James Morrow analysis: Health scandal cover-up condemns search for Joe Biden’s successor

How can Joe Biden continue as president if he can’t be a candidate in the US election? And how can we trust the White House and media that lied to us about his condition?, writes James Morrow.

Ever since Watergate, one rule has governed every single scandal in American politics.

It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.

Joe Biden’s decision to step back from the 2024 presidential race is the end point of a massive scandal.

But unlike Watergate, where the media led the charge in exposing the cover-up, in this scandal, they played along.

Now, in the wake of Biden’s announcement, a divided Democrat party needs to figure out what next.

Factions are lining up on one side or the other, with former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama seemingly taking sides against one another over who should step up to lead the campaign against Donald Trump.

US President Joe Biden steps off Air Force One in July. Picture: Samuel Corum/AFP

But let us not forget this key fact.

Literally for years, Democrats have known that their guy was unfit to remain in office, but with the connivance of a largely friendly press terrified of helping Donald Trump, they covered it up.

All the falls, all the stumbles, all the brain fades, the forgetting of names and believing that dead people were still alive, all the wandering off and weirdness, were — they said — “fake news”.

US President Joe Biden and former US President Barack Obama. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

Until that fateful debate last month when everything changed, and it suddenly became impossible to hide the reality of Joe Biden’s condition.

Prominent Democrats, donors, and journalists who privately knew there was a problem suddenly agreed that it was OK to talk about publicly what before had only been whispered.

Though even then Biden and his press office, led by the hapless Karine Jean-Pierre, tried to blame his performance on “a cold” and “jet lag”.

While Biden did not make any concessions about his health in his announcement (and still refuses to take a cognitive test), this is a huge admission that he cannot continue.

Expect the question of just why Biden is fit to continue in office if he cannot stand for re-election to be asked frequently and loudly in the coming hours, days, and weeks.

Joe Biden’s debate performance sealed the fate of his candidacy. Picture: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance is expected to particularly hit this theme: “Not running for re-election would be a clear admission that President Trump was right all along about Biden not being mentally fit enough to serve as Commander-in-Chief … there is no middle ground,” he said.

For those of us who have been warning that there was something seriously wrong with the president for some time only to be slammed as spreaders of conspiracy theories, it’s a bitter vindication.

It must be worse for the 14 million Democrat voters who were shepherded through a bogus primary process to confirm Biden as their nominee – seemingly oblivious to the president’s problems, and not given a choice by their supposedly “democratic” party.

For a party that spent the last eight years screaming that their arch nemesis was in the pocket of Moscow, it was pretty Russian behaviour.

And now, there is the question of who comes next?

In Washington right now, it’s like The Death of Stalin, without the death.

Bill and Hillary Clinton backing Biden and Harris, but former president Barack Obama (said to be one of those leading the charge against his ex-VP) and Nancy Pelosi refusing to endorse Kamala.

Politics and the prospect of power does strange things to people.

The same forces that caused Biden — and, let’s be realistic, his family, who seemed just as addicted to the blandishments of office as the Biden himself – to stay are going to push others to run.

Internal Democrat polling shows that Harris looks like a better shot at beating Trump.

Yet those same figures show a lot of other names in the mix, and Democrats are working the phones to tell the press that the coming convention will “not be an anointment” and saying that there is a “substantial question” over the succession plan.

California Governor Gavin Newsom is said to be a potential contender. Picture: Brendan Smialowski / AFP

Despite seeming to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor, nothing is set in stone.

Along with names like California governor Gavin Newsom, Arizona Senator (and former astronaut) Mike Kelly, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer (who could counter Vance’s strength in America’s Rust Belt) are all said to be potential contenders.

Whomever takes the top of the ticket will have a huge task ahead of them.

Not only will they have to introduce themselves all over again to the American people and run a race against the formidable Trump, they will have to contend with their party’s years of lies about the man they are seeking to replace.