The New York Times turns on Joe Biden

Politics is a fickle business. One day, the idea that Joe Biden is unfit to be president is heresy; the next it is progressive orthodoxy. No greater example of this can be found than in the comment pages of the New York Times. Overnight, the great-and-the-good of liberal opinion has turned on their former hero, delivering a series of withering verdicts on the 81-year-old White House incumbent.

‘Joe Biden failed at his key task,’ began Josh Barro ‘showing voters he’s still cut out for the presidency.’ ‘Biden cannot go on like this’ declared Frank Bruni; Jamelle Bouie called him ‘raspy and stumbling.’ He ‘looked ancient and sounded lost,’ concluded Clinton enthusiast Michelle Goldberg. ‘There will now be a new chorus of cries for him to drop out, and I’ll be joining it.’

‘He sounded like a dying humidifier’ cried Matt Labash, ‘or my great-grandfather giving his last will and testament.’ Asked for the most pivotal moment of the debate, he suggested ‘Biden’s brain freezes and non sequiturs’, adding ‘Even if he grew stronger as the night wore on, Biden seemed like he was auditioning for the glue factory.