Two Books Out Tuesday — And More May 18, 2025 What links them for me, other than their coincident pub date, is that both subjects have lo0omed large in my life. ORIGINAL SIN Subtitled: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. I’ve only read the Guardian review, but here it is in short: What the public saw of his functioning was concerning. What was going on in private was worse. . . . One anonymous aide is quoted as saying: “We attempted to shield him from his own staff so many people didn’t realize the extent of the decline beginning in 2023.” . . . “The White House was lying not only to the press, not only to the public, but they were lying to members of their own cabinet. They were lying to White House staffers. They were lying to Democratic members of Congress, to donors, about how bad things had gotten.” I was as deceived as anyone. Minutes into his disastrous June 27 debate I started texting my friends: “Open primary!” It was evident to all but Biden himself — and, I guess, the few others I’ll read about when the book arrives Tuesday — he had to drop out — and should have done so much earlier. Ten days later, I told you my Joe Biden Grilled Cheese story. I stick by what I wrote. Then I told the New York Times I thought our odds of winning — which was all that mattered — would be better if Biden stepped aside . . . but that if he didn’t, “he and his team of 4,000 highly competent appointees” were “a thousand times — a million times — better than Trump and the team he would assemble.” Which was true! Had he run and won — unlikely, for sure, given the way most people decide whom to vote for — the country and the world would be in a vastly better place than now . . . and he could always then have stepped aside at some point . . . or even been “Section 4-ed.” “Tragedy” is the only word for it. (Well: “nightmare” might be another.) Had Joe stuck to his plan of being a one-term president, I could have worn my Vote Biden cap and Biden/Harris sweatshirt for the rest of time. WHO KNEW Tuesday’s other debut is Barry Diller’s autobiography. I’ve had the great good fortune to know Barry for more than 50 years. The book, like the man, is amazing. “That” stuff, of course, I knew. But there’s so much in it I didn’t know. Because the audio book is “read by the author,” you might want to let him tell you his story himself. What a life so far. AND MORE! Why not just re-name planet Earth planet Trump and save time? If the US president were a Manchurian candidate, are there things he would hesitate to do? GOP = GENITALS OBSESSED PARTY “Democrats just flipped the Omaha mayor’s office with ads like this. The right-wing obsession with genitals is starting to backfire.” — Bluesky Bob F. made this with ChatGPT: If you liked Friday’s Springsteen link . . . here is the reprise: Rise Up. Join Indivisible. Support the opposition. Have a great week.