The signals are unmistakable to all willing to see: Joe Biden is being written off by the power structure of the Democratic Party.  He's just too embarrassing to be able to win the presidency despite what the polls purportedly say about him beating Trump in a head-to-head match.  The decision has been reached, and the principal propaganda organ of the Democratic Party (as revealed by its executive editor Dean Baquet) delivered the decisive blow in this article, titled "Obama and Biden's Relationship Looks Rosy. It Wasn't Always That Simple."

Biden's sole appeal to the national electorate is his presumed status as the logical successor to Barack Obama.  The New York Times article begins the process of demolishing that logic.

The body language in this 2015 Oval Office photo is clear.
(Photo credit:  White House photographer Pete Souza).

The first paragraphs make clear that Obama's choice of Biden had little to do with his merit as a potential successor to the Oval Office:

Barack Obama was riding his call for generational change to the Democratic presidential nomination in the spring of 2008 when he began musing about potential running mates with aides traveling with him on the trail.

"I want somebody with gray in his hair," Mr. Obama, then 46, told one of them. He was thinking about an "older guy," he told another.

That older guy, people around the candidate would soon learn, was Joseph R. Biden Jr., 65, a has-been to pundits but to Mr. Obama a sweet-spot pick — a policy heavyweight with limited political horizons, assuming that would ensure loyalty and minimal drama. Mr. Obama was already phoning Mr. Biden two or three times a week to solicit advice, and to decide whether the Delaware senator's many positive attributes outweighed his singular liability, a notoriously self-tangling tongue.

Over the next several months, Mr. Obama's top advisers would present 30 alternatives, all of whom he respectfully considered. (snip)

In Mr. Biden, he found a running mate who would conjure the comforting past and provide experience he did not possess, but would not maneuver for the presidency from the No. 2 slot.

Deep within the long article comes the coup de grâce:

The two men spoke at least a half dozen times before Mr. Biden decided to run, and Mr. Obama took pains to cast his doubts about the campaign in personal terms.

"You don't have to do this, Joe, you really don't," Mr. Obama told Mr. Biden earlier this year, according to a person familiar with the exchange.

It's not exactly a dead fish wrapped in a newspaper, but the message of publicizing this conversation at this point is clear: Biden's chances at the presidency sleep with the fishes.

Biden now has the choice of exiting the race the hard way or the easy way.  The easy way would be to announce that his concerns for his family take precedence over the call to duty, and that he is going to support whoever wins the nomination that he now is forsaking.  The hard way would be further investigations into the suspicious enrichment of his family coincident with his foreign policy duties with countries that acted as benefactors of his brood, all publicized in the corporate media followers of the New York Times' lead.  And don't forget the stream of embarrassing stories about his incompetence as veep and Obama's frustrations with him, hidden from the public earlier.  And feature stories about the lingering effect of brain aneurisms.

New Hampshire voters already have the message: as President Trump addressed a record crowd in New Hampshire, Biden's counter-rally there drew 30 souls.