Pressure Builds in the West Wing

New York Times: “A former adviser to President Biden has compared life in the White House to dog years: Every day feels like a week, every year like seven. And then there are times like these when it can feel as though an entire term plays out every few days.”

“The past couple of months have become a particularly stressful period in the White House. The president is heckled at his speeches and mocked over his age. The secretary of state has protesters camped outside his house throwing fake blood at his car. The defense secretary is in and out of the hospital. The homeland security secretary just got impeached.”

“As if those were not enough, the director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, who is a scholar of genocide, was confronted by her own employees, demanding that she resign over the U.S. policy on Israel. The president’s son faces trial on criminal charges. And the White House staff is grappling with two intractable wars, not to mention obstructionist Republicans, anxious Democrats and, oh yes, a re-election campaign that, judging by most polls, Mr. Biden is not currently winning — and the fate of the country is on the line.”