Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again

Should Jake have been aware of all of this a lot sooner? Should he have been able to see what was right in front of him? Sure, but all humans engage in cult-like thinking. As in, "If the other side believes something, it must be wrong."People generally don't start to change their minds until someone from within their own bubble challenges the accepted narrative. Then the dam bursts. So there are lots of people who will listen to Jake Tapper, who would just tune out someone like Sean Hannity, who has been screaming for years that Biden has cognitive deficits.The bigger question is how, out of the millions of people in America, do we end up with two presidential candidates like Biden and Trump? Why do we have to go to the polls trying to decide, well, which one is worse?The authors also provide examples of other lawmakers who stayed in positions of power in Washington, D.C. well into advanced years with significant infirmities. There is nothing to stop them, except the voters. Would term limits or age limits help guard against another Biden?Opening your mind, changing your mind, is always better than clinging to old beliefs. Perhaps Mr. Tapper can take another look at the polarizing issue of transgenderism. Take a fresh, unbiased look at the practices, now banned in some of the very countries that first embraced them. You might change your own mind and have an opportunity to change the minds of others.

Democracy really was at risk in the 2024 presidential election. Trump was the one most discussed in the discussion of this topic. However, as this book clearly illustrates, it was the Biden administration, family, fellow Democrats and the media and their cover-up that may have been an even greater risk. We still don't know and may never know who was running our country.

My overwhelming response to this book is anger: at Biden, at the people close to him who protected him, at the others who knew but said nothing. Many of these people saw Biden as a “savior,” the “only one” who could defeat Trump. As it turned out, Biden and, sadly, Harris, were among the only credible politicians who could have lost to a lying bloviator who tried (and is trying) to overthrow this democratic republic. The writing here is nothing special. It’s a compendium of interviews of dozens if not hundreds of people, mostly government officials, many of whom remain unnamed. But their credibility is not impugned for that. The tragic truth was revealed on June 27, 2024, as we watched in horror. And this book is a horror story. The characters are aware of but don’t pay sufficient attention to the imminent disaster that came to fruition and with which we are all living today.There’s plenty of blame to go around: Biden for insisting on running; those close to Biden who shielded him from the truth, including his “politburo,” as this book describes it; Harris for not putting sufficient distance between herself and Biden; and so many others who let the country down by not speaking up. But ultimately, the fault is with the millions of voters who felt their best choice was to vote for a despicable would-be dictator who is destroying what this country is supposed to be about.

This book seriously confirms what we visual people knew all along: Biden was compromised by his physical condition and inability to communicate clearly and should NEVER have been allowed to run for a second term. I remember all the excuses: he has a stutter; he has a bad leg..., but otherwise, he's in great shape. Look, he rides his bike. Right!?The book states clearly how his staff and wife were able to form a cocoon around him so the truth would be hidden for at least one year and probably longer. Did Biden realize his own decrepit state? Probably, yes, in my opinion. But, he wanted that second term ABOVE ALL ELSE. Didn't DNC officials question why Biden was not having regular meeting with his cabinet and that the few times they were held, they were highly scripted with note cards that Biden read from. How could this happen? Willful blindness? Read the book.The best part of the book for me is in the later chapters when the authors discuss what happened at all the "debate parties" around Washington and LA when the truth about Biden's condition was plainly uncovered by his June debate with Trump. The resulting hysteria between "What do we do next" and "He just had a bad night" plays out dramatically, including the short bit about Robert Hur's friends and colleagues texting him about his "vindication." The authors write, "Hur told them that all he felt was sad." The authors continued, "Finally the American people were watching what Hur had seen the previous October..."This book is full of revelations about how the hidden machinery of Washington works in the shadows, particularly in its dishonesty and the self-preservation of all the goodies that come with close contact with high American officials. Many will not give them up without a fight.I highly recommend this book to anyone who cares about this country and how a small group of inside people ushered in Trump 2.0. Instead of a bridge to a new generation of American leaders, when the Democratic Party has so many capable of leadership. Biden became a bridge between Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0 by his stubborn hubris to have a second term. I cannot believe that the major Democratic leaders did not see this disaster coming. A lot along this vein is discussed in this book.For those in these comments who ask why Tapper or his sources didn't reveal all of this before the election, I just have to say that Democratic staffers were NEVER going to put out the truth BEFORE the election. Many knew what was happening and chose to cowardly stay silent for the sake of their careers.This is the state of politics in this country. So many people value their careers over the threat of the dismantling democracy by hiding the truth. Extremely sad. I changed my political affiliation from Democrat to Independent the day after the November 4 election. I'd been a Democrat all my life since I first voted in 1972, but, I've had enough of the bad candidates (whose turn it was) when the party was full of potentially great ones who were passed over for dubious reasons. I'm sure this will not be the last book about this incredible episode in America. It's a great start in understanding the problems.

I am fascinated by social history. Why do people do what they do? What causes people to make the decisions they make? This book was right down my alley.The book at least attempts to keep a balanced perspective. It is disturbing, nonetheless. I understand the deep need to protect someone from being seen with some form of dementia, but that need should intersect with the need to protect the greater good. The moral question is, "Is the status quo better than what might happen if the apple cart is upset?" An inner circle deciding to make that decision for the country wasn't the best choice, in my opinion.Why four stars instead of five? I don't think the definitive book has been written yet, and may never be. This is a good choice in place of that book.