It’s getting pretty late — pretty late for President Biden to say whether he’s running for reelection or not. I mean, to announce definitively. A year from now, we’ll be in the thick of it! The thick of the 2024 race. A recent headline from the Associated Press reads, “Biden 2024? Most Democrats say no thank you: AP-NORC poll.”

That’s most Democrats, mind you. (Article here.)

I wish he would not run. In the 2020 cycle, he said he’d be a “bridge” — a bridge from one era (let’s say) to the next. You know the expression “a bridge too far”? Well, in a similar vein, a bridge should not be extended too far.

Biden has wanted to be president for a long time. (Most pols do, I suppose, and Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972.) If I were in his shoes, would I run again? I can’t say I wouldn’t. The presidency must be a very hard thing to give up, especially if you have a decent shot at reelection. I mean, you tried to get there for so long . . .

But it would statesmanlike — even selfless — if he did not run.

• A different headline for you: “Trump’s ’24 game plan: Be the dove among the hawks.” That’s over an article from Politico, here. Our political sands have shifted astoundingly. I think back to labor leaders past: George Meany, Lane Kirkland. They were social democrats, I suppose, but also national-security hawks. Cold Warriors.

Trump and his GOP: I believe they are closer to those labor leaders on domestic policy than they are on foreign policy. Who would have predicted such a thing?

• Looking over the item above, I fastened on the word “but”: “They were social democrats, I suppose, but also national-security hawks.” Is “but” the word there? Is it surprising that a social democrat should be, at the same time, a national-security hawk?

I suppose I think it is, but there’s a debate to be had.

Sidney Hook was a social democrat — and one of the greatest anti-Communists we have ever known. Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985.

• Bill Buckley and Lane Kirkland were friends — and joshed. Bill would greet him with, “How’s socialism?” Kirkland would respond, “How’s Wall Street?”

• In years past, when we were in Afghanistan, I heard a lot about “girls’ education” — as in, “Our men in uniform aren’t supposed to sacrifice themselves for girls’ education!” Lots of people on the right said this; Vice President Joe Biden did too. And it was an understandable and fair point.

Fundamentally, we were in Afghanistan to defend the U.S. interest — which included the following: Keep the Taliban out of power. Prevent the reconsolidation of the Taliban and their terrorist partners, including al-Qaeda.

In any event, I noticed this headline, from the BBC: “Taliban arrests Afghan professor who backed girls’ education.” The article begins,

A university professor in Afghanistan who is an outspoken critic of the Taliban’s ban on education for women and girls has been arrested in Kabul.
Prof Ismail Mashal was detained on Thursday while handing out free books.

What a man, Ismail Mashal. And bless all Afghan men who back girls’ education.

• The opening paragraph of this report out of Kinshasa is very hard to read, and one paragraph says enough, frankly:

Pope Francis on Wednesday urged Congo’s people to forgive those who committed “inhuman violence” against them, celebrating a Mass for 1 million people and then hearing firsthand of the atrocities some of them have endured: a teenage girl “raped like an animal” for months; a young man who watched as his father was decapitated; a former sex slave who was forced into cannibalism.

In 2016, I interviewed Denis Mukwege, the doctor who treats rape victims in Congo. He later received the Nobel Peace Prize. Sitting with Dr. Mukwege was one of the most moving and memorable experiences I have had in journalism. (For my piece — “Dealing with Darkness in Congo” — go here.)

• “Duo accused of neo-Nazi plot to target Maryland power stations.” That’s the heading over this article from the Washington Post. The subheading reads, “Atomwaffen founder Brandon Russell and Sarah Clendaniel allegedly sought to attack substations around Baltimore.” Uh-huh.

It seems to me, from my survey of the news, that the Nazis in recent years have tried to outdo the Communists when it comes to troublemaking in our country.

May they both lose.

(The late Bob Novak was an ardent basketball fan. About a game involving two teams that he disliked, he’d say, “That’s the Battle of Stalingrad to me.”)

• Speaking of Nazis, here is a profile of Nick Fuentes, by Ali Breland. Fascinating. (Truly.) From his high-school activities (student-body president) to his fandom of Pat Buchanan.

One thing I appreciate about Fuentes is his openness. His candor. I have said this before. Other people who are Nazi, or Nazi-friendly, sort of sneak around. They keep a foot, or two feet, in the mainstream. Their goal is subversion, or poison. But Fuentes? He’s out and proud, so to speak.

“Know thine enemy.”

I have a complaint against the author, Mr. Breland. He writes of “the free-market worship that is core to mainstream figures on the right.” You often hear this word from (1) progressives and (2) Buchananites: “worship.” I don’t know anyone who worships the free market. I know a lot of people who think that a free economy has proven itself the economy that does the most for most people — especially the poor and disadvantaged.

I agree with them.

• Al Michaels, the great sportscaster, came up with an interesting phrase: “Internet compost.” With Tony Dungy, he broadcast a game, and some complained that the duo was too low-key.

In a conversation-by-text with Andrew Marchand of the New York Post, Michaels said, “Read some comments that we didn’t sound excited enough. Internet compost! You know me as well as anyone — no screaming, no yelling, no hollering. It’s TELEVISION!” The pictures tell the story.

Michaels added, “I’m not doing a game for over-the-top YouTube hits.”

(To read about all this, go here.)

I admire Al Michaels a great deal. And he provides a lesson to all of us: Beware Internet compost!

• Copyediting is an important, intricate art. (I practiced it for years.) Jeff Reimer has written an excellent piece on it, for The Bulwark: here. Revealing and delightful.

• I would like to share a tweet from Simon Schama, the British historian — this tweet. It concludes a photo of a book. Schama says that his dad planned to make a trip to Brighton. But he instead used the money to buy the complete works of Charles Dickens, in the Caxton edition.

These books, says Schama, “I now have and treasure.”

• Okay, my peeps — a splendid, and perhaps surprising, obit by Clay Risen: “Bob Born, Who Brought Marshmallow Peeps to the Masses, Dies at 98.”

• A little music? For a review of Leif Ove Andsnes, the Norwegian pianist, in recital at Carnegie Hall, go here.

• A little language? I once heard Bill Buckley say — in exasperation with technology — “All I want in life is for my printer to work.” In a similar spirit, I say: All I want in life is for people to grasp what “disinterest” means.

“Joe finds the case very, very interesting. He is following its every twist and turn. But he has no personal stake in it. He is disinterested.”

Isn’t there a patron saint of lost causes? (I have a boatload of ’em.)

• Maybe close with a quick pic. I had a boatload of them in my Glasgow journal yesterday. This is of New York — New York City, on a peaceful, cold, windless night:

Check you later, y’all, and thanks much.

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