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Written by Dr. Binoy Kampmark
President Joseph Biden has done what many from his own party dreaded but dare not say. Last month, via a painful video, the aged Democrat declared his candidacy for a second term in the White House, branding himself a defender of US democracy. For a politician lacking the mettle of competence, awareness, and, at certain points, basic clarity of the world he inhabits, this was astonishing. The doddery are in; the young, or younger, are frowned upon as incapable of taking the mantle.
The result is a candidate being kept, like the Mikado, close at hand, let out on occasion to see some sunlight, but otherwise shut off from the world. Even when Biden is allowed out for his walk and scripted speech, his handlers only do so with a sense of dread: when will he slip or, as Hilary Clinton liked to call it, succumb to “misstatement”?
The New York Times was careful on the lead-up. “Behind the scenes, advisers, and allies are weighing how soon the president should set in motion a re-election operation – an announcement that will surprise noone but will signal the start of a challenging new phase of his presidency.”
What an understatement. Most Democrat voters do not want a second Biden presidency. A vote cast his way will be done grudgingly, especially if the rival GOP candidate is Donald Trump. The machinery of the party is already getting ready to deny oxygen to fresher faces.
Biden does command a following, of sorts, though the thinking behind it is shallow. Ezra Klein, for instance, has decided that age is not quite the problem some claim it to be. The aging figure “proved – and keeps proving – doubters like me wrong. He won the Democratic primary, even though voters had no shortage of fresher faces to choose from. He won the general election handily, despite Donald Trump’s vaunted talents as an insult comic and a social media force.” Klein goes on, with almost delusionary conviction: “Voters seemed perfectly happy with Biden as a communicator.”
One who could not disagree more with the idea of Biden 2.0 is Julian Epstein, who served as Chief Counsel to the US House Judiciary Committee and was Staff Director to the House Oversight Committee Democrats. While accepting that Trump gave the Democrats ample subject matter to draw upon, a seemingly endless well of bile to feed on – the refusal of Republicans to detach themselves from the orange ogre; his treatment of the pandemic; his heavily flirtatious dabbling with extremists – the Democrats had their own problems.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Epstein declared that his fellow Democrats had “shown their own kind of cowardice by refusing to say that President Biden shouldn’t run for re-election.” The Democratic elites had decided “that any dissent from party leadership or independent thinking – even in the name of the obvious truth – is dangerous to their job security.”
Attacking Biden, or dismissing him as woefully uncredible, has become “tricky”. To regard the president as blithering, vague, and barely present, is to run the risk of being labelled an ageist, or even sadist. But on the policy front, Biden’s policy legacy, Epstein argues, is questionable, domestically bleeding the blue-collar vote, while baffling the foreign policy establishment with spectacular moments of foggy-headed utterances.
Over Taiwan, he has been nothing short of abysmal, fumbling, gaffing (to the truth, perhaps?) over US policy towards the island entity. In May 2022, he bamboozled commentators and the press corps on whether the US would go to war over the island were it to be attacked by China, thereby holing the policy of “strategic ambiguity” in place since 1979. “Yes,” came his reply to the question. “That’s the commitment we made.”
At the time, White House correspondent for Agence France-Presse, Sebastian Smith, was stunned. “Biden’s affirmation that ‘yes’ the US would defend Taiwan really raised adrenaline levels in that palace briefing room right now. Next, we all get to try and explain what it all actually means.”
The efforts to explain did not stop there. By September 2022, Biden had mangled strategic ambiguity no less than four times. Zack Cooper, Senior Fellow for the American Enterprise Institution, observed bluntly that, whatever Biden’s strategists might claim about the unchanged nature of US-Taiwan policy, “the strategy for achieving this objective has changed. Biden is choosing to be less ambiguous about US intentions in case of an unprovoked attack on Taiwan.” His advisers should, accordingly, “acknowledge this inescapable reality.”
On his trip to Ireland in April this year, Byyiden’s blunders were also monumental, though largely laughed off (“delicious,” declared the Irish Times) as the product of an entertainingly addled mind. During a speech at the Windsor pub in Dundalk, County Louth, he confused the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team with the odious Black and Tans, infamous for their bloodletting during the 1919-1921 Irish War of Independence.
Biden’s distant cousin, former Irish rugby player Rob Kearney, played a role in Ireland’s first victory over the often invincible All Blacks in 2016. “He was a hell of a player,” remarked the president, “and he beat the hell out of the Black and Tans.” Staff at the White House promptly went to work airbrushing this error from history; those in Ireland were left “in stitches”.
On a more serious note, another Biden administration, flavoured by the bouquet garni of error, is likely to make more wars, not fewer, likely. In the Indo-Pacific, a containment strategy of China is being pursued with militaristic glee, with a bewitched Australia supplying the strategic real estate in a policy of forward defence. In Ukraine, a proxy war with Russia continues to be waged, drawing NATO and the US into ever closer conflict. Biden’s Blunderland does not promise to be pretty, let alone an entertaining place.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
I was running up the stairs on my toes the other day. I almost fell-up the stairs! I’m not an old man in leather shoes. But I don’t like to rub and sniff, teen and pre-teen girls. I do love ice-cream. The real stuff with turned cream… Mmmm!
I still whistle Dixie. I’m not even from the USA. It’s just such a catchy tune. Abe Lincoln (Rep/Union) loved Dixie. Plus the immigrants I’m surrounded by, don’t know what I’m whistling. (Hopefully) Especially when I mix in “Old MacDonald, Mary’s Little Lamb, “Where Am I To Go M’Johnnies.” Then I throw in a little “battle hymn of the republic” To really throw people off. If they are listening.
His “Cheat Sheet” is pretty funny. He’s probably drugged up, has doubles, and is just a figurehead. Blame Biden! He forgot what decade it was ages ago. His handler’s will lay blame on him and he’s not innocent. It sure seems like he’s daft, aging… But that’s no excuse for his authoritarian actions or anything else he’s done as president. (Handled or not)
Two of the comments, are replies to removed comments? I did almost fall-up the stairs. Ha!
“So little to do, and so much time! Hold it! Reverse it!” Ramadan is over now. Back to raging insanity.
You know, I live next to Chinese, Indians, Ethiopians, Libyans, Egyptians, Aboriginals. My friendly neighbor gave me their Ramadan leftovers… That was some nice home-baked bread. Though they were eating westernized dishes… Halal Lasagna, tuna melts and mini pizza’s.
You’re a meany.
Ha, JHK’s comment damning me to hell was removed. “Muslims are encouraged to strive for peace and peaceful solutions to all problems.” Go pray 5 times again. I can pray anytime I want! In fact, I should be “praying without ceasing.”
Read the Injeel… Or the Quran. It say’s “And the followers of the Injeel should have judged by what Allah revealed in it; and whoever did not judge by what Allah revealed, those are they that are the transgressors.” 5:47 Shakir
Broaden your horizon’s… Even the Quran says Jesus is the bomb. No one else raised the dead. Muhammad couldn’t even write. “Join us or die!” That’s a way to gather people for godly worship. Even the Mongol’s had free religion. Though after Khan’s death it split rapidly.
Where’s the Umayyad Caliphate? Gone, it only lasted 100 year’s. Rashidun? 30 years. 1 Generation. Compared with…… Anything else.
Yup, in the land of the “we lie, steel and cheet” UssA (Union of Socipaths Scumbags and A..holes) everything works, incl Propaganda. I for once agrees with an RT article, Trump and Biden are like watching dinosaurs fighting, aka a last hurrah of an dying empire unable to change its corse, they, Trump and Biden are remants of that era, and they make RFKj to an extrairdinary candidate, from the Democratic side (yeah, yeah, yeah, I know), because, we hear truths, obvious to anyone sane, we just lack the man to do the job, realign and recharge USA, let the banana republics wet dream about Full spectrum dominance die.