The United States president intimated recently that he would not step down as presidential contender until “the Lord Almighty” personally instructed him to do so. God has declined to involve himself in the Democratic Party nomination, but Joe Biden got the next biggest thing: a wounding repudiation by George Clooney. In a piece in the New York Times, house journal of the Democrats, he declared: “This is about age. Nothing more. We are not going to win in November with this president.”
It matters partly because Clooney is a game-changing fundraiser. The event at which he met Biden and decided he was as bad as he looked in the TV debate raised an astonishing £23 million for the re-election campaign. It also matters because Clooney can say things that normal politicians can’t. Witness the way Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic veteran, pretty well as old as Biden, pulled her punches in saying exactly the same thing as Clooney, only in a more weaselly way.
