As I was writing the headline, I first thought about going with "The King Is 'Dead,' Long Live the Queen" — with "dead" being in quotes so as not to suggest cognitively vacant Joe Biden was actually dead.

Then, after reading George Washington University Law Professor and Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley's column about how the Democrat Party — after three-and-a-half years of telling us Joe Biden was sharp as a tack — unceremoniously threw the poor guy under the bus, and then raced to endorse word-salad queen Kamala Harris as their 2024 presidential nominee, I had to go with Turley's "defenestration" — a perfect metaphor for what we saw happen.

As defined by Brittanica, "defenestration" refers to "the act of throwing someone out of a window. Today it is more commonly used to describe the removal of someone from a position of power." 

Turley put it this way (emphasis, mine): 

After weeks of Democrats and the media raising the alarm of his mental capacity, Biden finally gave up his public refusal to step aside. Harris will now be the nominee through succession by defenestration, or being tossed from a window. Yet, there remains a lingering question of Biden’s capacity to serve for another six months as president.

President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw as the Democratic Party’s nominee solved an immediate problem for his party. Biden has plummeted in the polls as the vast majority of voters concluded that he is too diminished by age to serve another term. 

Yet, it has now created several new problems, including the obvious problem of a president who is viewed as incapable of running for an office that he continues to hold. 

Exactly. 

As Turley said, the Democrat Party is attempting to create "its own political version of the 25th Amendment in forcing Biden off the ticket. This decision was about as voluntary as leaving a building by way of a window on the 46th floor. That is particularly the case when you are thrown out of the window by your closest friends."

The Word-Salad Queen Is Loving Every Minute of It

As Biden's self-immolation continued after his humiliating performance in the June 27 presidential debate, Harris — along with virtually every Democrat — continued to sing his praises and tell us how cognitively competent he was. 

But let's be honest — any of us who know even a modicum about this woman's willingness to say do anything to advance her do-nothing career. Yes, I'd bet a dollar that Joe's "loyal" vice president has been mentally measuring the drapes in the White House since before her boss's debate collapse.

Related: Damaging Details Leak About Some of Kamala's Problems and What Biden Really Thinks

Turley summed it up nicely, as well.

Harris is eager to avoid the image of Brutus in the dispatching of the president. To support such a declaration would risk Biden proclaiming “Et tu, Kamala?” to the nation. The key to succession by defenestration is not to be seen as the hand that pushes the president out the window. 

Politics follows the same rules as the mafia for capo di tutti i capi: Kill a don, never be a don. While sometimes honored in the breach in the mob, it is hardly an auspicious path for a politician.

[...]

That was before any primaries. In this case, Biden won a primary in which the Democratic Party obstructed anyone who would challenge him and barred any debate. 

Millions voted for [Biden], and tens of millions of dollars were contributed to his campaign. He is now withdrawing weeks before accepting the nomination. That unprecedented decision alone would warrant a House investigation into Biden’s continuing capacity to serve in an office that he no longer believes he can run to occupy after January 2025.

Before this decision, a special counsel cited President Biden’s diminished faculties as a reason not to indict him for unlawfully retaining and handling classified material. Now, the president is effectively saying that, in addition to being allegedly too diminished to be prosecuted, he is too diminished to run for the office that he currently holds.

The question is whether Biden has ended the fight to retain his nomination only to trigger a fight to retain his office.

Fascinating stuff — at least to political nerds (myself included, most of the time, anyway). 

While it's been widely "rumored" that political chess master Nancy Pelosi has been engineering Biden's demise since at least the disastrous debate, a curious question arises, which I'll paraphrase by borrowing from Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal: 

What did the vice president know, and when did she know it? 

Meanwhile, Cackling Kamala™ remains all smiles — and cackles, of course.