The deep state tells Biden to retire

It’s the worst-kept secret in Washington.

Joe Biden is too old to be president. His increasing senility cannot be hidden from the public any longer. Recent polling indicates that more than two-thirds of Democrats think Biden is too elderly to serve another term in the Oval Office.

The problem Democrats face is who to replace Biden with. Vice President Kamala Harris may be much younger, but she’s even less popular than Biden. Any Republican opponent would likely easily defeat Harris, who apparently can’t get through an interview without awkward laughter. The Democratic bench looking at 2024 is weak, thanks to eight years of devastating local and state-level setbacks during Barack Obama’s presidency, which liberals ignored then but deeply regret now.

It was only a matter of time before a major liberal pundit came forward to publicly deliver the bad news: Joe, it’s time to go.

Now, it’s happened, care of David Ignatius, a Washington Post associate editor and senior foreign affairs writer. Ignatius has thrown down the gauntlet to Biden with a column bluntly titled: “President Biden should not run again in 2024.” Dispensing the required pleasantries about Biden’s “remarkable string of wins,” Ignatius adds, “What I admire most about President Biden is that in a polarized nation, he has governed from the center out.”

This will be news to Republicans.

Finally, he gets to the point: “But I don’t think Biden and Vice President Harris should run for reelection. It’s painful to say that, given my admiration for much of what they have accomplished. But if he and Harris campaign together in 2024, I think Biden risks undoing his greatest achievement — which was stopping Trump.”

Ignatius states the obvious: Joe is too old for the job, adding acidly, “Biden’s age isn’t just a Fox News trope; it’s been the subject of dinner-table conversations across America this summer.” Ignatius then switches to Harris and why she’s hopeless too, sticking in the shiv: “Harris has many laudable qualities, but the simple fact is that she has failed to gain traction in the country or even within her own party.” Ignatius advises Joe to go away, preferably soon, so as to allow the Democrats time to assemble a better team to win the White House in 2024. “Time is running out,” he says.

This public lecture will have caused gnashing of teeth at the White House. Ignatius is a top member of the Democratic media elite. The son of a prominent Democratic player, Paul Ignatius (still alive at almost 103), who served as Secretary of the Navy and president of the Washington Post, the younger Ignatius was raised in Washington, DC, educated at St. Albans, then Harvard . He’s worked in top-level D.C. journalism for over four decades and has been at the Post since 1986. David Ignatius is the Washington Democratic media elite wrapped up in one person.

But there’s another side to Ignatius, too, and here’s where things get interesting.

For decades, Ignatius has cultivated a close relationship with the intelligence community, particularly the Central Intelligence Agency. It’s common knowledge in spook circles that Ignatius has long served as an unofficial CIA spokesman. His Post columns form a better guide to what’s happening out at Langley than official CIA press releases. When Ignatius comments on intelligence matters, as he frequently does, it’s often Langley’s leadership, what spooks call “the seventh floor,” that’s doing the talking.

This is an open secret in Washington. Ignatius also writes spy novels, lots of them, many of which are thinly veiled retellings of real-life actual espionage operations that were presumably told to him by CIA officials. One of those novels was even praised on the CIA’s official website as “a novel but not fiction.” That Ignatius has Langley’s imprimatur is indicated by his regular appearances with CIA senior officials.

Therefore, Ignatius perhaps isn’t just speaking for himself with his latest Post column. True, Ignatius’s suggestion that Karen Bass would make a good Democratic candidate for president in 2024 is a strange one. The former congresswoman and current Los Angeles mayor enjoyed a very close relationship with Cuban intelligence for years. Nevertheless, Ignatius’ main point — it’s time to go, Joe — cannot be misinterpreted.

For all the Republican rants against the Deep State since 2016, it seems that top intelligence officials have decided that an elderly president, who now faces an impeachment inquiry in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives amid plausible if not yet proven allegations of corruption involving Communist China, needs to be shown the door, as soon as possible. Your friends, they say, stab you in the front.

Continue Reading at The Washington Examiner.