As has often been stated in this space, Joe Biden is not a good man. He's not even a nice or amiable man. He is not the chuckling pal that everybody wants to spend dinner with or have a beer with despite their political differences.
He's not that guy.
Joe Biden is a mean and politically divisive man. From the beginning of his career, he has seized upon any divisive issue that he could opportunistically exploit for the purpose of advancing his own career.
From stoking racial tensions by inflaming fears over the school bussing issue in the 70s to attempting to destroy the reputation of good men like Judge Robert Bork and Justice Clarence Thomas during their confirmation hearings in the 80s/90s to the declaration that Mitt Romney and his fellow Republicans want to put black people "back in chains," there isn't a low that Joe Biden has been willing to stoop to in an effort to destroy his political opponents and further bolster his reputation with his pathetic base.
Just this past year, we saw his desperate, angry speech in front of Independence Hall lit to evoke the fiery gates of hell where he proclaimed "MAGA Republicans" as fascistic American terrorists. This is the man who promised unity and common ground when he ran in 2020 despite the fact that the impetus for that poor excuse for a political campaign was built on the Charlottesville lie that he still repeats about Donald Trump.
Throughout his political career, which is only remarkable in its incessant quest for mediocrity, Joe Biden has been able to divide Americans and throw nasty unfounded defamatory allegations against conservatives from a position of untouchable immunity.
As a sitting senator from a deep blue, Democrat state, he could pretty much say anything he wanted on the floor of the Senate without any real threat to his re-election dreams.
As chairman of a powerful committee, he was virtually unopposed in his desire to attack men with much greater intellect and profoundly higher values and morals like Bork and Thomas.
And as vice president, he could play the buffoon and punchline for Barack Obama, all the while engaged in attack dog tactics like slandering Romney as a racist while the man at the top of the ticket could pretend to be above it all.
Through all these instances of pompous arrogance and divisive disdain for those who don't align with his political party, Biden has been held unaccountable mostly because his career as a senator and vice president was so laughably inconsequential it wasn't worth the time or energy to call him out.
"Oh, there goes crazy Uncle Joe again ranting about the Republicans."
Joe Biden has been a punchline for 50 years in Washington, DC, and in a town like this, the fact that you're constantly ridiculed and not taken seriously actually acts as a political suit of armor.
"Why go after Joe? The man's a joke."
Well, not anymore.
For the past two years, he's been able to continue his divisive tactics and lie about Republicans without having to face voters or a hostile Congress. He could call Georgia's election integrity laws the second coming of Jim Crow and get away with it.
He could claim that his son Hunter Biden had done nothing wrong and get away with it.
He could ignore the reality that China has lied from day one about the devastating COVID-19 virus and get away with it.
He could engage in a historically disastrous pullout from Afghanistan, leaving thousands stranded and 13 American service members murdered, and never once face tough questions from the legislative branch of our government.
But, as of today, all of that changes.
No matter who the speaker of the House for the new Republican majority is in the 118th Congress, the more important gavels will be held by Rep. James Comer, the new Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Jim Jordan, the new Chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
Investigative hearings will begin almost immediately covering Joe Biden's disastrous first two years as president. From the Afghanistan debacle to the mishandling of the virus and vaccination mandates, to the use of the FBI to attack political opponents on social media and school board meetings, to his family's business dealings with overseas entities doing business with our government in hotspots like Ukraine Russia and China, everything should and will be up for grabs for these investigative committees.
Joe Biden is not a joke. He is not a punchline. He's not just a befuddled old man doing what he's told.
He's the same man he's always been. Angry. Obstinate. Argumentative. Insulting. Abrasive. Just because he follows up his insults with a toothy grin and some winking one-liner infused with the gratuitous use of the word malarkey, it doesn't take away the fact that Joe Biden has been at the center of every divisive political storm of the last five decades in this country.
And now he's finally about to face oversight. He's finally about to face some real investigations.
He's finally going to face a reckoning.
Whether that reckoning ends with impeachment, a resignation in shame, rejection from voters in a re-election campaign, or a face-saving attempt to bow out and make way for fresh blood in 2024, today marks the beginning of the end of Joe Biden's political career.
Let's go!