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Why are Democrats so bad at defending their own, and certainly their president, especially when there’s “no, there there,” as President Biden said about the classified documents brouhaha?

Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, for example, went on and on this weekend on the talk shows, about how “unacceptable” it was for Biden to have documents, before even getting to Donald Trump’s refusing to return documents and obstructing justice (though he didn’t use that term.) And then he said Biden has “lost the high ground.”

Aaron Rupar @atrupar

"Of course" -- Durbin says Biden has lost the high crowd to hit at Trump for his mishandling of classified documents

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Durbin said it “diminished Biden’s stature.” This is absolutely idiotic.

Josh Marshall @joshtpm

Like most Dems have been, @SenatorDurbin is an embarrassment on this issue. Shld be ashamed of himself. Dems play to the desires of the DC press.

cnn.comWatch: Top Democrat criticizes Biden over classified docs | CNN PoliticsSenate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) criticizes President Biden’s handling of classified documents.

It’s bad enough that we have the GOP trying to tear Biden down. And then there’s Joe Manchin, angry with Biden for a variety of reasons, trying to claim Biden’s document issue is equivalent to Trump’s.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar

Joe Manchin on Meet the Press on Biden and classified documents: "It's just hard to believe that in the United States of America we have a former president and current president basically in the same situation." (Biden and Trump are not in fact in the same situation.)

But why are those who claim to be Biden’s defenders playing into this?

I think it’s because Democrats are conditioned by the media to walk into traps that are set, and they don’t work the media the way that Republicans do. The GOP constantly whines that the media are biased against them — and then threatens not to give interviews — badgering reporters over and over.

The larger factor though is that Democrats fall back into thinking things are “normal,” in which both parties should admit when something is problematic in their own party. But we are so far-removed from that world. We’re dealing with a GOP that embraces the Big Lie, holds deranged Marjorie Taylor Greene up as a leader, and is defending serial fabricator George Santos.

So no, there is no “fair play.” And now that documents have turned up at Mike Pence’s home — in which he claimed it was a mistake — there is absolutely no reason for Democrats not to strongly differentiate between what Biden and others (yes, including Pence) have done, and what Trump has done.

Trump stole over 300 classified documents. He took them himself, knowingly, and had been going through them again and again at his Mar-a-Lago home, not keeping them secure. Some of the top secret documents were mixed in with documents post-dating his presidency, found in his office. There was no mistake. In fact, he claimed he knew they were classified and that he declassified them, which is ludicrous.

Then he refused to give them back, defying law enforcement. And the FBI had to go and get them.

Every time a Democrat goes on TV they need to say that over and over again first — even if the question is about Biden. And then they should not cede any ground, explaining that the president made a mistake, reported it right away and asked to be further searched. And that there was nothing about it that showed anything nefarious on his part.

But to say that Biden “lost the high ground” or that it affected his “stature” is to play into the GOP’s strategy and the media’s game.

Democrats should be defending the president in this sick environment of faux outrage and twisted lies by the GOP, and understanding that we are at war with propagandists who do not play by the rules and who have declared this war.

And Democrats should be slammed by all of us when they don’t defend the president when he’s done nothing wrong, and when they feed the media exactly what it is demanding.

Hopefully the Mike Pence revelation will bring it back down to earth — how ironic that it took Pence — and separate out what is willful criminal activity from honest mistakes and mishandling of documents by staffs and others who are working for public officials.

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Democrats should be fiercely defending Biden…