In which I identify the real Democratic bedwetters

7-4-2024 (issue No. 148)

This week:

• Biden shat the bed, so don’t patronize those of us now wetting it

• Last week’s winning tweet

• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go

• Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go

• Mary Schmich — Signs and wonders and visitations

• What’s on “The Mincing Rascals” podcast this week

• Quotables — A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately

• Re:Tweets — The winning visual tweet and this week’s contest finalists

• Good Sports — Another update on the White Sox bid to make history

• Tune of the Week — “Independence Day” by David Byrne

Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.

Today will be an abbreviated issue — not that I don’t have a lot to say, as usual, but that I know from experience that many readers will have a lot going on for the holiday

Biden shat the bed, so don’t patronize those of us now wetting it

“The bedwetting brigade is calling for Joe Biden to drop out,” sneered President Joe Biden’s deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty in a post-debate fundraising email aimed at tamping down panic over Biden’s ghastly debate performance last Thursday.

My response to Team Biden over this and other accusations, excuses and explanations begins with a string of crisp expletives.

They’re saying:

He just had a bad night. He had a cold. He was experiencing jet lag from overseas trips (that concluded 11 days before the debate).

You can read my full, flabbergasted reaction to Biden’s performance in Tuesday’s Picayune Plus, but I didn’t fully express in that rant my frustration and anger with the Democratic insiders. Either out of incompetence or venality — it hardly matters which — they made sure Democratic voters didn’t have a real choice during primary season, gaslit us by insisting that Biden at 81 is fully up to performing the most important job in the world for the next four years, protected him from having lengthy, robust unscripted moments and, finally, put him onto a debate stage to gibber before more than 50 million viewers when it was all but too late to replace him on the ticket.

With the future of democracy on the line!

A basic claim for Democrats has been that Republican challenger Donald Trump is all about what’s good for him, whereas Biden is all about what’s good for the American people. But Biden’s determination to stay in the race — which some news reports suggest is not firm — either refutes that claim or is evidence of a vain delusion.

He is diminished. I see little evidence of actual senility or dementia, but what I do see is that Biden lacks the vigor, stamina and cognitive nimbleness to wage an effective campaign against Trump and Trumpism, and to lead the free world for the next, perilous four and half years.

He can give a good speech, and he’s been a good president. But the enthusiasm he now generates is mostly enthusiasm for keeping Trump out of the White House, and that alone is unlikely to be enough to accomplish that task. I’m a proud and determined member of the “I will vote for Joe even if he’s in a coma” caucus, but there aren’t enough of us to prevail in November over a candidate who generates actual enthusiasm for his style and his agenda.

I will not be lectured to by the party insiders and campaign operatives who deferred to the tradition of supporting incumbents and discouraging primary challenges. Their fecklessness put the Democrats — and this nation — into the situation we are now in, with a dishonest, amoral, ignorant convicted felon and wannabe autocrat who embodies all the deadly sins leading the presidential polls.

Yes, he lied his way through the debate and has a truly frightening agenda for the future that the U.S. Supreme Court seems cool with. I agree that should be the story this week, not the frailties of the moderate incumbent. And it would have been the story if Biden had just had an ordinary, boring debate.

Don’t blame the media for the Democratic freakout. It began just moments into the debate, before the pundits had even cleared their throats.

The actual bedwetters are those who are bleating that it would be ruinously chaotic and divisive for Biden to step aside now and throw the nomination open to the delegates at the Democratic National Convention next month.

The infighting and inevitably hurt feelings on the part of constituencies that feel overlooked would destroy party unity! There would not be enough time to introduce a new candidate to the voters and to raise the money necessary to mount an effective campaign! And the nomination will come too late to put the candidate on the ballot in Ohio.

Nonsense. A fresher, energetic face at the top of the ticket would turbo-charge the race against Trump, and there is plenty of time in this media environment to get his or her message out and underscore the extreme risk of a MAGA victory in November.

And polls suggest that Ohio is a lost cause for Democrats anyway:

FiveThityEight.com

When asked if he was too old for a second term, Biden has famously been replying, “Just watch me!”

Well, we watched him.

And we have our answer.

Last week’s winning tweet

Me: Why is it so hard to build a bear-proof trash can? Park Ranger: Because there is considerable overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest people. — unknown

I originally credited this tweet to a plagiarist. It happens. People steal jokes on social media all the time. They brazenly take credit for the wit of others. Several readers pointed me to earlier versions of this tweet — Steve H. found this from 2006! — so I simply removed the attribution.

Here are this week’s nominees and the winner of the Tuesday visual-tweets poll. Here is the direct link to the new poll.

Land of Linkin’

• The Guardian: “Conservative US lawmakers are pushing for an end to no-fault divorce.”

• Wikipedia’s “List of common misconceptions.”

• Popular Science: “Why Do Old People Get So Hairy? Scientists explain what causes hair to grow everywhere but the head as we age.”

• Here are 101 ways to say someone has died, including “Changed a Fleeting World for an Immortal Rest,” “Summoned to Appear Before His Judge,” “Rose Upon the Horizon of Perfect Endless Day” “Entered the Regions of Immortal Felicity,” “Was Called to Close His Eyes on Mortal Things” and “Laid His Hoary Head to Rest Beneath This Mournful Turf.”

• Steve Chapman: “Supreme Court ignores history to give Donald Trump free rein.”

• Axios has the new Chicago radio rankings. I continue to be amazed that people still use the radio for music.

Squaring up the news

This is a bonus supplement to the Land of Linkin’ from veteran radio, internet and newspaper journalist Charlie Meyerson. Each week, he offers a selection of intriguing links from his daily email news briefing Chicago Public Square:

■ “AI stole my book and sold it online.” Men Yell at Me columnist Lyz Lenz says Amazon’s peddling a rip-off of her autobiographical work, “This American Ex-Wife.”

■ “This shit ain’t right.” Daily Show alumni are protesting elimination of the show’s internet archives.

■ “How the world’s greatest businessman drove his newspaper into a ditch.” Veteran media reporter—and CNN alumnus—Brian Stelter shares the story behind the story of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post fiasco.

■ Block Club Chicago: So many shared Divvy bicycles are in Lake Michigan, a group of volunteers has assembled to haul them out.

You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.

Photo by Mary Schmich

Mary Schmich: Signs and wonders and visitations

My former colleague Mary Schmich posts occasional column-like entries on Facebook. Here, reprinted with permission, is a recent offering:

Have you ever had a visitation?" an old friend asked a couple of days ago.

"You mean like from the dead?" I said.

"Yes," he said.

"Yes," I said.

Which reminded me that I'd even written a column about it.

July 2 is the anniversary of my mother's death. And the rainbow in the photo above? The morning my mother died, I hopped on a plane in Chicago and was in Portland, Oregon, by late afternoon. I rented a car and headed to her home in Eugene, and as I hit the city limits, there it was — this rainbow.

I'd never seen a rainbow in Eugene. I pulled to the side of the road and snapped a photo. I named the rainbow Mary Ellen because the part of me that isn't bound by rational thought was, and still is, convinced that rainbow was her soul ascending.

Here's that 2012 column on visitations from the dead, which I don't believe in anymore than I believe in messages from rainbows. Except when I do:

----

My mother came to visit me the other night for the first time since she died.

She has appeared briefly in my dreams several times since her last morning nearly two years ago, but always as if in a video, a memory to be watched, not a person to be touched. This dream was different.

In the dream, my mandolin case — I started playing mandolin shortly after my mother’s death — was sitting on my dining table. Hearing a noise come from it, I walked over, perplexed. I flipped the latches, lifted the lid.

The mandolin was gone. In its place lay my mother.

She was dressed the way her body had been laid out for its final viewing, in the same flowered skirt and little brown vest, her hands stacked on her waist.

Her eyes popped open.

I don’t know which was greater, the relief that my mother was alive or the horror of it. Either way, I had to get her out of this crazy coffin.

“Mama,” I said, grasping one of her hands. “Get up. Get up.”

She shook her head and smiled, as if to say, no, she was too tired. I persisted. I’d always been her self-appointed personal trainer, coaxing her into activity even when she was disinclined, and in the dream, I resumed that role.

“Come on, little lady. Up. Up. Let’s walk.”

She relented, and then we walked around for a long time, the way we used to, shuffling while she leaned on my arm. I felt her familiar small bones, her papery skin, the pulse of her blood and breath, a wisp of her white hair against my shoulder. She never spoke.

Eventually, wordlessly, she made it clear that she was too tired to go on, so I picked her up, the way I used to pick her up to bathe her or set her in her wheelchair, and placed her back in the mandolin case.

She looked up at me, smiled, and without moving her lips, transmitted these words: “It’s OK, honey. I like it here. It’s peaceful.”

Then I did what every instinct, every desire told me not to do, the thing she so clearly wanted. I closed the lid.

When I woke up, I cried a little, and then I felt something entirely unexpected. Refreshed, released, complete. What a windfall. I had gone walking with my mother one last time, and I hadn’t even known how much I needed to.

Memories of dreams are unreliable, I know, but this one shook me so much that I immediately told it to several people. A couple of them, who have lost their own mothers, said the equivalent of ,“Oh. Sure. I’ve had those visitations.”

If you’d asked me before this if I believed in something as outlandish as visits from the dead, I would have rolled my eyes. I’d still roll my eyes, with less conviction.

Here’s a thing about the death of your mother, or anyone else you love: You can’t anticipate how you’ll feel afterward. People will tell you; a few may be close to right, none exactly right.

I couldn’t have foreseen all the good things that have followed my mother’s death. The renewed energy, the surprising sweetness of grief. The tenderness I feel for strangers on walkers. The deeper love I have for my siblings and friends. The desire to play the mandolin. The gift of a visitation.

Here’s another thing about the death of someone you love: It teaches you respect for the mysteries.

Minced Words

Host John Williams welcomed Marj Halperin, Cate Plys and me to “The Mincing Rascals” podcast panel this week. Of course we talked about the presidential race, Joe Biden’s ominously bad performance and the prospective replacements. We also discussed the U.S. Supreme Court immunity ruling, the renaming of Chicago Public Schools to erase the stain of slavery and racism, the NASCAR event in Grant Park and the third season of “The Bear” on Hulu. Subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Or bookmark this page. If you’re not a podcast listener, you can hear an edited version of the show at 8 p.m. most Saturday evenings on WGN-AM 720.

Read the background bios of some regular panelists here.

Quotables

A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately

Why isn’t Trump’s outrageous call for televised military tribunals for his enemies leading every newscast? Why? Never has a President proposed such a sick thing. Are you all completely numb to the dictatorial future Trump projects for America? Some of you will be featured in the tribunals — and not just covering them. — Larry Sabato

Celebrating our independence from a monarchy while on the brink of a dictatorship feels unsettling. Like when you get a birthday reminder on Facebook for one of your friends who’s dead. — @OhNoSheTwitnt

Ruth Bader Ginsburg refused to resign, and we got Amy Coney Barrett as a result. Draw your own conclusions. — Stephen King

Republicans are not the only party being led by a geriatric egotist who puts himself before the country. And … Republicans are not the only party whose putative leaders have a toxic lemming mindset and are willing to lead American democracy off a cliff. … Both show the potent impulse to place tribal loyalty ahead of basic truth. — Mark Leibovich

It does no good to point out that Trump was deranged but energetic at the debate, that he rambles incoherently, that he is a criminal, an authoritarian, and a racist. It is obviously, incontestably true that a senile president with a competent and ethical staff would be preferable to an authoritarian one who wants to fill his administration with guys who sound like school-shooter manifestos. But unfortunately Trump is propped up by a cult of personality whose members will not abandon him no matter what he does, and if Biden is unfit to debate and campaign, then he is also not fit to govern. — Adam Serwer

The rule of law is a candle guttering in a rainstorm. — Neil Steinberg

If only there had been some way to know that when Biden got elected in 2020 he would keep getting old. — @SamGrittner

I love Michelle Obama, but “when they go low we go high” will go down as the epitaph of democracy. — @Thorongil16

Re: Tweets

In Tuesday’s paid-subscriber editions, I present my favorite tweets that rely on visual humor. Subscribers vote for their favorite, and I post the winner here every Thursday:

The new nominees for Tweet of the Week:

• Sexy singles in your area want you to move to a different area. — @nayele18maybe

• SEAL Teams One through Five sitting here like, hey, we could assassinate people too, you know. — @jarvis_best

• Buy a fitted sheet one size bigger than your mattress and start living your life. — @mxmclain

• You can’t expect President Biden to be sharp at 9 p.m., six hours after he has dinner. — @RickAaron

• What’s the difference between a man and a margarita? A margarita hits the spot every time. — @DanaLeaB1

• Biden: Look, the fact is, we can’t … we don’t … Look. Here’s the deal. And this is no foolin. Trump: There are ten billion Guatemalans attacking the Lincoln Memorial right now. — @drewjanda

• My wife asked me if she had any annoying habits and then got all offended during the PowerPoint presentation. — @BattyMclain

• Disney: Stepmothers are the worst! Pornhub: are they tho? — @aotakeo

• Do you think in a parallel universe they just call it parking? — @wildethingy

• I wonder if George Washington could have beaten John Adams at golf — @BuckyIsotope

Vote here and check the current results in the poll.

Usage note: To me, “tweet” has become a generic term for a short post on social media. And I will continue to call the platform Twitter if only to spite Elon Musk:

On this issue and perhaps this issue alone, I am with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett:

For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.

Good Sports

The No-No Sox

As long as the race remains close — which it may not — I will offer you comparison standings of the 2024 White Sox with the 2003 Detroit Tigers and the 1962 New York Mets, teams that have defined futility for more than 80 years, and the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics, the worst team in baseball’s modern era (20th century on).

The Sox put together a three-game winning streak over the weekend and beat the division-leading Cleveland Guardians Wednesday night. So after 88 games, they have now opened up a slight lead on history’s other dreadful teams at the same point in the season.

The 1916 Philadelphia A’s played a 153-game season and finished 36-117. Out to another decimal place, that’s a winning percentage of .2353. The Sox play in a 162-game era. If they go 38-124, that will be a winning percentage of .2346. So the magic number of victories needed for the Sox to end up with a better winning percentage than the 1916 A’s is now just 14, with 74 games remaining.

I like their chances. From late June to early August of 1916, the A’s were 2-41, including a 20-game losing streak.

If and when the Sox have at least a three-game lead over this ignominious field, I’ll discontinue this weekly feature.

Tune of the Week

I’ve been opening up Tune of the Week nominations in an effort to bring some newer sounds to the mix. I’m asking readers to use the comments area for paid subscribers or to email me to leave nominations (post-2000 releases, please!) along with YouTube links and at least a few sentences explaining why the nominated song is meaningful or delightful to you. This week, I’m reclaiming my time again for a holiday-themed offering.

“Independence Day” is the joyous opening track on the 1989 album “Rei Momo,” the first solo project by Talking Heads frontman David Byrne. The song has an infectious, effervescent Cumbia beat and lyrics that, for the most part, feel celebratory.

Been waiting such a long time, 
Waiting such a long time
Waiting such a long time
Waiting such a long time till Independence Day

Waiting such a long time, 
Waiting such a long time
Waiting such a long time
And now it's here! 
Independence Day!

I say “for the most part” because the opening line of the song is utterly cringeworthy.

“Now and then I get horny. At night you do, at night you do.”

I’m no prude, but that line totally clangs with the rest of the song — too specific, too sexual, too weird. Byrne himself seemed to know this, because he put out an alternate promo disc that changed “horny” to “lonely,” presumably for airplay on squeamish radio stations.

Either way, I dig the surprise country fiddle solo.

The Picayune Sentinel is a reader-supported publication. Browse and search back issues here. Simply subscribe to receive new posts each Thursday. To support my work, receive bonus issues on Tuesdays and join the zesty commenting community, become a paid subscriber. Thanks for reading

Contact

You can email me here:

I read all the messages that come in, but I do most of my interacting with readers in the comments section beneath each issue.

Some of those letters I reprint and respond to in the Z-mail section of Tuesday’s Picayune Plus, which is delivered to paid subscribers and available to all readers later Tuesday. Check there for responses.

If you don’t want me to use the full name on your email or your comments, let me know how you’d like to be identified.

If you’re having troubles with Substack — delivery, billing and so forth — I’m happy to help.