Historian: Joe Biden’s Toughest Opponent Is Joe Biden

It would probably be a lot easier for Joe Biden if he were a Republican, suggests Jeff Greenfield at Politico. After all, “one of the signal features” of the 2016 primary campaign was “the capacity of GOP voters to sweep aside Donald Trump’s past, both his words and deeds.” Unfortunately for Biden, “it’s not at all clear that Democrats, especially this year, view the past with such forbearance.” Today’s Democrats have “hard questions to ask” about some of his past positions and actions. Biden has tried contrition, but “the most direct and the most difficult” approach would be to “try to show voters what was happening years, even decades ago, that explains [his] actions.” Yet it probably “asks too much of voters to put themselves into a past that is utterly alien to them.”

Foreign desk: Trump Tries ‘Strategic Patience’ in Korea

LIZ PEEK: BIDEN’S DISHONEST CAMPAIGN LAUNCH IS NOT THE WAY TO WIN BACK DISAFFECTED DEMOCRATS

The Trump administration is holding firm to its all-or-nothing bid for a grand bargain with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un — a position The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin calls “a form of strategic patience, to give Kim one last chance to make the right decision.” Strategic patience, of course, is “a loaded term,” because that’s how Team Trump “derisively refers to the Obama administration’s North Korea policy — no real negotiations and no intentional escalation.” At the recent Hanoi summit, Trump offered Kim his “big deal”: total denuclearization in return for economic normalization. Kim instead opted for a “small deal”: “limited denuclearization in exchange for broad sanctions relief.” So Trump walked, and now we’re in stalemate (though without nuclear or missile testing by Pyongyang). Eventually, though, Trump’s strategic patience will run out.

From the left: Why 2020 Democrats Smell Blood

The story of the Democratic presidential primary so far has been “the historic size of the field, which will end up in the mid-20s before all is said and done,” says Slate’s Jim Newell. That reflects how all the other candidates view Joe Biden: “a paper tiger, whose fall will make the nomination anyone’s for the taking.” Contrast this with 2016, when only two Democrats took on Hillary Clinton because she was considered “inevitable.” Moreover, the field’s “bet on Biden’s fallibility is now shared among the punditry too. Everything Biden does will be interpreted through the same knowing lens that he’s out of his element and it’s a pity no one was able to dissuade him from launching this last, egotistical crusade.”

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