President Biden’s press conference Thursday night was intended to placate the growing number of critics, especially after he introduced Ukraine President Zelensky as “President Putin” just hours before. How are you praying? What are your thoughts? Please share in the comments.

From National Review. Going into Thursday night’s press conference, the best hope for Democrats was that President Biden’s performance offered a definitive enough answer on his mental fitness to bring the brewing civil war within the party to a conclusion one way or another. …

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On the negative side of the measure, Biden was raspy and took a number of long pauses. He referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump … claimed he was taking advice from the commander in chief, referred to a nonexistent broad federal rent-control program … He mentioned how his staff had given him a list of reporters to call on …

At the same time, he did field questions for an hour, in some cases giving long and detailed responses …

As I said right after the debate, aging is not a linear process. Elderly people in a state of mental decline can have good moments, bad ones, or just okay ones. Democrats who fear sticking with Biden understand that it’s only a matter of time before Biden has another bad one — but as long as he produces okay ones, it will be hard to replace him as nominee.

From The Guardian. Should I stay or should I go? If I stay there will be trouble … This wasn’t so much a press conference, more a job interview conducted in front of an audience of millions. One where almost everyone had already made up their mind that they would rather almost anyone else got the nod.

This was politics as a bloodsport. Painful to watch. Like intruding on a personal grief. Because there could be no winner here. Were Joe Biden to be word perfect and razor sharp, the doubts would remain about his cognitive abilities. The US president cannot erase his recent past. The gaffes come with ever increasing frequency. The obvious confusion. The long silences. The middle-distance stares.

The tipping point was last month’s presidential debate with Donald Trump. Biden tried to pass it off as one bad moment. The reality was that it was an excruciating 90 minutes. A complete meltdown no pretence or artifice could cover up. You would be embarrassed if this was an elderly relative. No one should be allowed to humiliate themselves in this way. But this was the most powerful man in the western world. …

The post-Nato press conference was the first opportunity for the world to see Biden in the raw since the debate. Biden unplugged. Biden unscripted. Sure he could read his opening statement off the autocue but then he would have to take questions from the media. A test of whether he could hold it together for nearly an hour. …

Things didn’t get off to the best of starts. Ninety minutes before he gave his solo press conference he hosted the Ukraine Compact in front of dozens of world leaders. Making the introductions he referred to Volodymyr Zelenskiy as President Putin. And this was off an autocue. He tried to brush it off as a slip of the tongue. A joke even. But the damage was already done. …

We had been warned that he might only take four questions but he went on to take 10. He was on a mission to prove there was nothing wrong with him. That he could take on all comers. Except he couldn’t. There was no coming back from the Zelenskiy/Putin debacle.

The best that could be said about the press conference was that it wasn’t as bad as it might have been. Though that is to damn it with faint praise. There were long moments when Biden was perfectly lucid, with a stronger grasp of foreign policy than Trump could ever have managed.

But equally there were many moments when he appeared confused. His sentences would start nowhere in particular and then abruptly tail off. His delivery was dreamy, disconnected and detached. …

And of course there were the inevitable gaffes. Mistaking Europe for Asia barely rated a mention. Calling Kamala Harris “vice-president Trump” certainly did. That sent shockwaves through the nation. …

… It’s as if Biden is waiting on a miracle. To reset his campaign to a Day Zero when none of this has ever happened. Where all mistakes are forgotten. Only it doesn’t work like this. We’ve gone way too far for that. …

… The bar shouldn’t have to be this low. The Democrats deserve better. America deserves better. The world deserves better.

This video from the Wall Street Journal offers more on the press conference and reaction to it. Also, the WSJ is tracking where politicians stand on President Biden remaining in the race.

How are you praying? What are your thoughts? Please share in the comments.

(Excerpts from National Review and The Guardian. Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America – Joe Biden, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=86059695)