I hate to say I told you so, but ... I told you so.

Joe Biden and his team have tried fending off calls to withdraw from the race without making it personal -- until today. After Barack Obama began pushing for Biden to get out through the pages of the Washington Post, the gloves came off. Scranton Joe has turned into Snarling Joe and is blaming the entire Democrat establishment for getting Donald Trump elected in the first place (via RedState):

“Can we all just remember for a minute that these same people who are trying to push Joe Biden out are the same people who literally gave us all Donald Trump? In 2015, Obama, Pelosi, Schumer pushed Biden aside in favor of Hillary; they were wrong then, and they are wrong now,” the source told NBC News.

The source pointed to polling in the 2016 election that found Hillary Clinton leading by as much as 9 points. 

“How did all this work out for everyone in 2016? Perhaps we should learn a few lessons from 2016; one of them is polls are BS, just ask Sec. Clinton. And two, maybe, just maybe, Joe Biden is more in touch with actual Americans than Obama-Pelosi-Schumer?” the source added.

Yikes. 

Earlier today, I predicted that Obama's intervention would backfire. Rather than sending you to the earlier post, here's the argument:

On the other hand, it could backfire. Rumors abound about resentment among the Bidens over Obama's role in keeping Biden out of the 2016 election, keeping Biden out of an election he believes he could have won over Trump in that cycle. Then, as now, Obama convinced Biden that only Hillary Clinton could beat Trump, which turned out to be ... a bad call. There were frictions behind the scenes even before that, mainly due to personal style, but also over a frustration with Biden's endless capacity for gaffery. 

In other words, Obama may not be the best choice for a long walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, Howard Baker-style, to tell the president it's time to go. In fact, an Obama intervention would likely backfire, which may be why Obama and/or his allies are leaking this to the Washington Post rather than talk directly to Biden about it. 

I hate to say I told you so, but ... naah, I love to say I told you so. 

And now it appears that Biden has dug in even further. The whisper campaign had reached a shriek earlier, with Democrats telling any political reporters they could find that they were certain the president was wavering (as long as the reporters didn't use their names). Maybe Biden was, or maybe he wasn't, but clearly someone over at Team Biden got the go-ahead to nuke Schumer, Pelosi, and Obama in another anonymous statement, this time to NBC's senior political correspondent Mark Memoli. 

No one would dare send out a message like that without approval from the top of the campaign. And they wouldn't torch their putative allies like this if they were negotiating some kind of golden-parachute deal to withdraw that kept Biden Inc in business either. This puts Biden at war with his party's establishment and almost certainly fuses him to the radical-progressive Left, the Bernie Sanders/AOC wing that defended Biden and his nomination earlier in the week.

And that will likely remain the case going into the convention in Chicago in a few weeks. Having Biden at war with Schumer, Pelosi, and Obama certainly will set an interesting tone for their big answer to the unity on display among Republicans this week, no?

So what does the Democrat establishment do now? If Biden won't leave, then they either have to suck up and rally around him, or they have to conduct a parliamentary coup at the convention in three weeks to reopen the nomination and to invalidate 50 state primary elections and caucuses. If they try it, the Sanders/AOC wing will have an absolute and lasting conniption fit right in the middle of their big pitch to represent democracy and responsible governance. 

As I've written all day, their only real play is to drop the effort to dump Biden and focus all their efforts and fundraising down-ballot. But at least one big-ticket donor wants Door Number Two. Mark Pincus writes at the Free Press that Biden's a bigger risk now than Donald Trump and that only an open convention can produce a worthwhile nominee:

Biden, in his current state, cannot beat Trump. Everyone knows this. Which is why, in the past few days, Schumer, Pelosi, and now Obama have called for Biden to step aside.

So what comes next? 

There are those who suggest that the ticket should automatically go to Kamala Harris. I strongly disagree.

Only one strategy has a chance for the party and the country: an open convention. There’s nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Nothing to lose? In an attempt to wrest the nomination from the candidate that won 87% of the popular vote and 99% of the delegates? Has Pincus ever met the radical Left? 

On the other hand, a tractor trailer just arrived at my door with a shipping container of popcorn, so ... let's do this, people!