This was really good. Again, not implying this washes away the debate, but I am a good bit reassured. Man, if only he doesn’t trip walking away from the podium! 
As someone who watches Biden a lot, it was immediately apparent last night that he was ill and not doing well. He was at his worst. It was hard to watch.
But in a fair assessment, his entire record of accomplishments and speaking engagements should stand clearly against his performance last night.
I’m heartened that he closed out his speech in Raleigh with “Let’s go get 'em, North Carolina.”
That’s not nothing 
Very glad he addressed his age, the weak debate, and I thought it was very effective.
AFAIC, the final word:
Too late to edit, but I want to add a further point to this question of whether the debate moderators were any good or not. Sure, one could make the case that they were just doing their jobs within the agreed rules and format of the debate (which Jon Stewart criticized last night as pretty stupid) but the broader philosophical point I’m making is that for whatever reason, whether it was their own passivity or decisions by CNN management, they failed at the essential job of media to expose falsehoods and determine facts.
The debate essentially failed to inform the public about much of anything except that Trump is a loud bloviator and Biden sounds weak and raspy. As a supposed news event, it was a total failure.
Is this Twilight Zone type stuff? Was that a robot double on stage last night?
If he can keep doing this he can outdo the grifter with rallies instead of a pointless debate format.
IMHO, as a general proposition:
In journalism, access is the coin of the realm: who will take your call, who will meet with you. That creates an inherent conflict of interest when we have journalists play moderator. Go for the jugular and you might never get access again.
Maybe we should have a panel of bipartisan academics and attorneys moderate these things. Make the participants/candidates answer. Fact check them as they go. Keep them to their time limits. Ask tough questions.
This shouldn’t be a chance to make or break a journalist’s career. It should be informative for voters.
Did you watch the video I linked? This was a pre-planned event and based on the other leaders he was supposed to be in the center of the photo op. He wandered off from the main event and had to be redirected. The other leaders had to reposition around him. He stood there with his mouth open. He had the same appearance as in the debate.
Different camera angles don’t change what happened. It wasn’t a difficult event for him to follow. Follow the other leaders and stand in the middle.
Yes. In fact, my linked OP addresses that exact video, among others.
I posted this before the debate:
Trying to justify why he wandered off doesn’t explain why he couldn’t follow what was going on with the group and the fact that they had to regroup round him for the event’s photo op.
He’s showing signs of aging. I called it during the debate. He’s out of his element without crib notes and this rally shows it.
For the cohort of voters to which I belong, this is irrelevant. Keeping Trump out of the White House is too important and emphatically trumps (rim shot) all other considerations. Others’ mileage surely varies. Let’s see how the headcount tallies in November.
Except that the narrative “couldn’t follow what was going on with the group” is a right-wing creation. He went to talk to a paratrooper during a wait in the photo op session. That’s not “wandering off” nor is it a sign of decrepitude.
It was also letting him get away with completely avoiding answering the question. There were a number of times when he’d start off with “first of all …” and then bloviate about something Biden had said earlier that was totally unrelated to the question, and use up his full two minutes doing it. And Tapper & Basher were just fine with it.
To be fair, she repeated a couple of her questions when Trump didn’t give a shred of a direct answer the first time around. (It seemed to me Trump would typically spend 1.5 of the 2 minutes answering the previous question and then turn very briefly to answering the most recent question.) She seemed exasperated when she repeated her “will you accept the election results and denounce violence no matter what” (paraphrased) question.
“Senile” and “Dementia” do not appear to be in play with Biden.
Age-related issues absolutely are. In my experience with octogenarians, socially and in the family, even people who are 100% compos mentis have moments of cognitive lapses. I believe Biden can absolutely do the job right now, and will have a VP who can step up in time of need, but I think denial that there are cognitive issues is basic denial of the human condition. Humans age: it’s a thing.
Trump, of course, is a cognitive mess for all sorts of other reasons, but since the voting public seems to make decisions based on emotional recations to superficialities, I think it’s worth spending a few months acknowledging reality but making it clear that Biden is nevertheless the way better choice.
It has nothing to do with a right wing narrative. He clearly wandered from the planned procedures. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been redirected and the group wouldn’t have to reposition around him.
It’s amazing that this thread is filled with supporters who said he looked old and yet when another video shows it the excuses fly.
He’s showing signs of aging.
Not that it matters, because apparently a winning debate performance consists of a concatenation of outright lies as long as they’re confidently delivered 
, but did anyone notice Trump admitted that Putin described to him his dream* of invading Ukraine?
So Mr. “nothing bad would happen if I was in charge because everyone fears & respects me” admitted that he knew of Putin’s invasion plans beforehand and didn’t stop them. Either he didn’t even try to persuade him not to invade (as I would suspect) or he did and other world leaders aren’t quaking in their boots upon seeing him as he claims.
*as Trump put it. Not a dream to anyone but Putin and his Putinists, of course.
I think we can take that for granted. It’s not just that Trump is massively intimidated by Putin and would never talk back to him–it’s also that Trump likely thinks that taking over other people’s countries via military force is Teh Coolest.
Have to say this is a good post-debate moment for Biden where he really feeds off the energy from the crowd. And this is probably going to be the line going forward: yeah I am not a good debater any more but it doesn’t matter, I am a good President and that is what matters.
Will it work? I don’t know but I don’t see Biden dropping out so that’s what the Dems will have to rally around if they want to beat Trump.