Rebecca wrote yesterday about an Axios piece filled with revelations about President Biden's internal reputation for short-tempered, profanity-laced tirades against aides, from which "no one is safe." It's so bad, the story says, that officials reportedly avoid meeting with Biden one-on-one, bringing along at least one colleague, "almost as a shield against a solo blast." What do these blasts look like? Common tantrums include, "'God dammit, how the f**k don't you know this?!," "Don't f**king bullsh*t me!" and "Get the f**k out of here!'" The article points out that these "private eruptions" conflict with the president's "carefully cultivated image as a kindly uncle who loves Aviator sunglasses and ice cream." You don't say.
Amazingly, some White House sources tell the outlet that they'd like to see these meltdowns become more public (the president's ire spills over with cameras rolling, from time to time) because Biden "occasionally displaying his temper in public as a way to assuage voter concerns that the 80-year-old president is disengaged and too old for the office." I guess they believe an angry, ornery old man would be preferable to the meandering, stumbling, struggling old man voters see on a regular basis. I'm not so sure, but they're welcome to test that proposition. I asked Brit Hume about the report, and he said he's unconvinced it'll land in a lastingly damaging way against Biden, as most Americans assume politicians blow off steam and get angry in high-pressure jobs. What is a far greater threat to Biden's image as a devoted Catholic family man is his refusal to acknowledge his own, politically-inconvenient flesh and blood. Even liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd seems to share this view:
Hunter’s high-priced lawyers going down to Arkansas to make sure Navy could not use the Biden name and to slash child support payments...In his 2021 memoir, Hunter wrote dismissively about Navy’s mother, Lunden Roberts, whom he met when he was spiraling into addiction and going to Washington strip clubs. He wrote that the women he had sexual encounters with during his drug “rampages” were “hardly the dating type.” “I had no recollection of our encounter,” he said of Roberts. Yet he put her on the payroll of his consulting firm as a personal assistant while she was pregnant. About three months after Navy was born, Hunter took away Roberts’s company health insurance...this is not a political issue. It’s a human one. Joe Biden’s mantra has always been that “the absolute most important thing is your family.” It is the heart of his political narrative. Empathy, born of family tragedies, has been his stock in trade. Callously scarring Navy’s life, just as it gets started, undercuts that...What the Navy story reveals is how dated and inauthentic the 80-year-old president’s view of family is...The president’s cold shoulder — and heart — is counter to every message he has sent for decades, and it’s out of sync with the America he wants to continue to lead.
Is 'empathy' really his authentic "stock in trade," though? He has been shockingly callous and unconcerned about massive human suffering caused directly by his negligence and incompetence, in Afghanistan and at the border. And he's even managed to lie within the realm of his family tragedies, repeatedly mischaracterizing the circumstances of his eldest son's death, and smearing a man involved in the accident that killed his first wife and daughter. Are these the actions of a good person? A genuine family man? Biden is fond of saying how brilliant his son Hunter is, and how proud of him he is. He also prejudiced the investigation into his son by asserting that the younger Biden had done "nothing wrong," ahead of what appears to be suspicious under-charging decisions about several accused or apparent crimes. Some particularly tacky commentators have chalked this up to an inspiring story of familial love. But said love evidently has its limits, with a young child being denied, ignored, and refused access to the (remarkably lucrative) Biden family name. The spin in defense of this sordid business is even more gross than the apologias on Hunter's behalf. This is a solid slap-down of one such entry, which distorts the facts and invokes Trump's real but irrelevant failings as a deflection:
She’s 4 and her father stalled for almost a year to prevent a paternity test until he was ordered to get one by a judge. And even then, the verification of her relationship with the Biden family is more than three years old. “New.” https://t.co/6BC7r4ZeQx
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) July 10, 2023
Then there's this Atlantic essay:
"Joe Biden had the leading role in a crucial act in the grand story of America, and he played it with grace and honor. It is time for him to take a bow, accept the thanks of a grateful nation, and exit to well-deserved applause," @EliotACohen writes: https://t.co/uqoFjwDqI2
— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) July 9, 2023
Is the publication of these stories and columns evidence that the media class is laying down a predicate to oust Biden? Like others, I'm not at all convinced of that, but if there is to be a movement to uproot the incumbent on the Democratic side, it would need to begin in earnest pretty soon. What does strike me, again, is the extent to which Biden's 2020 marketing was a fraud. He was sold to Trump-weary, pandemic-anxious voters as a steady, reliable, moderate, centrist, norms-restoring, nice, pleasant grandpa figure. Has any of that panned out? He's an unsteady, fumbling, cranky chief executive who works very little, needs constant assistance -- and whose administration routinely caves to leftists, including in ways that badly violate norms and undermine faith in the legitimacy of our system. The American people are duly unimpressed. Will Republicans offer them a more attractive alternative next year? And are voters willing to roll the dice on this person becoming Leader of the Free World?
VP HARRIS: "Culture is a reflection of our moment and our time, right? And present culture is the way we express how we're feeling about the moment and we should always find times to express how we feel about the moment that is a reflection of joy ‘cause you know — it comes in… pic.twitter.com/3879vmL5f8
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 6, 2023
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