NYT: Joe Manchin Would Like a Word. (OK, Maybe Several Words.)

[ok_cpu]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/us/politics/joe-manchin.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mU8.1Jf6.9005efkUSuED&smid=url-share

Hard to pick what to snip. Of course, he has a book.

Seeming to fulfill the adage that familiarity breeds contempt, Joe Manchin III, the former senator from West Virginia, has a lot of not-so-fond things to say about the Democratic Party in which he served as a stubborn centrist for more than four decades and then re-registered as an independent in May 2024.

In a lengthy interview last week aboard his boat, Almost Heaven, docked on Washington’s Wharf, Mr. Manchin, 78, said of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., “I just think he lost the will to fight” the progressives in his party.

He criticized Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader, as a partisan warrior bent on “retaliation against Republicans.”

He said that after Mr. Biden dropped out of the 2024 race following his disastrous debate performance against Donald J. Trump, he briefly considered running against Vice President Kamala Harris “as an independent Democrat” until it was evident the party was coalescing around her.

Trump is "the most engaging president [he'd] ever worked with," but he also doesn't like the way the family is "using the power of the office to enrich themselves.."

Is irony dead? And won't someone please make him feel important again?

[newdeal2]

1. Is he a lobbyist now?

If so he has to kiss the ring to get any work.

[MrWowWow]

2. Interesting How He is Still in DC

Why is this mofo still in DC?

[leftstreet]

3. Will we have to say nice things when he croaks?

[Crunchy Frog]

12. He's re-registered as an independent.

I think that means we don't have to say nice things now.

[Fiendish Thingy]

14. Yeah, he's not part of the Dem caucus anymore

So he should be fair game.

Fuck that guy.

[Silent Type]

4. I'm a minority here I guess. I wish Manchin were still in office rather than the GOPer.

[House of Roberts]

5. Go back to West Virginia

and bury yourself in a mine cave-in.

[Autumn]

6. I have no interest in what he has to say.

[Celerity]

7. 'he said he regretted succumbing to partisan pressure and voting for Mr. Trump's first impeachment in early 2020 and, a

year later, for Mr. Biden’s American Rescue Plan. Both legislative acts “never should have happened,” he said.'

[choie]

8. The most engaging president he's ever worked with.

Go back into your hole, you schmuck.

[Duncan Grant]

9. As they say in West Virginia, "He's as crooked as a dog's leg." (nt)

[walkingman]

10. Joe Manchin might claim to be a Democrat (or was one) but not my kind of Dem

I think he is everything wrong with the Democratic Party - he is a phony and no one in their right mind would want to read his book.

[Crunchy Frog]

11. I guess he's not a Democrat anymore

so we can say what we like about him. Nevertheless, I'll hold my tongue.

[Fiendish Thingy]

13. Fuck that guy. Nt

[malaise]

15. Ditto

I turned him off a few minutes ago - unbearable

[progressoid]

16. Double ditto