US media tries to pretend this Biden performance was normal. It was not.
In other news, how come no one is talking about comedian Kyle Dunnigan writing Biden's State of the Union speech?
I have been around for enough US presidential administrations to know this: if there is one thing that American political theatre really excels at, it is finding ever-lower lows to sink to.
When George W. Bush was elected, I thought, “geez, this guy seems really dumb.”
Then, after a few years of Obama, we got Trump, and like all of my middle class brethren I was aghast. “Can’t get much worse than this!” I said, hugging myself for comfort.
But I was wrong. Turns out it could get worse. A lot worse.
Biden’s Tuesday night attempt to pass himself off as a competent, functioning human, surrounded by other competent, functioning humans, backfired spectacularly after they all made the mistake of appearing before cameras for over an hour. Because there was no way to hide the brutal reality: when it comes to this administration and congressional leadership, it is the deaf and dumb leading the blind and dumber.
Did Biden say anything meaningful? No.
Did Pelosi manage to clap in a normal human fashion? No.
Ok, fine. Well at least we have that crackerjack media to hold them all to account though, right? Also no.
After forcing myself to watch the entirety of Biden’s State of the Union speech, I wanted to see how the media covered this spectacular train wreck. Especially because war has just broken out in the Ukraine, a country the US has been meddling in for years. It is also a place the Biden family has been enriching itself from since the Obama administration. So I thought maybe I would find some sharp analysis juxtaposing Biden’s rhetoric with his family’s past actions.
USA Today led the pack with its description of his Ukraine messaging as “perfectly fine.”
Over at MSNBC Joe Scarborough called it a “defence of Western democracy.”
But I didn’t see any mention of the fact that Amtrak Joe’s son Hunter was, just last week, the subject of a federal grand jury panel looking into his taxes from the time he was on the payroll of, wait for it…the Ukrainian gas industry! There is nothing to see here, folks, and if you even bring it up you’re probably a Nazi.
Biden attempted on Tuesday to reach soaring rhetorical heights with phrases like “I say to the Russian oligarchs and the corrupt leaders who’ve bilked billions of dollars …no more. I mean it!”
Not even the oligarchs’ luxury apartments will be safe, Joe thundered!
How amusing, then, to find that the day before Joe “Eat the Rich” Biden’s state of the union, an old family friend and colleague from the Ukrainian gas board days was sentenced to jail for his part in defrauding a Native American tribe to the tune of $60 million. Some of which was spent on an, ahem, luxury New York City apartment.
Nor has Hunter’s $50k a month, no-show Ukrainian job been mentioned much by the high-brow media of late. I gather from their silence that they think it’s no big deal when a golf buddy of the president’s family steals from indigenous tribes and buys himself a $10 million Tribeca apartment. And it’s not really a story when the president’s son’s ex-lover, who at one point went by the Instagram handle @weed_slut_420, testifies about Hunter at the Chateau Marmont, back in his crack-cooking days. This is the grown-up administration that is going to restore America’s dignity on the world stage! And us rubes should take Biden very seriously when he warns the Russians: “we’re coming for your ill-gotten gains.”
Also widely un-remarked upon in the coverage were Biden’s many fumbles. I distinctly remember the American press making us fear that Trump was having a full on cognitive breakdown, yet this week they seemed not to notice lines like:
“And a pound of Ukrainian people, a proud, proud people. Pound for pound, ready to fight with every inch of earnergy [sic] they have.”
And of course the crowing glory of all gaffes:
“We’ll continue vaccinating the world. We won’t stop because you can’t build a wall high enough to keep out a vaccine.”
And what about Nancy Pelosi’s bizarre, celebratory knuckle-rubbing and the fact that she was chewing on her jaw like she was at a Manchester rave in the 1990’s? What on earth is going on with these people?
To hear the media’s analysis, this was a totally normal performance, by a totally fine president, in a totally professional administration, in an otherwise unremarkable year. Katie Rogers of The New York Times went so far as to call him “resolved and confident.”
To me, this spectacle was more reminiscent of dark, low-brow comedy that statecraft. The Bidens are grotesquely corrupt and Joe is clearly non compos mentis. Shame on every member of the media who tries to pretend otherwise.
It’ll get much much worse before most people start taking notice. It’s like entropy is increasing and at some point we won’t be able to contain the fallout. It’s a recipe for chaos, incompetent leaders, soaring prices, food shortages and several looming political corruption cases. When does it burst?
Left wing media, because of its extreme toxic hatred of Trump, suppressed the story of Hunter Biden's escapades before the election (when the reporting could have and probably would have made a difference in the election). There are countless people walking around thinking that they based their voting decisions on sound rational criteria when, in fact, they were duped.