To hear that Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has metastasized to the bone feels like a physical manifestation of the poison currently swirling around him. In recent weeks a book has appeared—one I have not read and have no intention of reading-- by CNN’s Jake Tapper and something called Alex Thompson (more on this designation to come) claiming that there was a conspiracy by Biden’s staff to hide his deteriorating physical and mental condition from the public. This has been the occasion for various Democratic “insiders,” the preferred journalistic term for people eager to confirm gossip, to claim that Biden’s hubris in running led directly to Donald Trump’s reelection. Beto O’Rourke has expressed that view without resorting to anonymity.
What’s happening here is among other things a matter of careers. Jake Tapper is lead anchor at CNN but there’s not much security, or chance of being regarded a heavy hitter, in a time when legacy media is rapidly losing ground to internet news sources. For Beto O’Rourke and all the other Democratic “insiders” doing their best imitation of the vultures that show up after the opening massacre in The Wild Bunch, there’s 2028 to think of and positioning themselves as the bold, new, young—stop me anytime—leadership the Democratic party needs. For Bernie Sanders, who I recently considered liking but who saved me from that by agreeing with a questioner that the Democratic party was a threat to democracy, there is the usual narcissistic bullshit of a sputtering old fool who has connived at winning the nomination of a party he can’t be bothered to join and consequently attempts to undermine at every turn.
I want to be deadly clear about what I think is going on here: at a time when America has become a virtual police state, Tapper, Thompson, O’Rourke and the rest have done their level best to offer aid and comfort to the enemy by confirming Trump’s view of Joe Biden as a malevolently incompetent man who brought disaster upon America. I won’t deny that Biden’s public appearances towards the end of this term showed a man of diminishing energy and concentration. But what no one proclaiming Biden’s diminishment has been able to answer, has not even addressed, is how a man so diminished was able to accomplish what Biden did. I have quoted the following, from the writer Steve Erickson and written in 2022,
in another piece and I repeat it here:
“Obviously he’s hopeless--old, addled, incompetent. In a whole 18 months, with overwhelming Democratic majorities of nine in the House & one in the Senate, he’s only managed to reduce the deficit by a record $380b, pass the American Rescue Plan, oversee the administration of half a billion Covid-19 vaccinations, oversee passage of the greatest infrastructure program since the Eisenhower Administration, oversee the greatest & fastest economic recovery in history, oversee the lowest unemployment in half a century & add 9m jobs to the work force including the largest number of manufacturing jobs in three decades, oversee the lowest child-poverty rate ever, oversee a 5% GDP & the imposition of a minimum tax on all corporations, push thru passage of legislation effectuating lower prescription prices under Medicare, expand Obamacare to cover 5m more Americans, allocate nearly $400b to fight climate change, restore clean water protections, rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, initiate an eventual 30% rollback in emissions in more than 130 countries, advance a plan for zero emissions in half the cars on the road by the end of the decade, speed production of solar panels & transformers & heat pumps & EV batteries, sign a massive superconductor bill, implement a gun safety bill, restore the Violence Against Women Act, extend veterans’ healthcare, nominate & win confirmation of an historic number of judges including the first African American woman to the Supreme Court, allocate $30b in support of Ukraine against Russian invasion, kill al-Qaeda's leading terrorist, & reverse a host of malignant executive orders signed by his predecessor. And sure, some of this sounds OK, but what about ending world hunger & curing the common cold & altering the trajectories of intergalactic comets? For God’s sake let’s dump this under-achieving codger in 2024 for a real progressive who will get something done.”
Is it the contention of those who claim Biden was nothing more than a near-senile puppet that all the above, which amounts to only half of his term, was the work of hidden puppeteers? Apparently, yes, since the current measure of whether a man is qualified to be leader of the free world is his ability to recognize George Clooney.
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