you think.
• Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
• If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. Corollary: If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.

He Won't Make It To November

There were several articles last week that noted the White House has changed tactics for Joe's 2024 campaign appearances, minimizing situations where he appears on stage to avoid scenes where he wanders around looking for the exit and switching to the low stairs for Air Force One to reduce the potential for stumbles and falls. The formal on-stage events are to be replaced by smaller gatherings in places like retail stores that give the impression of spontaneity, but of course, any such venues must be thoroughly vetted and precisely scheduled both by Joe's handlers and the Secret Service.

As of this past weekend, the shift doesn't seem to have worked out as hoped. In Emmaus, PA on Friday and in Philadelphia yesterday, we saw a new aspect to Joe's appearances: the aimless departures trying to find the exit offstage have been replaced by a vacant expression that suggests he may not be fully aware of his surroundings, or he may be heavily medicated. At about 2:20 in the video below, Megyn Kelly notes a vignette of Joe's confusion in Emmaus, while the photo at the top of this post is from a Martin Luther King Day event at a Philadelphia food bank.

One question I have is that in both Emmaus and Philadelpia, Joe was nevertheless able to evade his handlers and try to chat up underage girls.

Look how far this girl moves away from Biden...☠️ pic.twitter.com/cUK0gxwLkH

— Woke Societies (@wokesocieties) January 12, 2024

There was a similar episode in Philadelphia yesterday:

What's disturbing is that he seems generally checked out, but he seems to have retained one dominant compulsion, to impose himself on preteen girls. His expressions are vacant and affectless until he spots one, at which point he suddenly becomes animated and aware of his surroundings.

The continuing leaks and direct statements from Democrats expressing discomfort with Joe's campaign have an oddly disconnected tone. For instance,

"Obama has raised questions about the structure of President Biden’s re-election campaign, discussing the matter directly with Biden and telling the president’s aides and allies the campaign needs to be empowered to make decisions without clearing them with the White House," the Washington Post reported.

How will empowering lower-level campaign staff fix Joe himself, when Joe seems to be the real problem? The same applies to remarks Sunday from Sen Sanders:

“So I think people will end up rallying around Biden. But there is no question, it is very hard for young people, I think for most Americans, to be excited about what is going on right now. [The] president has got to change course,” he said.

Change course? Precisely how? If anything, Joe doesn't seem to have any particular course, and as I noted last week, the episode of Secretary Austin being in intensive care and nobody in the White House knowing about it suggests Joe is checked out, and nobody is interested in doing much beyond keeping that bit of news covered up. But even the expressions of discomfort from prominent Democrats look like they're in a kind of code -- Joe needs to empower his staff, he needs to change course.

The problem is simply Joe himself, but so far, there's no Plan B.

Leon Panetta On Biden's Cabinet

An interview with Leon Panetta, who had been Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff and Barack Obama's Defense Secretary, in yesterday's Politico confirms my surmise about the state of Joe Biden's cabinet:

There’s been a gradual deterioration here with regards to the role of the Cabinet. Because so much authority is centralized in the White House these days, the Cabinet really only comes together usually for a press briefing by the president.

Normally, what should be the case is there’s a secretary to the Cabinet, and there should be regular meetings with the Cabinet to not only inform them about issues going on but also to stay in touch with them, so that they feel like they’re part of the team. As that relationship generally has been strained in the last number of years, I think everybody kind of operates on their own. You saw a little bit of that happen here.

To reword this slightly, it seems like what Panetta, who's had plenty of high-level experience in government, is saying is that Biden has centralized authority in the White House at the expense of the cabinet, except that Biden basically isn't doing anything. Thus the cabinet gets no guidance, although they can bungle issues like Ukraine or border security on their own authority. But they were appointed primarily to satisgfy particular constituencies that would get Joe elected, and beyond that, Joe has no particular expectations for them.

This is consistent with reported concerns that Barack Obama transmitted to Joe in a recent White House lunch:

Barack Obama recently had an off-the-books White House lunch with President Joe Biden to share his concerns and advice about his former running mate's campaign, according to a new report.

Obama grew 'animated' as he discussed the 2024 election and Donald Trump's bid to return to the presidency, and suggested Biden should restructure his campaign to be more agile, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter.

. . . According to the Post, Obama suggested that Biden's campaign, which is headquartered in Delaware, needed to grow more nimble and be empowered to act without sign-off from the White House, where many of Biden's top advisors remain.

This was pretty clearly leaked from sources close to Obama, and the impression was reinforced when the Biden campaign responded a day later:

Quentin Fulks, principal deputy campaign manager for President Biden’s reelection bid, on Sunday defended the campaign’s approach and stressed that Obama and Biden are aligned in their position that Trump needs to be defeated.

. . . Fulks’s defense of the president and his reelection bid comes after The Washington Post reported a story about concerns Obama expressed to Biden at a lunch at the White House in December. Obama reportedly told Biden that it’s important to have more top-level decisionmakers in the campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., or that he needs to empower those already there.

Fulks did not respond to a specific follow-up question on whether the campaign plans to make any structural changes to the campaign.

The implicit complaint from both Panetta and Obama is that Joe wants to reserve decisions to himself, but he doesn't want to be bothered to make decisions, so nobody knows what to do. Thus the whole organization is pretty much out to lunch.

There's more to say about how this is reflected in Joe's campaign.

Working Hard Or Hardly Working?

The biggest issue that's struck me about the Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ICU kerfuffle is that he didn't show up for work for almost two weeks, and nobody noticed. I simply don't know how you get around that. This normally doesn't happen at lower levels, at least when I was working, although COVID's lasting effect may have changed some things -- but even there, the current consensus seems to be that "working from home" hasn't worked out, and employers have reimposed some level of required attendance. And of course, there were and are some jobs for which you simply have to show up. You can't drive a bus and work from home.

This might even apply to a job like US Secretary of Defense, who is in the military chain of command. Even in the December holiday period, issues like Ukraine, Gaza, and Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping didn't go away. But the Secretary was gone, nobody noticed, and nobody knew why. Beyond that, his deputy, who would be his understudy in such a case, was on vacation and was also unaware of his absence:

After being admitted to the hospital last week, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin transferred responsibility to Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks on Tuesday. But Hicks, who was on vacation in Puerto Rico at the time, was not informed about his hospitalization until Thursday, a senior defense official told NBC News.

Again, this doesn't happen at lower levels. Everybody knows about out-of-the-office phone mail or e-mail messages that explain how long you'll be gone and whom to contact while you're away. This didn't happen at the highest levels of the Biden administration, and nobody noticed. But the problems don't stop there.

Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said over the weekend that Austin went into the hospital for an elective procedure on December 22 when he was on leave, went home the following day and “continued to work from home through the holidays.” The secretary, Ryder said, began experiencing “severe pain” and was transported from his home to Walter Reed by an ambulance on January 1, where he was admitted to the intensive care unit.

We're really back to the whole "working from home" charade here.

Late Friday afternoon [January 5], the Department of Defense released a statement saying that Austin was in the intensive care unit at Walter Reed NMC due to "complications" from an unspecified "elective" surgical procedure. The statement revealed that he'd been admitted to the ICU on New Year's Day. As happens with these things, more facts started dribbling out. . . .The service chiefs, service secretaries, and other senior Pentagon staff found out two hours before the public announcement. We were told that Austin's deputy, Kathleen Hicks, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Joe Biden got the news on Thursday (keep this sentence in mind because we're going to talk more about that later). Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman C. Q. Brown was told on Tuesday. Supposedly, Austin's chief of staff, Kelly Magsamen, found out on Tuesday, but she was home with the "flu" and decided to wait until she got back to work on Thursday before telling anyone.

At some point, Austin's personal staff started telling people that he was "working from home."

It gradually emerged that Austin's original surgery had been under general anesthesia for prostate cancer treatment. Any type of surgery under general anesthesia is a big deal, and based on my own recent experience, you're generally put on some kind of restricted activity regimen afterward. Beyond that, Secretary Austin is reported to be a devout Roman Catholic, for whom it is generally felt appropriate that someone undergoing surgery under general anesthesia, especially at Austin's age, receive the sacrament of anointing of the sick. In other words, major surgery is a big deal. Recovery from such surgery is not "working from home", but of course, "working from home" isn't really working from home in any case.

I will say that I've occasionally been in jobs where nobody cared whether you showed up or not. They were in organizations that gave new meaning to the word "dysfunctional", and by the nature of things, they never lasted long. This says more about what working in the Biden administration is actually like than it says about Secretary Austin, although there are reasonable questions about whether he should have made the reason for his initial hospitalization, and his subsequent return to the ICU, much clearer than he did.

The big question isn't that Austin didn't show up for work for almost two weeks without anyone noticing. The big question is that Joe Biden was also gone for even longer, and apparently so little work was getting done by anyone else that nobody noticed the Defense Secretary was in the ICU. That reflects much more on Joe and his handlers than on Austin. As I say, I've been in jobs where that sort of thing could happen, but they never lasted very long, and that's the real point.