President Joe Biden recently seemed to conflate François Mitterrand with Emmanuel Macron, Helmut Kohl with Angela Merkel, and Mexico with Egypt. The latter remarks came during a press conference in which Biden addressed a report by special counsel Robert Hur that described the president as “an elderly man with memory problems.” But, as Jeet Heer explains, to call Hur partisan and blame the media for over-hyping the story deflects from the need to be candid about the president’s advanced years. “Biden’s age is undeniably a problem,” Heer writes, “but being honest about the problem might alleviate it enough to avert a catastrophe.”

Just as the media went into a frenzy over Biden’s mental fitness, it seemed as eager as ever to obfuscate Biden’s support of Israel. Senior editor Jack Mirkinson argues that a new genre of article has emerged since October 7: the “Biden is really mad at Netanyahu behind the scenes” story. The problem is that these pieces “have virtually nothing to do with how Biden has actually handled the war.”

With US weapons, funds, and political support, Israel continues its war on Gaza and has decided to invade Rafah, the southern city bordering Egypt that was supposed to be a “safe zone.” Dave Zirin argues that the fact that Israel launched an attack on Rafah during the Super Bowl shows that Israel believes dissent in the US is an obstacle to its ethnic-cleansing fantasies. He called the game “a weapon of mass distraction” to get the public to ignore what’s been dubbed “the Super Bowl massacre.” One of the ads CBS aired to the huddled fans was a “ghoulish” campaign plug for RFK Jr., which remakes a 1960 commercial for his uncle, John F. Kennedy. Joan Walsh dubbed it a “political defilement and derangement” of all his Democratic family’s traditions.

Onward toward the weekend, and what we hope is a better week ahead.

Alana Pockros

Engagement Editor, The Nation