In their laughable charges of White House “cover-ups” and press-briefing misinformation in the wake of the visibly slumping Joe Biden’s debate debacle, the legacy media are demonstrating an even steeper cognitive decline.

Is the collective short-term memory loss of the sharks in the White House press pool so severe that they have forgotten their own full-on frenetic feeding frenzy just five months ago? On that previous Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Night when the incumbent did his best Sen. William Scott imitation in denying, and thereby proving, Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report that Biden is a man of “diminished faculties in advancing age”?

The media’s gaslighting has been so extreme that they brushed under the rug the feeble fumble the entire American viewing public saw them seeing first-hand.

Now the virtual-ink-stained wretches have done an about-face so crisp and coordinated it might put a top-flight drill team to shame.

Alongside our counterfeit commander in chief’s erstwhile cheerleaders on Capitol Hill, who are deserting his sinking ship so rapidly that to compare them to rats would give said rodents a bad name.

To wit: a growing number of both cohorts have come to the conclusion that seven in 10 Americans had already reached those five moons ago. As this column put it then:

If he’s lost his wits, Sleepy Joe must quit.

Just three tiny, teensy-weensy problems with that.  

Problem #1: Scrappy Joe disagrees and has thrown himself into a full-court combo campaign to keep his job – aimed not only at voters but his own colleagues and donors. Including a spate of over-the-top energetic interviews and appearances, and a defiant missive to the increasingly recalcitrant Hill Democrats.

Problem #2: The presumptive nominee has a complete, total, irreversible and impregnable stranglehold on that nomination. He has the delegates committed and the rules on his side.

Problem #3: Putting the mechanisms in the 25th Amendment authorizing presidential removal into motion requires action from the sitting vice president. Who is in no position to exercise them without presenting herself as the 21st-century equivalent of Brutus and Lady MacBeth rolled into one.

If Joseph Robinette Biden insists on being on the ballot in November – and he does, vociferously – he will be on it. He ain’t decamping from the White House on his own, before Jan. 20, 2025, at least, no matter what his party’s rank-and-file, and behind closed doors, leadership, might prefer.

Unless …

The Democratic congressional leaders – and yes, even a sufficiently critical mass of back bench members in both chambers – have an even mightier lever at hand than the 25th Amendment, directly from the original Constitution of the United States.

The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

The House of Representatives … shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. 

And they can capitalize on that power, with the help of the media, by taking advantage of the same table-turning skills displayed in the last two weeks.

All House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer – or, again, a sufficiently large cadre of Democratic members in both chambers – need to do is communicate to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that they have suddenly been convinced to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry into Mr. Biden’s conduct already underway by House Republicans.

Aided by the production of some piece of “new” evidence equally irrelevant as the debate was, this time in terms of adding to the mountain already assembled against the Biden family, but providing a hook for a similarly head-jerking change in stance.

Privately, it would be a pure “power play”: step down now, let us rally behind the vice president, and bathe in a chorus of adulation. Or face a very different, darker genre of music.

Publicly, if the Offer Mr. Biden Couldn’t Refuse is indeed refused, it would go something like this: 

“We’re shocked, shocked to find that Mr. Biden engaged in abuses of his office.”

Then choose from the menu of abuses any one or combo that would be most politically palatable – and even advantageous (see below): 

• Removing, concealing, and unlawfully sharing confidential documents, which the Special Counsel acknowledges would justify prosecution were it not for Mr. Biden’s sodden cerebral state. 
• Receiving cash wires from family members approximating the “10% for the Big Guy” shortly after their transfers from foreign entities. 
• Boastfully withholding aid to Ukraine to force the removal of a prosecutor investigating Hunter. 
• Cooperating in his campaign’s abuse of national security resources to cover up the Laptop from Hell.
• Openly defying a Supreme Court ruling on student loan forgiveness, and bragging about it, to boot.
• Leading an effort from the White House to coordinate across agencies and even jurisdictions to frame and prosecute his leading opponent. 
• Leveraging federal programs to implement a voter registration drive aimed at boosting his candidacy.
• Proactively undermining enforcement of immigration and other laws he is sworn to uphold.

And so on, and so forth.

Removing Mr. Biden in this manner could actually provide a potent campaign message to leverage against Republicans: We’ve cleaned house and excised a corrupt officeholder from the White House and our ticket. And we call on the opposition to do the same.

Messrs. Jeffries and Schumer, in your court. Just pick up the phone, dial 4-3121 and ask for Speaker Johnson.

And you’re welcome. In this instance, happy to help.

Bob Maistros is a messaging and communications strategist, crisis specialist, and former political speechwriter. He can be reached at bob@rpmexecutive.com.