Good old Joe
I try not to watch Biden much, although I certainly follow what he does. During the campaign, I never shared the attitude of so many people that he is somehow a victim being exploited by wife or party. For one thing, although he is clearly in some degree in cognitive decline, he’s not so far gone that he lacks all agency or judgment. He is a willing – nay, eager – participant in the process that has led him to become president.
Furthermore, it’s what he’s always wanted. He’s tried time and again, and failed till now, but this is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream and goal. He’s never been especially intelligent or distinguished himself much in any way except for his willingness to do what’s necessary to be elected and his propensity for plagiarism and lying. Those traits are all still strongly in evidence.
It’s instructive to look back at this interview he gave back in 1974, over forty-five years ago. He was only 31 years old but already a senator, and had recently lost his wife and one child in a horrendous car accident. Here are a few quotes:
He defines politics as power. “And, whether you like it or not, young lady,” he says, leaning over his desk to shake a finger at me, “us cruddy politicians can take away that First Amendrnent of yours if we want to.”
Mull that one over. And this:
Senator Biden’s friends say he is looking for more than a wife and mother. “He also needs to find a First Lady,” says one, “a woman who enjoys politics and will help him get to the White House.”
And then there’s this:
He feels the indignity is compounded by the temptation to sell out to big business or big labor for financial help, and says it’s almost impossible for a candidate to remain true to his conscience in this situation. He admits that more than once he was tempted to compromise to get campaign money. “I probably would have if it hadn’t been for the ramrod character of my Scotch Presbyterian wife,” he say’s. “I am not a rich man. And my family does not have money. If I sold every thing I own, including my house and cars, I could probably’ scratch up S200,000, but that’s nothing compared to most of the guys in the Senate.”
Plus:
His sister Valerie says…“Joey is going to be President someday. He was made to be in the White House. There is no one else who can lead the country. Just you wait and see.”…
A wire service reporter sizes up Biden’s chances as “better than 60-40.” He added, Can you imagine what they’ll be when he’s old enough to run and people know who he is?”
I bet no one reading that back in 1974 could quite imagine Biden’s actual trajectory, and what condition he and the country would be in when he was finally “old enough to run.”
As for his “press conference” yesterday, I’ll just refer you to the following articles: this from Scott Johnson at Powerline, and this from Michael Goodwin at the NY Post. From the latter:
This was Biden’s coming out party, and the nation faces a mess that will only grow worse with time. The man who campaigned on unity is hell-bent on permanent polarization, meaning cancel culture and the supercharged racial climate are here to stay.
Biden gave license to the worst instincts on the left with his repeated sneering references to all Republicans and especially Donald Trump. At one point, he actually accused Trump of letting immigrant children “starve to death on the other side” of the Mexican border.
He said it in a room full of 30 supposed journalists and not a single one challenged him or even asked whether he meant it literally. In fact, not a single one challenged him on any of his falsehoods.
Nor did anyone ask him why he read from prepared talking points during answers to three questions on foreign policy. No recent president has felt the need to do that.
There also were moments when he talked himself into dead ends, yet there were no questions about when he would release the health reports he’s been hiding.
Regarding his agenda, a report that Biden sees himself as the new FDR gives credence to the idea that he’s all in for every big, crazy idea left-wing Dems can cook up.
Each piece of his party’s planned utopia is unprecedentedly radical in its own way, but not nearly radical enough for the media. Their performance was pathetic not just in what questions they asked and didn’t ask, but how they asked them. The dominant theme was that Biden and his team are not moving fast enough to turn America upside down and inside out.
Of course, FDR actually had a mandate. Not so for good old Joe. But he won’t let that stop him if he can possibly swing it.
Much more at the link.
Much of what Goodwin writes about Biden was already true, though, when Biden was Obama’s VP and his cognitive faculties were as intact as ever. Back then he was fully cooperative with Obama’s program, and the press covered for him (and Obama, of course).
Biden’s debate in 2008 against Sarah Palin featured a great many lies and errors, and not little ones either, but almost all in the press utterly failed to call him on any of it and lauded his performance.
The NY Post was one of the few back in 2008 willing to say what was going on:
For all the focus on Sarah Palin’s graceful performance in Thursday’s vice presidential showdown, a more significant spectacle was taking place behind the other rostrum.
That’s where Joe Biden, speaking with the pompous self-importance befitting his 36 years in the Senate, told one baffling fib after another.
The article then goes on to list a lot of big lies Biden told.
So what’s happening now is only a change in the degree to which Biden is cognitively impaired, the degree to which the Democratic Party has been emboldened to move to the far left, and also the degree to which they are willing to do anything to hold onto power indefinitely. Joe Biden is actually the perfect tool for that, or at least not an imperfect tool. He has a long history of being “affable old Joe” and people not paying attention – and a lot of people aren’t paying attention – can be lulled into a false sense of security by that. He will do what is necessary without any hesitation. And he can easily be removed and replaced with Harris if and when it’s decided that would be most expedient.
For those of you who are stunned that a man this mediocre, mendacious, and debilitated is actually president, my response is that he’s the perfect symbol of the decline that America and even the Western world has experienced during the last couple of decades.
“For those of you who are stunned that a man this mediocre, mendacious, and debilitated is actually president, my response is that he’s the perfect symbol of the decline that America and even the Western world has experienced during the last couple of decades.”
And as though we needed any more evidence of the wretched decline, we have Dr. Levine voted in (by 52 people in the Senate) to serve in the Department of Health and Human Services. A person who while in a position of authority pulled his own mother from a nursing home just after ordering long-term care facilities in the state of Pennsylvania to continue to accept coronavirus patients who had been discharged from hospitals but unable to return to their homes. In what world would such a person be deemed fit for any position of public authority? Our present world, right now.
Sharon W,
That’s 52 people scared to death about being called transphobic.
One wonders where the trans lobby gets it’s power (not ultimately of course).
Twitchy reported on a very amusing spat conducted via social media between the odious J Rubin of WaPo and the equally loathsome Y Alcindor of PBS. Each was trying to outdo the other in fawning subservience to the mendacious mediocrity residing at 1600, and both demonstrated, beyond any doubt whatsoever, that the MSM have no more interest in reporting the truth than the Pyongyang Times of the DPRK.
j e I would say even less interest. As others have pointed out Pravda at least had an excuse, they were under duress.
@Sharon W:by 52 people in the Senate
50 Dems plus 2 of the reliable “mavericks” who mysteriously appear only in one party.
For the upcoming gun control legislation a few more “mavericks” will be needed; gotta save the filibuster so the minority party can bring its pork home.
Yes, we are F’d. No doubt about it. And things will get worse, much worse.
It is still baffling to me why there are so many people who refuse to acknowledge Biden’s decline. I understand that he had to be supported to get rid of Trump, but Trump is gone now. Yes, Biden managed to make it through the “press conference” but there were a couple of moments where you know his handlers were holding their breaths. Sure it would be a bit awkward to replace him now but he seems like a ticking time bomb. I certainly wouldn’t want to be in charge of babysitting Biden for four more years.
@Gregory Harper: “It is still baffling to me why there are so many people who refuse to acknowledge Biden’s decline.”
Don’t you mean Biden’s stutter?
Seriously, though, my Democratic friends aren’t talking except to say that they’re breathing easier now that they don’t have to worry 24/7 about what Trump will do next. In other words, they still can’t quit The Donald.
As for what they think of President Potemkin and his regime — crickets. It would be a good sign if they were keeping their mouths shut from pure embarrassment, but I think they’re simply immersed in a warm bath of confirmation bias and bad faith.
Jordan Peterson on a podcast with Douglass Murray was saying that the Dems continued obsession with Trump only makes his support stronger.
At least ‘Down Under’ they report Biden’s decline. However, with my friends and family in the USA, ‘crickets’.
My question is; What happen to Biden’s blue eyes and why are they so dark? Does anyone have any ideas?
MollyG:
I go back and forth on whether people know Biden is losing it but just don’t acknowledge it because it would hurt their cause or if they actually believe that he is just an empathetic guy who makes the occasional endearing gaffe. I think I’d feel better believing the former because if there are a lot of people who look at Biden and think there is nothing wrong, we are in bigger trouble than I thought.
I’ve always considered Joe Biden to be a fit companion for Barack Obama. I’ve also little doubt that each has a particularly insightful understanding of the other’s true nature. I’d be surprised if, strictly on a professional level, they didn’t have some admiration for each other. Both equally unqualified, unprincipled and willing to do anything to sit in the oval office. Two more polar opposites of Washington and Jefferson would be impossible to find.
“….it’s what he’s always wanted. He’s tried time and again, and failed till now, ….”
He’s still failing; without the massive, and obvious, corruption and fraud committed in the November 3 election Biden would still be in his Delaware basement, not the White House.
I’d be surprised if, strictly on a professional level, they didn’t have some admiration for each other.
Geoffrey Britain:
Obama seems such an egomaniac I’m not sure he admires much of anyone. However, there is enough scuttlebutt that Obama had no respect for Biden. It’s hard to see Obama would have respected an old white male kinda-dim political hack
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Yet searing, anonymously sourced quotes from Obama kept appearing through the race. One Democrat who spoke to Obama recalled the former president warning, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f–k things up.” Speaking of his own waning understanding of today’s Democratic electorate, especially in Iowa, Obama told one 2020 candidate: “And you know who really doesn’t have it? Joe Biden.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/14/obama-biden-relationship-393570
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That’s not the only damaging quote. Plus Obama never encouraged Biden to run.
Biden’s successful candidacy wasn’t part of a well-oiled plan, but something cobbled together after Kamala Harris did so poorly in the primaries that it looked like Bernie Sanders would win.
JHCorcoran:
You ask a very good question, “What happen[ed] to Biden’s blue eyes and why are they so dark?”
They are so dark because of widely dilated pupils. The blue irises disappear.
Amphetamines can cause that. Hydoxyamphetamine eye drops exist for the purpose of dilating the pupils.
It is entirely reasonable to suspect we have a geezer as POTUS who is being fed amphetamines to stimulate him for the rare public occasion, to goose him out of his dottering somnolent chronic state.
Why is he potus? Because the blacks in the SC primary gave him a leg up. And because of vote fraud, which is soon to be institutionalized.
Huxley “It’s hard to see Obama would have respected an old white male kinda-dim political hack.”
I agree. I have long assumed that narcissist Obama felt similar about Biden as he seemed to about his grandparents. They were all semi-useful, burdensome, old racists.