It’s not a big secret to anyone paying attention to the rapid deterioration of American discourse these days, but Joe Biden is a little slow.
Yes, Biden has trouble moving around in the physical sense, almost appearing as though the broken ankle he suffered while playing with his dogs at home last December is causing residual mobility issues. But the slowness involved with this particular day involves senile Joe’s tardiness in delivering his first statement to a joint session of Congress (scheduled for tonight), typically known in non-inauguration years as the State of the Union Address.
Hard to believe, but it’s been 99 days since the longtime swamp dweller former Obama vice president and senator from Delaware assumed residence at the White House. In that time, the fencing surrounding the U.S. Capitol building has shrunk some, but it still prevents visitors from getting too close; and many, many people remain at the home office under orders of the COVID-19 government health Apparatchik -- I mean authorities. All that, and the weather’s turned warm (not by climate change, but the normal shifting of the seasons).
This evening, senile Joe will climb into his comfortable fossil fuel powered presidential limousine and cruise up Pennsylvania Avenue to present his initial speech in the House chamber as president. Vice president Kamala Harris and Speaker Nancy Pelosi will watch from their seats behind him. But unlike every other year -- and certainly the moments when former President Donald Trump delivered his signature annual orations -- the audience won’t fill the seats and it will feel more like a lightly attended Democrat caucus meeting than a constitutionally mandated national TV news event.
Is the certain to be somber occasion just a sign of the times or a reflection of the nation’s mood? Naomi Lim reported at The Washington Examiner:
“Only 200-odd people will be in the House of Representatives chamber on Wednesday to hear Biden's first presidential report in person. Many Republicans have opted not to attend the event, scheduled during a congressional recess, and guests are not invited.
“The COVID-19 restrictions mean Biden will deliver his address to an even smaller audience as its viewership has dwindled year after year. They also make it more difficult for him to orchestrate traditional special guest moments as he seeks to build momentum behind his $2.25 trillion infrastructure package and coming ‘American Families Plan.’...
“Biden has been ‘deeply involved’ in drafting the address, according to the White House. Working with speechwriters and policy advisers, he is expected to tout what he will describe as his administration's achievements in passing the $1.9 trillion coronavirus-focused ‘American Rescue Plan,’ leading the economic recovery, and vaccinating almost 30% of the country's population.”
Sure, senile Joe vaccinated 30 percent of the country on his own. I doubt he could even find 30 percent of the country on a map.
As a Biden critic, I’m not privy to the back-and-forth over the formulation of the speech, but if senile Joe was indeed “deeply involved” in putting the sentences together, the text definitely must contain a ton of hyperbole, multiple spelling and grammatical errors and likely a number of plagiarized passages in addition to the standard Democrat exaggerated nonsense about the awfulness and backwardness of traditional American history and culture. Not even Biden’s old boss, known in this space as “The Big O”, could match Biden’s ability to stretch an otherwise meaningless piece of information into a paragraph taking a couple minutes to articulate.
One can only imagine the conception of the thing must’ve been arduous. Let’s give it a shot:
--Feeling quite perky this morning, President Joe summonsed his propaganda team for a speechwriting session to last until lunchtime. Outfitted in his bathrobe and comfortable furry slippers, Joe could still taste the toothpaste from the daily scrubbing of his chewers, and he wasn’t fond of the flavors that the White House maintenance staff selected for his consumption. ‘It tasted like spackle’, he thought, having actually sampled the pasty hole-filler once. Leaning over to spit a glob into his Oval Office trash can, the action failed to dispel the lingering unpleasantness.
Feeling eyes staring at him, Joe got down to business. Glancing at the text with oversized font, he couldn’t get past the second line.
“Who wrote this part?” Biden held up the paper and pointed to a sentence while complaining to the handlers present in the large but intimate space. “This actually says that the economy has remained strong under my leadership. This makes it sound like people were happy with the economics thing under Trump. Well, if they were so content with the way things were going back then, why did they vote for me ‘n Kamala? Change the wording to something like ‘America’s practically unalterable downward destructive economic slide was reversed by me in my first hundred days. Thanks to me, food is on tables. Pets have brand spankin’ new sleeping quarters. Grandmas and Grandpas can see their grandkids again -- but only if they’re wearing masks. It’s morning in America, gosh darn it.”
“Um, sir…” an aide objected, hating to interrupt when the big guy was on a roll. Besides, explaining something to the man usually took a half-hour and the old dunce never understood what you told him anyway. “We can’t say it’s ‘Morning in America,’ because that was Ronald Reagan’s theme for his presidency. That’s plagiarism of a conservative Republican. Uh-uh, Joe. Very bad.”
Turning his head slightly to try and determine who dared speak without being spoken to, Joe couldn’t quite make out where the voice came from. It didn’t matter. “So the heck what?” Biden barked earnestly. Ronald Reagan was president like a hundred years ago, wasn’t he? Who’s going to remember what he was about? Even so, maybe we’ll just say something like, ‘Hope and Change has come to America.’”
Even through his thick mental haze Joe could feel the judges boring into him. What had he done this time? he wondered. “I’m not sure Mr. Obama would appreciate that, sir. That was his and yours’ campaign motto for 2008.”
“Oh… right, sorry.” Joe muttered sheepishly. “What about… ‘Putting People First’?” (He was corrected again -- this was Bill Clinton’s slogan in 1992). Exasperated by now, Joe offered, “Leadership for a new Millennium?”
“Nope. That was Al Gore’s slogan in 2000.”
“Whatever. Nobody’s gonna pay any attention to the malarkey coming out of my mouth. All they care about is the $1400 check for each living, breathing human per household that I got them as part of the COVID slush -- I mean relief -- bill. I’m gonna x-out in red ink everything in this thing that I don’t like. If it don’t have anything to do with massaging a beautiful woman’s shoulders and neck, sniffing hairdos, telling tales to kids about a gangbanger named Corn Pop and little colored swimmers rubbing my hairy legs, it ain’t gettin’ said on Wednesday night.”
Almost as one, Joe’s attendants nodded in the affirmative like the deferential zombies that they are. ‘Looks like we’ll have to start over,’ they thought in unison. One young female communications aide whispered to her much older superior, “Let’s go through his campaign speeches and yank some of his quotes. He’ll never remember anything he said anyway.”
Mildly flabbergasted at the presidential rebuke and his underlings’ lack of interest, Jen Psaki uttered. “Fine, Joe, fine. What else do you want to say?”
“Well, it’s gotta have a lotta stuff about racism. Even though I’ve been in Washington for almost fifty years, this place is a systemic racial jungle hotbed for cross burnings and high-tech lynchings by white supremacists and police. Just don’t mention the fact that all that stuff occurred within my own party, or people will tune out. I heard there aren’t going to be a lot of Republicans there, so I’ll settle for pointing my finger directly at the ones who do attend. The dumb Trump chumps at home will get the message.”
“What about calling them ‘Dog-faced pony soldiers?’ That was one of my favorites.”
“Heck yeah,” Joe sprang forward in his chair at the notion. “I think Hunter was the one who came up with that bit. He told me to use it if ever a young New Hampshire girl college student asked me a question that I couldn’t answer. ‘Just insult ‘em’ he instructed. And it worked! The rest of the people in the room that day were so intimidated and humiliated, they didn’t ask me a dang thing. Kind of like the media every day!”
“Joe, let’s not get too far off topic,” Psaki jutted in. “We want to emphasize climate change and infrastructure and we need a way to talk about the southern border situation without mentioning the word ‘crisis.’ We suggest that since the vice president will be seated behind you -- and she’s in charge of the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens crossing every month -- that you invite her down to the microphone to say a few words.”
“Bingo! Great idea! I didn’t want to have to talk for all that time anyway. Bringing Kamala in from the bullpen will provide me a little break and give the folks at home a good look at the next president when I decide to get the heck out of Dodge in 2024. I’ll kinda stand behind her when she’s talking and admire her hair style. I must remember to laugh at all the applause lines, too, which shouldn’t be too hard because the woman giggles incessantly.”
“Yeah! How will you end it?”
“I was planning to just read the teleprompter until the words stopped flowing, but maybe I should do something a little more dramatic. Since we can’t have any guests in the chamber, I’ll just make up a story about how climate change threatened the lives of folks in some backwards-butt Trump town in Kansas or something, but I convinced them to give up their diesel farm pickup trucks and tear the roof off a Tesla instead -- and it worked just as good,” Joe blubbered in his most optimistic voice. “Then I’ll say America’s a great place because Trump’s gone and make my way for the exit. Since we’re not shaking hands because of the coronavirus, maybe I’ll just skip to the rear like I’m playing hopscotch.”
The Biden lackeys looked at each other with crooked satisfaction and didn’t add anything else. Joe concluded, “Time for the mess hall, people. Follow that guy in a suit! Don’t sell your tickets to the big show. Hasta la vista, baby!”
-- Though no one can be sure what Joe Biden will say in his big speech tonight, one thing’s for sure: it won’t be anything like the optimistic, patriotic call to Americans’ sensibilities like Donald Trump delivered during his four years in office. The 78-year-old first-termer will likely just lay it on thick like he always does. Will anyone watch?
Joe Biden
Address to joint session of Congress
COVID restrictions
Kamala Harris
climate change
infrastructure
Republicans
State of the Union Address
Biden first hundred days