The only way this ends even semi-well is if former Presidents Clinton and Obama, plus Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and the current House Democrat Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, sit down in the Oval Office and persuade Joe that it’s time to do what’s right for the Democrat Party. Oh, and Jill has to be there. Because it’s really her that they’ll be talking to.

I wrote that back on July 1st in a post speculating on what might happen to Biden in the wake of the debate disaster on June 27, and in the end some of those names did play a role, but not all, and not in as civil a manner:

[H]eavyweights within the Democratic Party—like Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and the influential megadonors—left him with no choice. After weeks of Biden refusing to drop out, they resorted to blackmailing him: either he stepped down voluntarily or they would move to invoke the 25th Amendment. Sources say that Pelosi, Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries were all involved in the effort,

Recently resigned top Biden adviser, Anita Dunn, was quite explicit:

“What did change [after the debate], it was 24 days of unremitting negative, horrible attacks on Joe Biden…from his own party and from the press…Clearly there were leaders of the party who decided to go ahead and go very public. And that gave permission to other people to go public.”

Dunn was asked if an example of that was when former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., went on TV twice in the days after the debate. “Absolutely,” she said.

Dunn wasn’t saying anything that gossipy Washington D.C. hadn’t known within days of Biden quitting as the stories circulated and numerous senior journalists openly referred to them, like Lesly Stahl in this interview of Pelosi on August 4:

I understand that you don’t want to own this… But it is so well reported, you know, that you were the leader of a pressure campaign.

But Pelosi denied it, albeit in a very creepy way of semi-plausible deniability: “I could always say to him, I never called anybody”. She then went on to say she hadn’t seen any decline in him and that his achievements as President were such that he deserved to be on Mt Rushmore.

To her credit, Stahl actually did laugh at that marlarkey.

But just a few days later Pelosi was finally admitting her role in the coup:

So I really wanted him to make a decision of a better campaign. Because they were not facing the fact of what was happening,…Just a little background. I’ve never been that impressed with his political operation.

And in another, even slimier, interview a few days later she threw Biden further under the bus by saying that the letter announcing his quitting the race didn’t sound like him:

Oof. I’ve been saying from the start of his Administration in 2021 that “President” Biden was merely saying what his staff (including Jill) told him to say and even exactly how to say it in the most prescriptive manner, including answering press questions. But it’s quite something to see Pelosi refer to that, and when he’s politically dead and buried! That’s cold.

Incidentally, here’s video of Biden’s staff in a Zoom call in 2020 plotting how to cast his obvious mental decline and other stories as “misinformation”, then feeding that argument to the press (who were gleeful to cooperate anyway once he was the nominee) and pressure social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to control the narrative. More videos here.

Even in his addled state, you would think that Biden, always thin-skinned about his inadequacies, would be angry about all this, even as he gave his official speech announcing he was quitting and casting it as him doing it to help his party (“My democratic friends thought I would hurt the races.” – an admission of a coup right there) – and with that instantly transformed by his MSM fluffers as “selfless act”…

And you’d be correct about his anger, though it took more time to confirm it:

President Joe Biden is frustrated that Barack Obama wouldn’t tell him to his face that he should leave the race. He’s angry with Nancy Pelosi and views her as ruthless for ushering him out the door. And he’s still miffed at the role Chuck Schumer played, too. Biden has told his closest aides and associates that he is coming to terms with his decision to bow out of the presidential race last month, but still harbors some frustration toward the members of his own party he believes pushed him out, according to three people familiar with Biden’s thinking who are not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.

That sounds like Obama’s method of operation, and his hesitation for days in supporting Kamala Harris as the replacement nominee suggests a reason for perhaps holding back on pulling the trigger on Biden. Still, given their history I figured he’d be the prime figure to face Biden. But in the end it was the former Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, who clearly still has enormous power inside the Democrat Party, even from her backseat in the House:

Biden’s inner circle believes Pelosi was the decisive voice in pushing him out. His allies thought that, after nearly two weeks of trying to reassure fellow Democrats, his candidacy was on track to be salvaged the morning of July 10. But that was when Pelosi made a now-infamous appearance on “Morning Joe,” repeatedly making clear that she did not support Biden continuing his candidacy. The president’s aides believe that opened the door for a host of other Democrats and donors to follow suit.

“She did what she had to do” in order to give Democrats the best chance to win in November, Biden told one of the people, adding that Pelosi “cares about the party,” not about feelings.

They may as well have put a loaded gun on the Resolute desk in the Oval Office and left the room after telling Joe to do the right thing. And the ballots of 14 million Democrat voters and those at the upcoming Democrat Party convention, didn’t matter a damn.

Saving democracy eh?