Mr. Biden Goes To Washington (And The White House Press Room)
It is hard to believe that President Biden abandoned his race for a second term more than two and a half months ago.
As we noted last week, the 46th president is having the time of his life. He takes extraordinarily long vacations on Delaware beaches (a constituency far more supportive of him than the various Brutuses back home) and rubs shoulders with world leaders.
Julius Caesar had one Brutus. Biden had so many that it is hard to keep track: the master puppeteer Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Adam Schiff, and the most significant beneficiary of the coup that they all plotted, Vice President Kamala Harris.
The public memory of our presidents has a strange way of becoming fonder and more nostalgic as years pass. So enormous is our respect for them after they leave the Oval Office that President Carter's family sought to bring the fragile old man, who had just turned 100 and looked almost passed out, in front of the cameras. In an ode to the Harris campaign, they let it be known that Carter supports Harris for President. In razor-tight Georgia, every vote counts.
The strange thing is that Biden is still very much in the White House. Unless his health deteriorates markedly and the cabal that threw him out of the race forces the 25th Amendment on him, Biden will remain president for 108 days more, in whatever capacity he chooses.
Ever since campaigning for a third time for president in 2020, Biden- already 78 at the time and using the raging pandemic as an excuse- has mastered the art of delegating everything that a Chief Executive does, and never demanding accountability when things go wrong.
The world is literally on fire now, with Ukraine losing its eastern strongholds to a barrage of attacks from Russia. But it doesn't matter. Biden dutifully listens to the worst foreign policy team - Blinken and Sullivan - and signs off on everything they ask for.
Blinken is such an incompetent leader of the State Department that he penned an article that appeared in Foreign Affairs magazine on October 1 praising American leadership around the world. It appeared the same day that Iran fired over 200 missiles into Israel in a novel attack that was only threatened until then. It brought to memory another article by Jake Sullivan, the National Security Adviser, who wrote last October that the Middle East was relatively peaceful. Exactly seven days later, Hamas attacked Israel.
So, why was Biden back in Washington, and why did he make time to go to the press briefing room, a place he rarely visits? He wanted to boast. He is the only president in American history who can claim credit for whatever good happens, but indirectly point the finger at Harris for anything that goes wrong.
To his credit, Biden doesn't accuse Harris of weak performance. Instead, he reminds everyone that she was with him at the table every step of the way—for the good and bad. Harris's position is precarious. If she talks fondly about Biden's policy successes, she will legitimately get pummelled for his failures. So Harris does what she does best: avoid reporters, press conferences, and hard-hitting interviews altogether.
On Friday, Biden was crowing about how the port strike ended quickly (some say because of Mayor Pete) - and how the jobs report showing 245,000 new jobs was an indicator that his economic policies are working. We are not very sure how accurate this report is given that the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued a correction earlier this summer saying that they had overcounted 845,000 jobs. With the election just 32 days away, there was good news on another front. The Federal Reserve would probably not abandon their promised rate cut - by 25 basis points, perhaps even 50.
Speaking of the election 32 days away, where was Kamala Harris in Biden's spotlight-stealing act? She was out campaigning in Michigan after spending the previous day in Wisconsin peddling Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney, the latest RINO converts to her movement, as political superstars.
Two things happened at the Harris campaign event. First, the Teleprompter froze, and our vice president, who needs the Teleprompter as badly as a critically ill patient needed oxygen, froze as well.
"Remember his number 32 today? We got 32 days until the election."
[Teleprompter stops]. [A pregnant and uncomfortable pause for six long seconds].
"So 32 days… 32 days… Okay. We got some business to do. We got some business to do… All right. 32 days… and we know we will do it, and, and this is gonna be a very tight race until the very end."
"This is gonna be a very tight race until the very end. We are the underdog and we know we have some hard work ahead."
After Biden began to speak at the White House, network cameras cut away from covering Harris. When a president speaks, it is still far more newsworthy than covering a teleprompter reader.
It was a poignant reminder of how uncomfortably close America is to potentially crowning an inauthentic person as the 47th president. The sense must have been palpable even among liberal journalists back in that small White House press briefing room.
According to the New York Times, a reporter, with his voice rising above questions about Ukraine and other weighty topics, asked Biden, "Do you want to reconsider dropping out of the race?"
The president paused, then turned around and declared, "I'm back in!" before cracking a smile and waving his hand as if to say, "I wish." But as he walked out of the briefing room on Friday, it seemed he could not resist having some fun.