Bad Kennedy

What strikes me about Bobby Kennedy Jr's endorsement of Trump is how prominent Democrats like David Axelrod view it as a betrayal of the Kennedy myth:

Robert F. Kennedy was my political hero. He battled fiercely & eloquently against poverty, injustice and for economic fairness.
Sadly RFK Jr, who made a rambling exit from the race today, proves that sometimes an apple DOES fall far from the tree...in this case, down a hill and…

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) August 23, 2024

His siblings agree:

I am sharing a personal statement that my family and I have made in response to my brother’s announcement. pic.twitter.com/j7vTTabNYZ

— Kerry Kennedy (@KerryKennedyRFK) August 23, 2024

However, with John Jr dying with his cokehead wife and sister-in-law in an aircraft accident attributable to his own incompetence as a pilot and Caroline maintaining a low public profile, Bobby Jr is by far the most prominent Kennedy of his generation, and unliike John Jr, he's maintained some level of gravitas. The track record of the others, especially when John Jr was expected to carry the torch, isn't good.

His problem is that as a once-loyal Democrat, he had the temerity to try to challenge Joe Biden in a 2024 primary contest. What was especially peculiar about this is the poor judgment of the Democrat establishment in resisting a primary challenge to Joe, when every indication is that there should have been one, since as we've been slowly learninng, Joe's cognitive decline was well known to insiders throughout much of his term in office.

I've been saying all along that Democrats made a series of blunders starting in 2016, first in enabling Hillary's candidacy that year and apparently discouraging Biden from running, but then supporting Biden in 2020 as the only alternative to Bernie Sanders, when it was apparently understood that Biden wasn't in a condition to run for re-election in 2024 -- but then discouraging any other Democrat from opposing Joe in primaries that year, when a younger, more viable candidate should have emerged.

On one hand, Bobby Jr was never likely to do well as a Democrat, since his views overall tend toward the libertarian when they aren't actually far left. On the other hand, he's probably closer to the original Kennedy brand, which is to say the one created by the family patriarch, Joseph Kennedy Sr. Although claiming to be a New Deal Democrat, Kennedy Sr had an ambiguous relationship with the h8ghly controversial Father Charles Coughlin, an anti-Semitic and isolationist Roosevelt opponent. This was in large part because Kennedy Sr felt he controlled the Catholic vote, and Fr Coughlin was an asset.

When Roosevelt appointed Joe Sr ambassador to the UK,

Kennedy hoped to succeed Roosevelt in the White House, telling a British reporter in late 1939 that he was confident that Roosevelt would "fall" in 1940 (that year's presidential election).

. . . Kennedy rejected the belief of Winston Churchill that any compromise with Nazi Germany was impossible. Instead, he supported Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement. Throughout 1938, while the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Germany intensified, Kennedy attempted to arrange a meeting with Adolf Hitler. Shortly before the Nazi bombing of British cities began in September 1940, Kennedy once again sought a personal meeting with Hitler without the approval of the U. S. Department of State, in order to "bring about a better understanding between the United States and Germany".

. . . Throughout the rest of the war, relations between Kennedy and the Roosevelt administration remained tense, especially when Joe Jr., a Massachusetts delegate at the 1940 Democratic National Convention, vocally opposed President Roosevelt's unprecedented nomination for a third term, which began in 1941. Kennedy may have wanted to run for president himself in 1940 or later.

Thus the Kennedy patriarch had idiosyncratic beliefs, while he was primarily interested in his own advancement. In this, it seems as though his grandson Bobby Jr is, contra David Axelrod, an apple that didn't fall far from the tree at all. On the other hand, Kennedy Sr's political instincts don't seem to have carried him very far in his own career -- though a little like Donald Trump, he had several careers, first in real estate, then in Hollywood, and finally in politics, unlike Trump, he failed in politics.

On one hand, it's easy to see where Bobby Jr, as a descendant of Joe Sr, would see common interests with Trump, maybe not too far from how Joe Sr saw common interests with Roosevelt. On the other, I'm inclined to think that in a historical context, Bobby Jr is the authentic Kennedy, even if other members of his extended family claim he's the opposite.

So insofar as there's a remaining magic to the Kennedy name, it's Bobby Jr's to do with as he chooses -- with the caveat that John Jr's example shows that generation of Kennedys hasn't had the best judgment overall. But if anyone knows now how to use the Kennedy name effectively at all, it may well be Donald Trump.

The Empress Dowager

According to Wikipedia, Empress Dowager

is the English language translation of the title given to the mother or widow of a Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese monarch in the Chinese cultural sphere.

An empress dowager wielded absolute power over the harem and imperial family and sometimes even for important issues that were necessary, the emperor or officials went to empress dowager to consult. Empress Dowager's position was second after the emperor, but she was ahead of him in respect, because the emperor lowered his head in front of her to show his respect and stood in front of her with respect and politeness, even was precise in the way he spoke and faced her. Numerous empress dowagers held regency during the reign of underage emperors. Many of the most prominent empress dowagers also extended their control for long periods after the emperor was old enough to govern. This was a source of political turmoil according to the traditional view of Chinese history.

I'm not sure why nobody's yet attached this title to Speaker Emerita Pelosi, especially since she's now demonstrated that she has the effective power to remove a sitting US president. Butr now she seems to be distancing herself from Kamala. According to Fox News,

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted in a new interview that she wanted an "open process" to replace President Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket but Vice President Kamala Harris "took advantage" of the opportunity.

"Many of us who were concerned about the election wanted to have an open process. It was an open process, anyone could have gotten in," Pelosi said during an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

. . . "[Harris] had the endorsement of the president, and she, politically astutely, took advantage of it and shut down — not shut down, but won the nomination. But anybody else could have gotten in," Pelosi continued.

. . . Pelosi has been repeatedly asked to explain what went into the president's decision to step aside from the 2024 race, and if she had anything to do with it. Pelosi told CNN's Jake Tapper on Monday that she did what she had to do, despite also denying that she had orchestrated the pressure campaign.

"You know what?" Pelosi said. "I had to do what I had to do. He made the decision for the country. My concern was not about the president, it was about his campaign. As he has seen with the exuberance, the excitement that has come forth in our country."

But here's my question: if she's so powerful, how come the whole Biden crisis suddenly arose this past July and nobody anticipated it? Every indication is that Washington insiders had been aware of Joe's decline beginning from the time he took office in 2021, and there seems to be at least an impression that he expected to be a one-term "interim president", at least until he decided he wouldn't, and the same insiders endorsed this, effectively forbidding an open primary season in 2024.

But with no open primary season, Robert Kennedy Jr, who had originally intended to run as a Democrat, elected to run instead as an Independent. Dean Phillips, although he was at a disadvantage for starting his campaign late, was also hindered by state Democrat parties that kept him off the primary ballot in favor of Biden.

Clearly the time to have discouraged Biden from running was at the latest mid-2023. By late in the year, key Obama adviser David Axelrod was expressing public doubts about Joe's candidacy. The question still remains why Obama and Pelosi didn't act to end Joe's candidacy when there was still time for the open primary process to select his successor that Pelosi now claims she wanted.

One answer might be that insiders were putting their faith in the "lawfare" strategy that would eliminate Trump as a potential opponent, but there are problems there, too. The first is that it became apparent early this year that none of the indictments against Trump stood a practical chance of coming to trial before the election, and only the weakest, the New York hush money case, actually did, but even that conviction had no effect on Trump's performance in the polls.

In other words, to be even theoretically successful, the "lawfare" indictmemts, like the effort to get Joe to drop out, came at least a year too late to be effective. If Nancy Pelosi had absolute power, a 21st century Empress Dowager, why couldn't she make this happen? Instead, she's apparenmtly now focusing on limiting the damage to down-ballot races:

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi privately told President Joe Biden in a recent conversation that polling shows that the president cannot defeat Donald Trump and that Biden could destroy Democrats’ chances of winning the House in November if he continues seeking a second term, according to four sources briefed on the call.

More recently, she's blaming New York Gov Hochul:

Two years ago, New York was a key reason Democrats lost the House. The party lost roughly a half-dozen competitive races, including then-campaign Chair Sean Patrick Maloney's ouster in the Hudson Valley. Pelosi blamed at least some of the party's problems on incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul, who won in 2022 by a closer-than-expected margin that has been blamed for dragging down other Democrats downballot.

So it's Joe's fault, it's Hochul's fault, and now it looks like she's gonna put the blame on Kamala if November goes sideways. I think the bigger problem is the Empress Dowager herself. If she was running things, why didnb't they turn out better?

We're Still In 1972

I keep saying that the closest historical parallel we have to this year's presidential campaign is 1972, when the Democrats were forced to swap out their vice presidential candidate only weeks after he'd been nominated. But even before that, another parallel is that year's Democrat convention, which is one of the few in modern history, either Democrat or Republican, that didn't produce a bounce in the polls, however brief it may have been.

This site lists the respectrive poll bounces for each party following its nominating convention for each presidential election since 1964. The bounce for McGovern in 1972 was 0; the bounce for Nixon that year was 7.

In fact, the Democrat bounce was bigger in other years that still turned out badly for them -- in 1980, Jimmy Carter got 10; in 1984, Walter Mondale got 9; in 1988, Michael Dukakis got 7. The only bounces that were worse for either party was John Kerry's -1 in 2004 and Mitt Romney's -1 in 2012.

Wednesday's inept scheduling was reminiscent of 1972's speech delays as well:

UPDATE 10:48 p.m. ET:

Oprah is done now, and Democrats wasted more time with a Walz propaganda video–and now Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is speaking to waste more time. Zero chance Walz makes it to the stage in primetime tonight.

UPDATE 11:00 p.m. ET:

Now Pete Buttigieg is speaking, and Democrats have officially screwed up their convention for the third straight night by talking too long with meaningless programming that pushed their vice presidential candidate now past primetime. How embarrassing.

UPDATE 11:05 p.m. ET:

Buttigieg is done now, and then the Democrats played another messaging video. And now on stage is John Legend doing some kind of performance. We’re still awaiting Tim Walz, and it’s getting far later than when Biden took the stage on Monday and when Obama took the stage on Tuesday. The DNC is officially a disorganized mess.

Walz finally took the stage at 11:22. What's intriguing is that commentary after Biden's speech Monday night was unanimous in saying it had been deliberately delayed past prime time to take attention away from Biden, who was yesterday's news. But why deflect attention from Walz? There are only two explanations, one that it was incompetence, bad enough, the other that it was deliberate, which is even worse, a tacit acknowledgement that Walz was a bad choice.

While nobody has put out any preliminary polling bounce for this year's Democrat convention, the disorganization behind it, which is also credited for the 1972 speeches runnibng hours behind schedule, has already been heavily reported:

The Democratic National Convention — off to a smooth start by all outward metrics — has also featured logistical headaches, like long lines, bad internet connections, expensive price tags, and limited access to the floor, leaving many of the 15,000 credentialed media grumbling, and their representatives openly battling convention organizers.

. . . Journalists, including those from Semafor, waited hours to get to the convention hall. When they arrived, they found what Slate’s communications director, Katie Rayford, described as a “wildly disorganized” scene.

TV network executives also told Semafor that the event was more expensive. Broadcast suites inside the United Center were nearly double the cost and much smaller than those offered a month earlier at the RNC.

This is the current situation trying to get into the Democratic National Convention perimeter. This is supposed to be a media entrance and hundreds of delegates got dropped off here and are trying to get in. So wildly disorganized @DNC pic.twitter.com/rD2NYm9Mfr

— Katie Rayford (@katie_rayford) August 19, 2024

Public interest in the convention is also down:

The television ratings of the first night of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) sunk 22 percent from 2016, according to Nielsen.

The ratings crash suggests that Vice President Kamala Harris is far less popular than the media purported [sic].

The continued scheduling delays, along with the other administrative snafus, suggest that the Democrats' heart isn't in this year's campaign, and even Barack Obama and Bill Clinton just went through the motions. Heck, despite his ADHD arm waving, even Tim Walz is just going through the motions.

What is it with Communist Slob Timothy Walz and the wild gesticulations? Freak! pic.twitter.com/juklqeJZee

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 22, 2024

What Are We To Make Of Tim Walz?

For now, I don't know what to do with the information overload that's the DNC. I have an inchoate impression that there's no real plan for the campaign, and there are lots of signs that nobody competent is in charge, and we'll have to see how things shake out. But in the meantime, I want to focus on Tim Walz.

For instance, what about whether he was really vetted? The best indication I can see is this:

🚨 BREAKING: I just confronted Eric Holder about why he didn’t vet Tim Walz over his Stolen Valor

Holder: “F*CK YOU!!!” pic.twitter.com/6j1gzdkW2P

— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 21, 2024

It's hard to avoid thinking that if Holder is so determined to run away from questions about whether he vetted Walz, he may regret his role, or at least the public perception of it. Via Breitbart,

According to the Associated Press, the process — managed by Holder — took 16 days, and ended with Walz being chosen. Since Walz was selected, he has been plagued by lies he told about his military service, forcing the Harris-Walz campaign to address one of them.

More complete accounts that I've seen say Holder headed a larger group of Obama alumni who came up with a short list consisting of Arizona Sen Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania Gov Josh Shapiro, and Walz. I reviewed what we know about the selection process in detail in this post.

The current consensus seems to be that Kamala went with her gut and chose Walz based on vibes, or something like that, although Shapiro's version suggests that he had serious second thoughts after his final interview with Kamala. Did he maybe think she was drunk?

Walz's latest comtroversy involves IVF:

In this case, he has been saying for months that he and his wife used IVF to have kids. He's been saying this, not coincidentally, just as the Democratic Party has been trying to turn conservative opposition to IVF into another winning campaign issue.

. . . Except, Walz and his wife never used IVF. They used a different procedure, one that does not involve the fertilization of embryos outside the body. It's an important distinction because a) that's literally what IVF means (in vitro means in glass) and b) no one opposed the treatment the Walz's actually used.

Walz's wife, Gwen,

clarified in a statement to CNN that she did not use in vitro fertilization to conceive, sharing new details about her and Gov. Tim Walz’s fertility struggles as the governor has highlighted their experience with infertility on the campaign trail.

. . . Intrauterine insemination, like IVF, is a common fertility procedure used by couples trying to conceive. But anti-abortion groups have pushed state officials to restrict IVF — when an egg is removed from a person’s body and combined with sperm inside a lab before being implanted.

However, no accounts I've seen of the controversy as it applies to the Walzes explain the specfic moral problem with IVF, although there are additional reasons the Catholic Church opposes it: during the process of fertilization in the lab, multiple eggs are harvested and fertilized, which can lead to multiple viable embryos. One or more of these can be selected and placed in the mother's womb, which means that other viable embryos aren't selected, and this is morally an abortion. For that matter, even if multiple embryos are implanted in the mother, some of these may also be aborted later in the IVF process.

For Walz to defend this process is questionable in itself. However, the overall issue of reproductive freedom has entered the vice presidential race:

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear sparked an outcry on Tuesday when he appeared to suggest GOP vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, should experience a rape-induced pregnancy.

. . . Beshear targeted what he called "extreme" abortion laws that have been enacted in various red states following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe V. Wade in 2022, and slammed the GOP's attacks that Democratic lawmakers support abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.

. . . Vance blasted Beshear’s words on X, stating, "What the hell is this? Why is @AndyBeshearKY wishing that a member of my family would get raped?!? What a disgusting person."

For now, the subliminal effect of the controversy deflects attention from the Democrat claim to support reproductive freedom and redirects it, first, to Walz's repeated pattern of embroidering his life story, and second, to Beshear's out-of-line rhetoric. The bottom line is that in yet another critical line of attack against Trump, Walz weakens it, but then, so does Beshear.

But overall, it seems like there's a growing public impression that Walz is a buffoon. His oafish grin doesn't help at all. And we've still got the question of whether Obama in particular, in this case via Eric Holder in maybe deliberately omitting to vet Walz, is setting Kamala up to fail.

Joe's Subliminal Message At The DNC

I keep saying that the election cycle this year is closest to 1972, and another parallel is Joe's big farewell speech, which was pushed back almost to midnight Eastern time, reminiscent of McGovern in 1972:

The convention, which has been described as "a disastrous start to the general election campaign", . . . with sessions beginning in the early evening and lasting until sunrise the next morning. . . . A protracted vice presidential nominating process delayed McGovern's acceptance speech (which he considered "the best speech of his life") until 2:48 a.m.—after most television viewers had gone to bed.

Last night,

As the speakers leading up to Biden on the schedule began dragging on and on, speculation swirled about how and why the president had been shoved aside to speak when many Americans would already be asleep.

“This is awful. He literally set up a campaign and handed it over to them — do they have to cut him out of prime time?” one longtime Biden aide texted Axios reporter Alex Thompson.

But I would dispute the claim that Joe "literally set up a campaign and handed it over to them". As things have shaken out, 2024 has had two entirely separate general election campaigns, the first one being Joe's up to his withdrawal from the race on July 21, the second with the designation of Kamala as the new candidate in the following days. One thing the conventional commentators have gotten wrong is that Kamala's campaign wil be "short" and a "sprint".

No, it will be the traditional general election presidential campaign that extends from the summer nominating conventions to early November. So what was all that business that began a year ago with the Trump indictments and trials and ended with Joe's brain freezes, the debate debacle, and Trump surviving an assassination attempt?

That was a reprise, a do-over of the 2020 election, and in fact a de facto demonstration that the 2020 election was "stolen". Sometime around late spring, the conventional commentators began to pronounce that the electorate had decided they'd been better off under Trump than under Biden, although the polls hadn't changed much, with Trump leading within the margin of error, for many months. Over the month of June, there was rising public concern over Joe's mental state, driven by his public performance in Europe and brain freezes back home, culminating in the June 27 debate.

However, again, there was no change in the polls, except that there seems to have been a growing subliminal recognition among the elites that any success they'd had in 2020 and afterward in concealing Joe's actual condition had come to an end. In effect, they acknowledged that Trump had won the 2020 election, and in fact the business of January 6, 2021 wasn't all that far fetched.

Again, with no change in the polls, Obama and Pelosi made a final push for Joe to withdraw, and Pelosi, 84 years old, has been taking credit over the last few weeks for the outcome. Her age alone should put her judgment in this matter in question, but there's more to be said about this in a separate post. On one hand, though, this amounted to a much-belated concession of the 2020 election, a tacit acknolwedgement that it had been rigged by Joe's basement campaign, which had successfully concealed his actual condition -- but that doesn't fix the Democrat decisions that led up to either the 2020 or 2024 election.

Nevertheless, the circumstances of Joe's speech last night, a de facto 2020 concession speech as well as a not-so-tacit humiliation at the hands of Democrat stalwarts, were an indication that Joe was never in control; Pelosi had created him, and Pelosi at long last destroyed him, which is closer to the real problem.

But Joe's de facto concession speech sinply kicks off the second 2024 presidential campaign, under a Democrat party that, as it's periodically done, has reverted to the party of 1972, which the Wikipedia entry linked above characterizwd as

Previously excluded political activists gained influence at the expense of elected officials and traditional core Democratic constituencies such as organized labor.

Joe's concession speech is the start of a second, entirely separate presidential campaign.

Kamala Hammered?

As I noted yesterday, although the Trump campaign focused attention early Sunday on the possibility that Kamala is impaired at many of her public events, the suggestion isn't new. I did a web search on "Kamala drunk" this morning, and I came up with the image above on Amazon, which was advertising this as just the tote bag you might want for this past July 4th. In fact, this could maybe make the right ladies look hip on the beach out in the Hamptons.

The story hasn't hit all the alt aggregtators yet, but this one at Hot Air draws a reasonble inference:

Is Kamala drunk most of the time? If you watch her talk with that possibility in mind, so much makes sense all of a sudden. All those word salads, the occasional slurring, the inappropriate laughs... These are all tells that her brain is fogged by something, and it may not be stupidity.

Newsweek is already on the case:

As Donald Trump grapples to combat the surge of support for Kamala Harris with a barrage of personal attacks against her, his campaign team appear to be rolling out a new line this week—by alleging that his Democratic rival has a "drinking problem."

No evidence has been offered up to support the allegations, which are being pushed by Trump's allies across social media. Trump campaign insider James Blair is thought to be the first person who made the unsubstantiated claims, with a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday, and other pro-Trump accounts subsequently repeated the allegations. Newsweek has contacted representatives for both Trump and Harris by email seeking a response to Blair's comments.

I pointed out yesterday that James Blair and others embedded tweets from July and earlier this month that pointed out the potential problem, and the Kamala Hammered tote has apparently been on Amazon for a couple of months, so the rumors didn't originate with the Trump campaign. I discovered a new version that's apparently been put out just since this weekendL

The pitch that accompanies it says,

The Kamala Harris Hammered Shirt is not merely a piece of clothing; it is an embodiment of the challenges and triumphs that have shaped the life and career of this remarkable woman. The intricate hammering detail, reminiscent of a blacksmith’s work, conveys the relentless effort and resilience she has displayed in the face of adversity.

Well, shacking up with Willie Brown might well qualify as a challenge. So it's not a bug, it's a feature, at least if you're going for the day drinker vote. But the Hot Air story makes the point,

[S]he didn't exactly rise to where she is by being especially good at politics. She was carried there by others who were pushing her up the mountain, not hiking up it by herself. Since it didn't take skill to get there, maybe even sobriety wasn't required.

Reports that Kamala has been impaired in public date back to her brief campaign for the presidency in 2019. USA Today fact checked one such at the time:

A viral image purporting to show Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris intoxicated gained traction this week after she made a campaign visit to Ohio.

"Throwing up in the bushes & staggering aimlessly at the #Cleveland airport was the last straw before staffers put #KamalaHarris back in the plane and took off for #Oshkosh," reads an Oct. 25 Facebook post that has been shared over 1,000 times. "Onlookers claim the clearly intoxicated Harris was confrontational but too weak to put up much of a fight."

The fact check established that the photo was taken in Iowa and apparently misleadingly captioned to suggest Kamala was leaning to throw up, when she was greeting a child -- but the separate possibility that she'd nevertheless actually been drunk in Cleveland wasn't addressed.

But here's yet another video, posted July 12 before the current controversy broke out, that suggested there's a problem:

Throwback to that time Kamala was obviously high or drunk or both. pic.twitter.com/vN7RfDMqJW

— Coco 🇺🇸 (@CoClarified) July 12, 2024

Blair and the Trump campaign are simply picking up a topic that's been in the background for some time. For now, the story has been slow to develop, but it dates back as far as 2019, and as a few have pointed out, there must be insiders, including disgruntled former staff, who can provide corroboration.

Uh-Oh, Now It's Starting

Kamala is an alcoholic? pic.twitter.com/Lwc0suHgZW

— JKash 🍊MAGA Queen (@JKash000) August 15, 2024

Yesterday I noted that Kamala's scripted public appearances were nevertheless nasal and hyperactive, with a lot of over-the-top excitement. I embedded a longer video that included ther brief vignette above, which has bothered me from the first time I saw it.

On August 7, Megyn Kelly said in an interview that

there could be additional “negative reporting” about US Vice President Kamala Harris’ history which the public has yet to see.

“She’s never been vetted, why would anybody vet her – she was put on the ticket by Joe Biden just to check a box,” she told Sky News host Paul Murray.

“Done. It was over. Nobody had any interest in vetting her, and they knew she wasn’t a serious pick.

“I think there’s going to be more coming out about her.”

But over a week later, no more has come out, and Megyn herself has had nothing else to say. Just yesterday, it was being teased that Bob Woodward's new book, scheduled for publication Octobrr 15, would contain some sort of October surprise about Kamala:

Per RealClearInvestigations reporter Paul Sperry: OCTOBER SURPRISE: A source close to Bob Woodward says his forthcoming book, “War,” about the Biden-Harris administration’s inner workings will “not be kind to Biden or Kamala” and will drop several bombshells on Oct. 15 when Simon & Schuster releases the tome … developing

This strongly suggests that information is out there, and insiders have long known about it. My own view, which I've expressed here, has been that the baggie of coke found in the cubby outside the White House Situation Room wasn't Hunter's; he had nothing to do with the Sit Room, but the vice president goes there a lot, and she isn't frisked when she goes in. My initial interpretation of the over-the-top intro of Joe at the Maryland rally was that it was fueled by cocaine.

Whatever the specifics are, some version of the big secret seems finally to be coming out. According to Gateway Pundit,

The Trump campaign went public Saturday night with an allegation of rumors about Kamala Harris having a serious drinking problem.

James Blair, political director for the Trump 2024 presidential campaign and the RNC posted on X Twitter, “A lot of rumors out there about Kamala having a serious drinking problem. . . apparently coming into focus as campaign heats up. ⏳Stay Tuned…”

Blair was retweeted by Trump campaign advisor Alex Bruesewitz, indicating campaign approval:

Gateway tracked down a number of earlier tweets from other users pointing to accounts and videos that sppear consistent with the Trump campaign's allegations, such as

How drunk was Kamala Harris when she was speaking at this town hall to Filipino youth? pic.twitter.com/NiTLtO8OfJ

— Owen Gregorian (@OwenGregorian) July 24, 2024

or

Kamala has the fun alcoholic day drinker at the pool type vibe. I’m all for it, it’s fun, you just typically don’t want those people also calling in air strikes. pic.twitter.com/nsBAv773Io

— Tobias Maximus (@tobyzapf) August 5, 2024

or

Apparently Kamala was told not to speak during this event because she was too intoxicated, but she did anyways. https://t.co/yN7vzILiE0 pic.twitter.com/yBEdkAw1BA

— Financelot (@FinanceLancelot) August 17, 2024

Whether it's alcohol, cocaine, something else, or all of the above, it seems like evidence of Kamala's impairment has been around for some time -- all the tweets embedded here were made before the Trump campaign's tweets last night. I've discussed the patterns of alcohol-impaired speech here, which include slurring, hypercorrection, and random pauses. Looking at Thursday's video of her rally with Joe and the videos posted on X above, I think there's a certain amount of slurring, but nothing as clear as Joe's own impaired speech, whatever its cause may be.

Althojgh I've never used cocaine, I've known people -- including at least one CIO -- who have, and I know a little about what it looks like. Drunks aren't hyperactive, alcohol is a depressant. Cokeheads are hyperactive. The cokehead CIO would literally run up eight flights of stairs and burst into a meeting just a bit late, sweating and and wild-eyed. That seems more like Kamala, but let's recall that Hunter had an all-of-the-above attitude. My working theory of Kamala is more along the Hunter line.

I suspect that Washington insiders know a lot more, and they've been covering up just as much as they covered for Joe, even though it was common knowledge that Joe's condition had deteriorated badly. This would inevitably reach Trump, So far, he hasn't directly mentioned the issue, but he's clearly working toward it:

As advisers and allies have called on Trump to tamp down on the personal attacks against Harris and instead focus on criticizing her policies, Trump demonstrated at Saturday’s rally [in Wilkes-Barre] he has no plans to back off. Trump said this week at a press conference at his private Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club he is “entitled to personal attacks.”

“People say don’t use bad language. They say please don’t call people stupid, but they are stupid people. How else do you describe it?” Trump said. “She’s a socialist lunatic. That’s the other thing, please sir, please don’t call her a lunatic, but that’s what she is, she’s a lunatic.”