Is it time for Joe Biden to bow out?

"Get ready for the Great Democratic Freakout," said Karen Tumulty in The Washington Post. 

"Even the most creative of spinners" in Joe Biden's camp will struggle to "manufacture a victory narrative out of his dreadful performance" against Donald Trump in last night's televised debate. The president's voice was hoarse, his answers  sometimes muddled and he appeared to struggle his way through the 90 minutes. And though Trump spouted a "litany of lies", he was "better prepared and more disciplined than most anyone might have expected". 

The "once unspeakable" is now an active discussion among Democrats, said Politico: is it time to replace Biden on the ticket?  

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'The world needs America at its best'

It was so bad, I wept, said Thomas L. Friedman in The New York Times. The debate revealed that Biden, "a good man and a good president, has no business" running for a second term. "I cannot remember a more heartbreaking moment in American presidential campaign politics in my lifetime."  

Trump was "preposterous", but "he emerged the undisputed winner", said Harold Meyerson at The American Prospect. Biden was "too old and infirm" to dispute even the "most blatant fabrications" levelled at him by the former president – "or to persuasively defend his demonstrably superior record and positions". 

Come election day in November, I don't see any "plausible way" Biden can beat Trump, Meyerson said. The Democrats "should heed the lessons imparted by leading Republicans in 1974", when they convinced then-president Nixon to stand down following the Watergate scandal. They succeeded then – and "now, it's up to the Democrats". 

"If there was ever a time that the world needs an America at its best, led by its best, it is now," said Friedman. A younger Biden "could have been that leader, but time has finally caught up with him". He is no longer "up to the job", and that became "painfully and inescapably obvious" yesterday. The president can "keep the dignity he deserves" if he stands aside – and "if he does, everyday Americans will hail Joe Biden" for putting the country's needs ahead of his own ambitions.  

'Slim' chance of changing course

"There have been bad, even disastrous, debate performances in the past," said Jonathan Tobin on Newsweek. But never before did "the spinners wave the white flag and concede that their candidate was beaten". Few Democrats "bothered to conceal the panic they felt" watching a debate which "confirmed the country's worst fears" about the sitting president's capacity. 

It was a "catastrophe" for Biden, but the "really bad news" is for the Democrats, because the odds of replacing him with another candidate "are slim no matter how many of them are now screaming for it", he continued. 

To pick a new nominee now would throw the party into "turmoil", said the Post's Tumulty. Besides, said Tobin, there is no "realistic mechanism for toppling an incumbent president who already has the nomination sewed up". The national party has "no power" to stop a candidate "sweeping to the nomination on the basis of primary victories in which ordinary voters have the final word". 

Biden's "arrogance, contempt for critics and loathing of his opponents", he continued, "makes me think that he will never give up the chance for another term under virtually any circumstances".

Even Democrats who have "privately complained about Biden's performance acknowledged" the unlikeliness of "a brokered convention or Biden stepping aside", said Politico. The "only bright spot" in the debate, an unnamed senior adviser to Democratic officials told the news site, "is that this happened in June and not October".