Streetwise Professor

Last Tuesday Joe Biden delivered the worst speech I have heard from any president going back to the mid-1970s, including Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” speech (in which he did not actually use that word, by the way). It was horrible both in terms of the delivery and the content.

In terms of delivery, Ranty Joe appeared in lieu of his alter ego Sleepy Joe. He shouted out his remarks, shrilly and defensively.

Note to Joe: saying something louder and more shrilly does not bolster your case. To the contrary. It makes it clear that you have no case to make.

Biden clearly came off as an extreme narcissist enraged by criticism of his conduct in Afghanistan. He could not acknowledge that the criticism he has received over Afghanistan had the slightest justification–that would be too much for his fragile narcissistic ego to handle. So he responded with rage and bitterness. He bristled with defiance, not against American enemies (a la say Churchill in 1940), but against Americans he deems to be his enemies because they dare question his judgment.

Very revealing.

The speech only accentuated the shock of many at Biden’s recent behavior, most notably at the arrival of 13 dead Americans at Dover, and his meeting with the parents of the dead. At the ceremony he acted disrespectfully (checking his watch repeatedly) and–wait for it–narcissistically by going on and on AGAIN about his dead son Beau, who has nothing in common with combat Marines shredded by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan except for the fact he is dead. Biden’s narcissistic ego was also evidently incensed at the anger directed towards him by the bereaved parents, in one case rolling his eyes at a mother of a fallen Marine and angrily saying over his shoulder as a Parthian shot at her that he understood her loss in response to her claim to the contrary.

It’s not about you, Joe. The fact that you can’t believe anything isn’t about you speaks volumes.

Amazingly many are astounded that Biden is not an empathetic healer in these trying times, as they assured us he would be in contrast to the boor Trump. Just what planet these people inhabit is unknown to me. Joe Biden has always–always–been a narcissistic, arrogant, asshole. Believe me: I’ve witnessed this for about 35 years. Anyone who thought otherwise is delusional.

And as I always remind my children, mark well my faults–they will become more pronounced as I age, so prepare to deal with them. This is true for most everyone: one’s least appealing traits almost always become more accentuated with age. Joe Biden is living (supposedly) proof of this: he is becoming a more narcissistic, arrogant asshole by the day. Moreover, his panic at the realization that he is in over his head is causing him to double down on obnoxiousness and rage.

That is, the problems with his obvious mental and physical decline are not that he’s “lost a step.” It’s that they have made his more repulsive traits (which are legion) more pronounced. He’s added a step to his arrogant repulsiveness.

One more point about affect. The extreme variance between Sleepy Joe (literally at times, as with his nap while meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister) and Ranty Joe is striking. This could again be symptomatic of senescence. But it also strikes me that it could be chemically induced, or exaggerated. Do they juice up Joe before they let him give a speech of such importance? It’s not the first time he’s appeared cranked during a speech in decided contrast to his dazed and confused mumbling during other public appearances.

Insofar as “substance” is concerned, the speech was an incoherent farrago. Getting out of Afghanistan was the right thing to do. But that’s not the point–the issue is how it was done, which Biden ignored. Biden wanted to get out of Afghanistan in the worst way–and he succeeded.

Bizarrely, moreover, Biden portrayed the exit as a great success. I am reminded of Pyrrhus of Epirus: “One more such victory and Pyrrhus is undone.” One more such success like Afghanistan and America is undone.

Moreover, even though Trump also said that getting out was the proper course, he didn’t give Trump props. Instead, per Biden, Trump caused the fiasco we have witnessed by tying his hands with a May 1 exit deadline. Except Trump obviously didn’t, because Biden moved the exit to 9/11 (swift move, dude), and then back to 8/31. This was not a date written in stone. And if Trump is so horrible–as Biden repeatedly has said–why would he feel bound to follow his plans? He hasn’t on anything else.

This is gaslighting on an epic scale. Every sentient being (I understand Biden may fail to qualify) recognizes this for the catastrophe it is. But Biden insists it is a great, great triumph. Who you gonna believe? Joe or your lyin’ eyes? Joe insists that you believe Joe.

Spare me more such successes. I can’t handle them.

We are learning more about the events that led up to the fiasco. Most notably, the Afghan president, Ghani, begged Biden for continued air support. Biden promised it–if Ghani could provide a plan, as if Ghani (rather than the US military on which his government and army were utterly reliant) was independently capable of conceiving such a thing. No air support was forthcoming. The inevitable happened.

Moreover, Gaslighter Joe instructed Ghani to gaslight the world, and claim that his army was succeeding when it clearly was not. Perception, not reality, was Biden’s preeminent concern.

This is dereliction of duty of the most egregious sort. A transparently political calculation to buy time and to distance himself from the impending catastrophe. In the end he did not, but the whole sequence of events reveals that Biden had only two objectives: to get out, and not to be blamed for an ultimate Taliban triumph.

Well, you’re batting 500, Joe.

Moreover, although Biden claims that the decision to abandon Bagram was made by the military, and that he merely acceded to it, it is clear that they made this decision due to a constraint that he imposed. Namely, a limit on the number of military personnel in Afghanistan to 650 or so. It was impossible to hold Bagram, the embassy, and the Kabul airport with such a paltry force. So Bagram went, and we were reliant on an utterly indefensible exit point.

This is on Biden, and his crew of idiots–namely the execrable NSC chair Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Stinkin’ Blinken–and no one else.

In a parliamentary system, Biden and his crew (including latest milk carton “have you seen me?” person Kamala Harris) would have been removed through a vote of no confidence, and a snap election. But under the US system, which provides stability and continuity often lacking in parliamentary ones, we are cursed with them for at least another 40 months. (Life is all about trade-offs.)

If the catastrophes continue–and they well might, both geopolitical and economic–the prospect of continued misrule by a senile narcissist and idiot and assorted other throne sniffing dim bulbs will be unsustainable. In that event, there will be a constitutional crisis. How that will be resolved is unknown, but almost certain to be ugly, divisive, and destructive.

These are the fruits of 2020.