Two days ago, Joe Biden did an interview on ABC’s “This Week…” that produced an indecipherable utterance that makes “Blazing Saddles'” Gabby Johnson seem like Winston Churchill. Tanned and rested, which no travel during the week to exhaust him and having not appeared on TV for several days, Joe offered America this bit of wisdom:
“We cannot let this, we’ve never allowed any crisis from the Civil War straight through to the pandemic of 17, all the way around, 16, we have never, never let our democracy sakes second fiddle, way they, we can both have a democracy and … correct the public health.”
You know, his words reminded me of an episode when I was the editorial page editor of my high school’s weekly newspaper. The submissions from my “staff” were particularly terrible one week, and no amount of re-writing by me could produce enough quality opinion to fill the page. I decided to take one particularly incomprehensible screed, cut out each line of text, pull them randomly out of a hat, paste them in their new sequence, then punctuate the mess and capitalize letters so it appeared to be an article. I published the result under the headline, “Discrimination in Portugal” without a byline.
Nobody noticed. One student told me that she found the editorial “Thought-provoking.” This has bothered me ever since.
The issue with Joe’s latest “Discrimination in Portugal” impression isn’t that he’s not all there and vanishing before our eyes, for that’s been pre-ordained and obvious for months. A while back I designated Biden’s diminished mental capacity and examples thereof as a Julie Principle phenomenon: it wasn’t going to go away, and either you accept this while choosing to concentrate on Joe’s virtues, or you reject it and Joe as unacceptable in a Presidential candidate, much less in a President. In either case, you stop reacting to each new example as if you’ve seen a ghost. This is Joe 2020,The Julie Principle says. Stop bitching about it.
The Julie Principle, however, requires that the known flaw doesn’t turn into something worse and materially different. In the example I’ve used before, my father’s closest childhood friend was a sociopath, and my Dad remained his loyal friend for 60 years nonetheless. However, his friend’s sociopathy was consistent and predictable the whole time. (My father opined that Bud’s widow didn’t seem all that shocked when a second, contemporaneous wife and family from Australia showed up at his funeral.) If his old friend had suddenly taken a turn to treason or serial killing, my father would have had to act. That would be a material change, and the Julie Principle would no longer apply.
Thus the issue now is whether the Democratic Party, the mainstream news media, the Biden family, and even the members of the public who are determined to vote for whomever or whatever is the candidate opposing President Trump in November will acknowledge that Biden’s latest deterioration moves him out of the “periodic brain cramp” category and into “get a bed ready at the home” territory. No mainstream media that I could find mentioned Biden’s commentary on Portugese discrimination yesterday: Is this really something the public, most of which doesn’t watch George Stephanopoulos ( What? WordPress wants me to change his name to “Souphanouvong”?), doesn’t have a right to know? Isn’t democracy at risk of “dying in darkness” if a babbling basket case is elected President of the United States?
Ethics Alarms 
Biden makes the talented Gabby Johnson seem Churchillian the same way he makes AOC appear positively Mensan.
Buenos dias, Pablo. AOC, IMHO, couldn’t appear Mensan in comparison to a turtle. But then, neither could Joe. And I mean no insult to turtles.
“Buenos dias, Pablo.”
No appropriate Spanish translation for BACK ATCHA…entonces, ¡Lo Mismo!
“And I mean no insult to turtles.”
Whew! I collect carved turtles, which I find fascinating. I also “save” them during egg laying season; which is fast approaching.
There exist some despicable people that actually try to run them over, so I ferry them across roadways in the direction they’re headed; smaller snapping turtles (after a “too close for comfort” experience, I’ll never try to transport the larger ones!) fight me every step of the gosh darn way.
We live near a series of ponds/marshes which affords me many opportunities to indulge this activity.
Paul W Schlect, a major digression regarding turtles:
Have you read The Grapes of Wrath?
If you have, you probably know why I ask.
-Jut
”Have you read The Grapes of Wrath?”
I have, but don’t get the “digression.”
There was an odd chapter, I think it was Chapter 2, which described the journey of a turtle crossing the road. I think it had some kind of seed stuck in its shell. It was nearly to the other side when a truck came by. I think the truck swerved to hit the turtle and sent it spinning on its journey to the other side of the road where the seed fell out of its shell as the turtle kept walking on its way.
Have not read that book in more than 30 years, but that chapter, and the ending (Steinbeck’s endings are always beautifully sad), are the two things that stick out in my mind.
-Jut
I tried reading “Grapes of Wrath” but couldn’t. Unreadable sop. But that’s just me.
William Saroyan agreed with you.
Just stretching around an unlit corner, but being friends with another author might have been a personal reason Saroyan didn’t like that novel: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/forgotten-dust-bowl-novel-rivaled-grapes-wrath-180959196/
I didn’t know that part of the story! I did know that Saroyan was jealous of Steinbeck.
Point 1 that I deliberately left out of the article: If I posted this articale on Facebook, a retired journalist friend would immediately reply: “What about Trump’s crazy statements?” This is 100% certain.
Point 2 is that this has joined so many other things that have boomeranged on progressives, the news media and Democrats of late. Cities are reversing their bans on plastic shopping bags. Journalists sided with China against Trump in his tariff battles. Open borders now looks certifiably mad. Those attacking the President as an autocrat and nascent dictator are now clamoring for more stringent restrictions on civil rights. Now the bogus 25th Amendment theory for removing the President without an election has genuine relevance to Trump’s presumptive opposition.
Maybe they WANT a babbling basket case to be elected so that they can have a Woodrow Wilson situation where there is a president in name, but he is powerless and all the decisions are made by either a Vice President who wouldn’t be electable in her own right (since Joe has said he will only consider a woman as VP), or a cabal of unelected close advisers. It would be a hard-to-challenge way to get Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris or Hillary in there without her having to run on her own merits – or to draft Cuomo (although that would be breaking the women only pledge).
The fact is that the Democrats have painted themselves into a corner in this election. Their slate was never that great to begin with. It really boiled down to a lying academic who thought she knew best (Warren), a socialist loon (Sanders), a party-changing mayor who thought he could buy his way in (Bloomberg), and a former VP who might have been up to the job once, but has passed his sell-by date. The rest had no serious chance, and in some cases no chance at all (elect a mayor of a small city who’s having a tough enough time there?). Well, Warren couldn’t get traction when it came to be time to vote, and Bloomberg failed spectacularly. It’s down to Sanders and Biden, and there are seven months to go before the election. It will probably be July before this pandemic starts to abate to the point where we stand down from crisis mode. It’s pretty obvious that Biden is soon going to get to the point where he will have enough delegates to mathematically push Sanders out, which isn’t so much a ringing endorsement of Biden as an acknowledgement that Sanders is not electable. There aren’t any other choices unless the DNC powers that be want to have a “smoke-filled” room situation in August, not much more than 100 days away from the election.
This situation isn’t even analogous to the GOP slate last time out, where there were multiple governors who were up to the job and a few senators who probably would have been too. These otherwise viable candidates just found themselves confounded by one bullying outsider with a big personality and a bigger mouth. If anything, it’s proof that the Democratic slate the last time out WASN’T just a deliberately weak one to give Hillary a few token opponents she could just sleepwalk past to the nomination. It really was the best the party had to offer. I’m sorry, but senators who don’t bring much to the table except anger, classism, and promises they know damn well they won’t be able to keep and governors of reliably blue states where the taxes just keep going up (and up), the middle class just keeps disappearing, and the cities just get less and less governable, are not going to sell nationally this time out.
Clinton sold because the nation was mad at Bush the elder for going back on his promise of no new taxes and the economy had tanked. “It’s the economy, stupid,” was a good sell to people who wanted money back in their pockets. Obama sold partly because he was a blank slate who made great speeches, partly because the nation was mad at Bush the younger (more fairly) for going into Iraq and having it turn into a mess, and (less fairly) for his perceived poor response to Katrina. Even so, McCain was running pretty close to him until the economy cratered, which sealed the election for the Dems. The economy now, even with the current crisis, is running higher than it was at Obama’s best times. There’s no perception as yet that the current crisis has abated, so the Democratic party can’t pitch a message of a return to normal times. There’s also not (at least not as yet) a general perception that the current administration has had its chance with this crisis and messed it up, so it’s time to give the Dems their turn.
To oust a sitting president you need the right combination of an extremely charismatic candidate (who’s also adept at being a bullshit artist, which Clinton was), a not as likable incumbent, maybe prone to gaffes (Bush the elder was a technocrat on the best days, and clearly disinterested during the campaign, i.e. the watch check moment), and some big mistake or failure to drag the incumbent down (the faltering economy, which he didn’t know what to do with). Biden is not charismatic, and his bullshit artist skills are fading. Trump isn’t that likable, but he has energy and he is clearly in the moment. Biden has no energy and he is lucky if he is in the hour. The stars just aren’t lining up for him.
I agree wholeheartedly, Steve. I think Joe Biden is simply a Trojan horse. Kamala Harris or the actual governor of Georgia will be made nominee with the plan that a few weeks after inauguration, Joe will be gleefully taken out by the Democrats pursuant to the 25th Amendment and all will be right with the world. The next Barack Obama will be in the not so horrifically White House.
I will say that I read “way they” as “way that”, and I dislike the ellipsis hides “and elections, and at the same time”.
I still consider it mostly gibberish though.
This Authentic Frontier Gibberish (AFG) is signature significant even taken in context to the rest of what he was saying. Below is the entire video of the softball the interview. The interview sounded quite scripted as if they had given Biden these questions ahead of time so Biden could get his sound bites in but as soon as he goes off what he’s prepared he goes all AFG. Reporters should take really press Biden’s lack of cognitive thinking skills when he goes off his prepared statements, he won’t have prepared scripts if he makes it into the White House.
Here’s the interview…
https://abc.com/shows/this-week-with-george-stephanopoulos/episode-guide/2020-04/05-sunday-apr5-2020
Biden reminded me of Jeff Dunham’s dummy Walter in that interview, he was damn near devoid of life above and below the mouth but he did throw in a few random hand movements every once in a while.
Lack of facial expression and a look that reminded me of what I think of as the dementia squint was what made me first think something was off with Biden. Alzheimer’s patients almost uniformly over time develop a look around the eyes, it looks as if they are avoiding bright light, or are slightly aggravated. It becomes their fixed expression. His facial expressions, his facial muscles, seem to be becoming stiffer.
What would be the procedure should Biden be unable to continue, this far into the primaries?
They’re obviously all-in with Uncle Joe. Tom Friedman’s “What America Needs Next: A Biden National Unity Cabinet” is the funniest thing that I’ve read in weeks (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/opinion/biden-campaign-covid.html). Just what this great nation needs – an authentic frontier gibberish candidate. And Tommy Boy’s cabinet recommendations (WARNING: Put down your coffee cup)
“For vice president, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala or Gov. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island; for Treasury secretary, Mike Bloomberg; health and human services secretary, Bill Gates; secretary of oversight for the trillions of dollars in emergency coronavirus spending, to make sure it’s done fairly and productively, Elizabeth Warren.
Attorney general, Merrick Garland; homeland security secretary, Andrew Cuomo; secretary of state, Mitt Romney; defense secretary, Michèle Flournoy; labor secretary, Ro Khanna (who co-chaired Sanders’s campaign).
Secretary of national infrastructure rebuild, a new cabinet post, Walmart C.E.O. Doug McMillon; commerce secretary, former American Express C.E.O. Ken Chenault; O.M.B. director, Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio; education secretary, Laurene Powell Jobs; U.N. ambassador, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
HUD secretary, Ford Foundation chief Darren Walker; Interior secretary, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico; energy secretary, Andy Karsner (a green Republican who led renewable energy for George W. Bush); E.P.A. administrator, Al Gore.”
A TDSer’s wet dream. And a punchline for anyone with an IQ above room temperature.