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Sympathetically Diminished

“I’m sympathetically diminished.”

That’s how legal analyst Jonathan Turley described President Joe Biden’s “victory lap” over news that special counsel Robert Hur would not charge Mr. Biden with felonies for his “willful” mishandling and disclosure of classified documents. 

You see, in the special counsel’s “searing” 300-plus-page report, one reason for not prosecuting Sleepy Joe is that investigators found our president’s “memory was significantly limited.” In interviews, Biden couldn’t “remember when his son Beau died,” CNN explained, “nor the years he was vice president.”

Sure, it’s hard to testify about past criminal willfulness if one cannot remember the past. 

“Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him,” the special counsel points out, “as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Ah, our 81-year-old commander-in-chief! Where did I put those nuclear codes?

Mr. Biden is “someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt.”

Yes, I certainly have my own misgivings about our commander’s . . . er, cognitive skills. How can a man incompetent to stand trial possibly be competent to preside over the federal government?

Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer and White House counsel Richard Sauber expressed their own doubts “that the report’s treatment of President Biden’s memory is accurate or appropriate.”

“Appropriate”?

They claim “a lack of recall” is “a commonplace occurrence among witnesses.”

If not leaders of the free world.

Is our major party choice for president going to be between a sitting chief executive who cannot be charged for criminal conduct because he is “not all there” and one who can be and is being prosecuted, strangely disadvantaged by his pre-octogenarian mental acuity?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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The War on Terror Lumbers On

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up himself and 277 other people on Flight 253 to Detroit Christmas Day. Fellow passengers subdued and disarmed him.

Lessons? Start with the obvious: There are still terrorists in other countries who want to hurt us.

Some will say that we must beef up security. But consider: America’s security state, which has been in alleged high gear (or some bright color) since 2001, has already been beefed up. And yet, once again, this security broke down.

It could be that preventing violence is just not that easy to do. If you have determined enemies who spring up in unexpected quarters, it’s really hard for government to stop them.

Herbert Spencer, a 19th century sociologist, explained it this way: “The law-made instrumentality lumbers on under all varieties of circumstances at its habitual rate. By its very nature it is fitted only for average requirements, and inevitably fails under unusual requirements.”

We cannot expect government to always foresee dangers. We cannot even rely on government to transmit warnings of a specific terrorist from one department to another, and do something about it.

I’m not saying we should expect nothing of government. Just don’t expect too much.

All hope is not lost, however. We have each other. From the heroism of

Flight 93 on 9.11 to this Christmas Day incident, passengers have shown they’re not powerless.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.