by Daniel Oliver
George Stephanopoulos’ interview with President Biden was painful to watch — unless you’re Donald Trump. Even Trump’s biased supporters could sympathize with the president — although that would be a mistake: If you were Biden, you wouldn’t sympathize You.
At least some were unsure whether Stephanopoulos would ask, and then press, the tough questions. He did. But there was no real reason to think he would let Biden off the hook: He certainly wants Democrats to win the election as much as any other partisan Democrat, and allowing Biden to remain the party’s nominee — now, clearly — is not in their best interests.
Biden looked, well, awful. He looked — there’s really no other word for it — orange. Now he’s the Orange Man. That may be mean. But it may not be irrelevant. Why does he look orange? Why was he painted to look orange? Who was in power? Why can’t he look… normal? Or is that just what ancient men look like? Really ancient men. Does he need makeup to look normal? Who can tell us?
Looks aren’t everything, but they aren’t nothing either. They’re the first thing people see, of course. In the first televised presidential debate, Nixon looked awful; Kennedy looked great. Interestingly, the people who watched the debate on TV thought Kennedy won; the people who only listened to it on the radio thought Nixon won. Looks matter.
Biden sounded delicate—his voice brittle, raspy, and hesitant. That doesn’t convey a sense of command. We want a president who commands and sounds like he commands. When he lectures foreign leaders who need a lecture, we want them to know they’re being lectured—and to pay attention, damn it! It’s abundantly clear that Biden can’t do that, regardless of the content of his answers to Stephanopoulos’ questions.
He stole a few bases, but that’s typical of any politician — and stealing bases can indicate some competence. He mentioned the number of fresh jobs created last month, but he didn’t mention that unemployment rose up last month. Many people who don’t follow the news closely might not have noticed, but others did. Stephanopoulos ignored it; he may not be up to date on the statistics. But Trump would have murdered him for it. (“Murdered” is used metaphorically here.)
Stephanopoulos (again to his credit) pressed Biden on whether he would be willing to take a cognitive test. Biden evaded the question: “I take that test every day.” Here you go.
Trump took one when he was president. The 30-item test involved drawings of a lion and a rhinoceros that patients had to name. It involved tasks such as drawing a clock (very arduous for people with cognitive disabilities), counting backwards by sevens and naming words that begin with “F” in one minute. And he remembered a given list of five words right away and the same list five minutes later. Dr. Ronny Jackson, the rear admiral who served as Barack Obama’s medical officer, administered the test. Jackson reports: “This was the most difficult of all of them. It took a lot longer, and the president did exceptionally well.”
Biden said he takes a cognitive test every day? That’s ridiculous. It was impossible not to notice that he was avoiding the question.
Perhaps his most surprising response was when Stephanopoulos asked how he would feel if he lost to Trump: “As long as I gave it my all, that’s what it’s all about.”
Again? This isn’t about the country? This isn’t about protecting democracy from Trump? This is about… Biden? This is about the effort Biden put in? Is that what this is all about?
This is truly an incredibly self-centered statement. Translated, Biden said, “It’s all about me.”
This will not win him the sympathy of his Democratic colleagues.
Many Republicans — in fact, probably most Republicans — probably want Biden to stay in the race because that seems likely, at least Nowthat Trump can defeat him.
But assuming not. Republicans need to ask themselves whether they want an incompetent in the White House. Are they better off with an incompetent president who miserably fails to get any domestic legislation through Congress? But who would then manage foreign affairs? The answer is probably that no one could manage them as badly as Biden.
Biden has said that only the Lord Almighty can convince him to drop out of the race. Given Biden’s stance on abortion, it wouldn’t be surprising if the Lord Almighty took such action. And this column can now predict that the Lord Almighty will do just that.
Watch the whole interview:
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Daniel Oliver is chairman of the board of the Education and Research Institute and director of the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy in San Francisco. In addition to serving as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission under President Reagan, he was editor-in-chief and then chairman of the board of William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review. Write to Daniel Oliver at [email protected].
