Democrats are in need of a reality check. The stakes are too high for us to indulge in the kind of denial, self-deception, and illusions that are a too-common reaction to many of the biggest challenges we face as a party and a country. Indeed, reality is our greatest strength and our best defense. Only failing to acknowledge it can undo us.

Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report describing President Joe Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” has caused a furor. Reactions to it among members of the president’s team and his supporters have ranged from defensiveness to outrage. Most such reactions have not been particularly helpful.

The issue of the president’s age cannot be willed or wished away. It must be understood, accepted, and addressed in ways that are consistent with observable reality.

Step one is to understand what is and what is and is not true—and what is and is not important about the Hur comment.

Among many unassailable facts pertaining to the comment are the following: Hur is a former Trump appointee and self-identified Republican. The fact that he made this comment in the report was, as Vice President Kamala Harris accurately observed, “gratuitous, inaccurate, and inappropriate.”

It is not the kind of comment that belonged in the report. It is debatable whether the report should have been released or not.

It is also fair to say that Hur should not have been picked as the special counsel in this case, and that Attorney General Merrick Garland once again seemed to bend so far backwards in the name of appearing non-partisan that his actions actually seemed to serve the partisan interests of the GOP.

President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the White House in Washington, DC, on Feb. 8, 2024.

As the president himself noted, the interviews he did with Hur which resulted in the assertion that Biden’s memory was spotty took place during the midst of one of the greatest international crises of Biden’s presidency, on Oct. 8 and 9 of last year, in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks on Israel.

This was a period in which one senior White House official observed “none of us were getting any sleep,” and the Hur interview took up five hours of the president’s time in the midst of all that. As Harris and others have observed, the president has effectively led the country for the past three years and achieved a remarkable record, managing highly complex situations from Ukraine to the economy deftly and successfully.

Finally, of course, the reality is that President Biden’s opponent is essentially the same age, and unlike Biden, he actually shows signs of severe mental decline and would never be described by anyone........

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