Biden’s Heartbreaking Press Conference

So here’s the heartbreak.

Three-quarters of an hour of detailed, sophisticated answers. Mastery of detail. Knowledge of world personalities. Courtesy to the reporters before him. Accurate recall of facts and figures. Justified pride in a record of accomplishment. A spark of sharp humor at the very end.

Also: Verbal stumbles. Thoughts half-finished. Strangled vocal intonations. Flares of unprompted anger. Glimpses of the politician’s inner monologue—resentment at how underappreciated he is—spoken aloud, as it never should be, in all its narcissism and vulnerability.

Art restorers use the term photodegradation to describe the process by which a painting fades. The colors remain present; they just become less vivid. That’s the Joe Biden story.

Incumbent presidents lose or quit for one of three reasons: economic crisis, military failure, or party split. (Sometimes an incumbent is rocked by two at once, even all three, as Jimmy Carter was in 1980.) Biden’s economy is the best since the late 1960s. The United States is not directly at war. And until the June debate, the Democratic Party was united. But Biden’s particular miscues have created the kind of party split that devoured William Howard Taft in 1912 and George H. W. Bush in 1992.