#Biden’s words don’t match agenda and other commentary

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
AFP via Getty Images

At the DNC this week, Joe Biden vowed to unify the nation, yet that’s “incongruous” with his agenda, which represents “the most sweeping liberal changes” in US history, observe the editors at the Washington Examiner. During the event, there were “constant reminders” of who he’d be working with: socialist Bernie Sanders and radical lawmakers Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. His running mate, Kamala Harris, “has one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate.” And Biden himself proposes “trillions” in new taxes and a “government-run health care plan.” There’s a lesson here from Barack Obama, who ran in 2008 “as a post-partisan figure while proposing a transformational agenda. By the end of his presidency, he was boasting that he had a ‘pen and phone’ and was governing by executive order.”

Iconoclast: Biden Got It Just Right

Joe Biden’s acceptance address was “the most important speech of his life” — and he “nailed it,” cheers The Week’s Damon Linker. Americans saw a “plainspoken, patriotic man deliver a tribute to the country and the people he loves” while harshly rebuking President Trump. His comments about the pandemic, Trump’s “failures in fighting it” and his “own promise to defeat it” crucially “hit the president at his most vulnerable spot.” Most important, he “spoke clearly, passionately and lucidly about the country, without any hint of the geriatric incapacity the Trump campaign has been alleging.” Whether or not Democrats win in November, they “can know that their nominee made the best case he could when it counted.”

DNC journal: The Rockefeller Democrats

This week’s Democratic convention was really one of “two different parties,” argues Daniel McCarthy at Spectator USA. One “is a party of woke activists entirely concerned about race, sexuality and environmentalism,” with no interest in “traditionally major issues such as jobs and national security.” Then “there is the other Democratic party — or rather, the other Republican party.” Because astonishingly, half the “confused convention” seemed “to be handed over to liberal Republicans of yesteryear. This doesn’t feel like the party that almost nominated Bernie Sanders; it feels like the party of Nelson Rockefeller.” Both parties want “government services to palliate their suffering,” with Joe Biden “an improbable Messiah.” The Dems’ “propaganda videos” suggest “Biden himself is the vaccine for COVID-19, ready to be shot into your veins the moment he’s inaugurated.”

Conservative: Advice for the RNC

For all the Hollywood talent Democrats had at their disposal, the DNC proved to be a “boring infomercial” that was “flat-out unwatchable,” quips David Marcus at The Federalist. An ex-stage manager, Marcus says the problem was Dems “made it a movie” when it needed to be “a theater production.” Republicans can do better. First, they need an audience, people reacting to speeches. And “feature the fan base” — real Americans. Make it joyful: The DNC message, he snarks, was basically “America sucks” but “will suck slightly less” if Biden’s elected. Republicans should be “proud of our country.” They should “give us music, dancing, empty champagne bottles.” Truth is, it would be hard for the GOP not to do better. “So let’s do this. The country is ready for some fun.”

Media watch: Hypocrisy Over FBI Spying

Lawyers are known to “cover all bases,” especially FBI lawyers, contends Kyle Smith at National Review. So what ex-FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith did should make your mind “reel.” To get a warrant to surveil ex-Trump adviser Carter Page, Clinesmith doctored an e-mail to imply that Page was spying for the Russians. Yet the press has tried to downplay his guilty plea, even suggesting he acted “inadvertently.” It’s “the usual playbook” when Democrats are caught in a scandal: It’s “a minor breach of the rules, nothing to get excited about.” But the story “ought to inspire outrage.” Would CNN and The New York Times think it no big deal if “Donald Trump’s FBI were currently spying on members of the Biden campaign based on a spurious pretense”?

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board