21 Comments
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C. Jacobs's avatar

George Clooney made a name for himself by pretending to be a doctor on a weekly evening hospital drama. He has no political experience and no special qualifications to determine the fitness of a politician. Joe Biden is known for being Senator, Vice President and now President of the United States in real life.

George Clooney's opinion holds no more weight than my local cashier. His editorial holds even less.

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Susan Linehan's avatar

That was my feeling until I realized that beside being unqualified as a pundit he dang well doesn’t know how to Google “presidential schedule.”

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Yehawes (VA)'s avatar

I get an email titled What President Biden Did Today and it's just stunning that he can keep up the pace. I'm afraid we're wearing him out but we need him... and we need to also be aware that if there were an email titled What President Trump Did Today back when he was president, it would have shown half or less than half of the activity level, and much of that being devoted to golf or watching TV or his own grift from the office. Biden: He's an engine... with a heart.

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Susan Linehan's avatar

I was pretty stunned by the schedule.

“So I saw the pace. Now I’m a believer.” In jet lag.

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Scott Gilbert's avatar

That itinerary is amazing; I couldn't do it as a tourist.

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Scott Gilbert's avatar

He's just developed selective anemia about it. Poor George Clooney. (You probably want to fix that at the end...) You can delete this!

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Susan Linehan's avatar

I can just see the NYT headline on this if it were brought to their attention:

"Insiders say that Biden got plenty of rest at G7 because he slept though all the working sessions."

"insiders" is the new way to denote "people say" as a presentation of evidence. Mention of an uncle at MIT is optional.

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Scott Gilbert's avatar

Insiders say Donald Trump just suffered a series of mini-strokes.

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Susan Linehan's avatar

“Just?” I think the first was while he was riding down the escalator.

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Scott Gilbert's avatar

So THEY say...

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Scott Gilbert's avatar

Just now, so they say. I can be a they, can't I?

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Scott Gilbert's avatar

AAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

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Scott Gilbert's avatar

Hm. I think I've got the title for my next substack...

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Susan Linehan's avatar

Fixed. Though considering how bloodless an bozo Clooney turns out to be, anemia works, too.

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Scott Gilbert's avatar

Where's the face-palm button?

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Susan Linehan's avatar

we could use a lot more buttons on Substack. Abject Despair and Horror would be good.

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Scott Gilbert's avatar

I hit the one I could.

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OblivionNecroninja's avatar

I find it very frustrating that you (a random person on the internet) are so much better at explaining Biden’s debate than anyone affiliated with the campaign or the White House.

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Susan Linehan's avatar

I hope there isn't a sarcasm emoji in there 😉 Because of type of law I did, I didn't really have the role of advocate for one side or the other. My job was to investigate the facts behind a dispute and see how the law applied to them, to guide my client (a bonding company) as to who it was likelier to believe of two versions of the story. Quasi judgelike in many cases. That started with the facts. Biden said he was jet lagged. I was agnostic given the amount of time since he'd returned. But when Clooney went on about a few weeks earlier I thought so maybe those facts a few weeks earlier have some legs.

The white house did explain his schedule. No one wanted to listen. Clooney cited an incident where the facts of that schedule smacked you right in the face. I just thought more effecting to make the reader plow through them, rather than summarize.

After reconstructing the schedule I thought WHOO. This isn't some normal jet lag, even by the time of the debate.

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OblivionNecroninja's avatar

Honestly, I was just assuming that the White House didn’t cite his schedule (or only cited it vaguely) based on this post being the first I’ve heard it brought up.

I suppose that’s the consequence of nearly entirely avoiding mainstream news media (more for personal preference—I don’t like video—and time reasons than for ideological ones) — sometimes you get a distorted view of what’s going on IN the mainstream media

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Susan Linehan's avatar

you and me both on TV, cable news, video. Reading is what I do best. Video takes so damn long to get to the point.

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