The Press Conference Did Biden No Justice

Tweet

Whitey Herzog, the famous St. Louis Cardinals manager resigned in 1990, joking, "I came here in last place and I leave here in last place. I left them right where I started." He'd come full circle. But he also understood, even though in the end the team was in last place, his legacy would still be remembered most for his successes. If he hung around longer, and remained in last place longer, no one would remember the good days. They'd only remember the bad ones. The time to quit was before the focus of his legacy would be forever altered. I am not going to say Joe Biden has had an illustrious career in politics. Hardly. His entire span in politics is quite the opposite actually. Nonetheless, in Democrat circles he certainly always left an impression. With the solo press conference last night, preceded by one of the worst presidential debates in the history of American presidential debates, and with more and more renowned Democrats and Democrat supporting actors abandoning him in his reelection efforts, it was one that did him or his legacy no justice. It was simply further affirmation. He can't do another four years. Besides gaffing during the NATO summit, introducing the Ukrainian president as Putin, he referred to Kamala Harris as, "Vice President Trump," during the press conference, and never caught the slip. He rambled and rambled and rambled and rambled, stopping himself several times mid-sentence just to generally leave his answers incomplete. Several times he simply ended by saying, "Anyway," and then calling on someone else in the press corps. Which was telling as well when you think about it. He was literally going off a card so he knew who to call on to ask him a question. Which says two things really. He doesn't have any connection to the press that he should be able to know who they are more than three years into his presidency. And the White House felt a very strong need to have a level of control over the press conference by preselecting who would be able to ask questions. Peter Doocy from Fox News, incidentally, one who usually offers pretty hard questions, was never called on. Although I will give the ones who were, credit for asking fairly hard questions. They didn't go as hard on him as they should have considering what's at stake and the circumstances. But I'll say they did well enough. Did the performance at the press conference turn any heads or change any minds? Not hardly. It wasn't a good performance. It was better than the debate. But it's still too late. And Biden wasn't coherent enough to even remotely demonstrate that the debate night may have been a fluke. His absolute refusal to undergo a cognitive test is also something doing him and his campaign no justice. They keep saying, "A doctor hasn't warranted one." But the American people want to be reassured. If you have nothing to hide, a doctor does not need to call for a test to be done. You can ask for it to be done to put the biggest question you are faced with right now to bed. The fact is, he can't pass it. He knows it. His campaign knows it. The White House knows it. And because of his adamant refusal to do it, we know it too. The thing is, for all of the supposed achievements Biden likes to brag about, which of course exist only in his mind, what he is laying the foundations for now are the final notes in his very long story. They won't write books about what he did in the past. They'll write books about what he's doing now. They'll write about his serious mental decline and the steep fall of a man who didn't know when to quit for the good of his party and perhaps, for the good of the American people. Even aside from his mental decline and his being unfit to lead. Even aside from the abysmal track record of his presidency—the real one, not the one he tells us about or the media spins. How can the American people understand what motivates someone, who has for nearly four years railed on about the serious dangers a Trump presidency poses to our very way of life, who then through his own actions and failures, passes along the baton willingly and on purpose? The longer Biden allows this to go on, the worse it will get. Not for the country. In an odd way I think Biden has done the greatest service by waking up the American people to the reality that Biden was never fit to govern. But for him, his family, and his legacy. He's the little engine that could but unfortunately, he's run out of tracks—and he has no idea why the train's not moving anymore.