On June 4, the Wall Street Journal published a story headlined, “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping.” Based on interviews with 45 people, the article reported that associates described President Joe Biden as showing signs of age, “a president who appears slower now, someone who has both good moments and bad ones.”

The Journal described a January White House meeting with congressional leaders on Ukraine policy in which Biden “spoke so softly at times that some participants struggled to hear him, according to five people familiar with the meeting. He read from notes to make obvious points, paused for extended periods and sometimes closed his eyes for so long that some in the room wondered whether he had tuned out.” The next month, meeting with Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Journal said, “Johnson worried that the president’s memory had slipped about the details of his own policy.”

White House and Democratic pushback was furious. Biden is as sharp as ever, Democrats said. The article was a hit piece based on Republicans who were playing partisan politics. Among those pushing back was Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, who had talked with the Journal for the story but was not quoted in the published piece.

“Surprise, surprise,” Murray posted on X after the story came out. “Everyone attacking POTUS is a Republican with an agenda. I made clear to the Wall Street Journal regarding the January meeting on Ukraine that the president was absolutely engaged and ran that meeting in a way that brought everyone together. I’m not quoted — I wonder why.”

Murray’s answer to her own question was obvious — she was accusing the Journal of publishing a partisan hit piece suggesting Biden is not up to the job when she, Murray, had told reporters Biden is as good as ever. Later, the Journal would describe it this way: “Murray told the Journal in April that she hadn’t seen a change in Biden’s acuity during her years of working with him. ‘He engages in a very personal way, asking questions,’ Murray said. ‘He is listening and absorbing.’”

That was Murray then. Now, after the disastrous June 27 debate exposed Biden’s infirmities for the world to see, Murray is singing a different tune. On Monday, a concerned-sounding Murray released a statement that began, “More than a week since the debate, and after talking with my constituents, I believe President Biden must do more to demonstrate he can campaign strong enough to beat Donald Trump. … We need to see a much more forceful and energetic candidate on the campaign trail in the very near future in order for him to convince voters he is up to the job. At this critical time for our country, President Biden must seriously consider the best way to preserve his incredible legacy and secure it for the future.”

It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to see that Murray is ready to show Biden the door — just weeks after she mocked the Wall Street Journal for even suggesting Biden can’t handle the job.

The Murray episode shows how Democrats enabled Biden, even as the president became less and less able to hide his infirmities. When the Journal collected firsthand observations of the president displaying cognitive deficiencies, Murray mocked the paper and denied that there was any problem. In this, she was assisted by the journalists — not at the Wall Street Journal — who assisted the president’s enablers in keeping his problems out of the public discussion, even when those problems were in clear public view.

Even after the president’s extended zone-out at the White House Juneteenth concert on June 10, some journalists passed along the White House story that it was all a “cheap fake” cooked up by partisan Republicans. Murray was on board for all that.

Then came the debate, and Murray’s voters could see for themselves what bad shape the president was in. Remember that in her statement she predicated her new position on “talking with my constituents.” The debate, visible for all to see, made it impossible for Murray to play down Biden’s condition any longer.

Now multiply that many times over to include the other Democratic lawmakers, White House and administration officials, compliant reporters, and Democratic politicos in Washington who had plenty of reason to know the president is not up to the job. They’re the ones who enabled Biden and the ones who brought presidential politics to its current impasse.

This content originally appeared on the Washington Examiner at washingtonexaminer.com/daily-memo/3074411/who-enabled-biden-a-case-study/.