The New York Times, normally a media outlet strongly biased toward Democrats, published three opinion pieces sharply critical of President Joe Biden, two of which suggest that he needs to step down as a presidential candidate in 2024. 

The opinion pieces came after a special counsel report was released on Thursday saying that no charges should be filed against Biden for willfully retaining classified documents because he is too forgetful and mentally deficient to stand trial.

The first crack in the Times's armor came on Friday when the editorial board asserted that the special counsel report and the press conference that followed it were "a dark moment for Mr. Biden’s presidency."

Instead of the press conference assuring "that his memory is fine" and arguing "that Mr. Hur was out of line," the piece said, "the president raised more questions about his cognitive sharpness and temperament, as he delivered emotional and snappish retorts in a moment when people were looking for steady, even and capable responses to fair questions about his fitness."

Assurances didn't work

The board wrote: "His assurances... didn’t work. He must do better — the stakes in this presidential election are too high for Mr. Biden to hope that he can skate through a campaign with the help of teleprompters and aides and somehow defeat as manifestly unfit an opponent as Donald Trump."

It's not that the Times has suddenly become fair and unbiased, as the comment about Trump shows. On the contrary, they are terrified that Biden can't beat Trump and are trying to force Democrats to come up with a better plan for victory than hiding Biden away from the public and trying to convince voters that there's no there there when it comes to Biden's mental deterioration.

On Sunday, two more op-eds hit the outlet, and both of them were even more strident than the first.

Maureen Dowd wrote a piece titled "Mr. President, Ditch the Stealth About Health," saying that Biden's mental decline has become obvious and that all efforts to hide it have failed.

While Dowd stopped short of saying Biden shouldn't be the nominee in 2024, she decried Democrats for not having a better plan for how to compensate for Biden's mental decline, which she called a "major weakness."

The bottom line

Finally, political analyst Ross Douthat got to the point with his piece, "The Question Is Not If Biden Should Step Aside. It’s How."

"Joe Biden should not be running for re-election," he plainly said.

"The impression the president gives in public is not senility so much as extreme frailty, like a lightbulb that still burns so long as you keep it on a dimmer," he elaborated.

It's clear that the Times has begun to shift toward Biden stepping down, which to be honest would probably be beneficial for Democrats at this point.

He's not going to be able to hold it together for another five years, and the sooner Democrats face that fact, the better it will be for them.