What is wrong with Joe Biden?

Submitted by George Callaghan…

Joe Biden is running against the an orange ogre. Faced with such a morally bankrupt opponent Biden should be well ahead. In fact, the former vice-president is only several percentage points ahead in most polls. A half-decent candidate should thrash the current President. But is Biden even half-decent?

The mainstream media has focussed heavily on the manifold deficiencies and grossly unethical behaviours of Donald J Trump. He is a soft target. This concentration on Trump’s numberless misdeeds have left the media with little time for reportage on many shortcomings and mistakes of Joseph Biden.

To state the obvious Biden is old. He will be 78 by inauguration if elected and that is a big if. This will make him easily the oldest president to assume office. Though Biden can walk a decent distance – which is more than can be said for his obese opponent Donald ‘golfcart’ Trump – his mental faculties have demonstrably decline. Biden was never renowned for his intellectual acuity. But in recent years he has been more gaffe prone than ever. Some mistake his Colgate beam for sprightliness. He has brain surgery decades ago. That should trouble anyone. If Biden becomes commander-in-chief there is a considerable chance that he will die en poste. He is at life expectancy for an American. Are you happy with the idea of President Harris? If not then do not vote for Biden. Elect Biden, get Harris: that is what you have to accept. Biden has had the temerity to say that if elected he shall seek a second term.

For some reason I cannot explicate Biden gets off scot free with lying. His plagiarism from Neil Kinnock’s speech is perhaps the best known example. ‘Why am I the first Biden in 1 000 generations to go the college?’ Joseph should reckon on a generation being considered about 30 years. That would mean he is asking why people did not go to college 30 000 years ago. This rhetorical question revealed his staggering stupidity. We have only had writing for 5 000 years and that started in what is now Iraq! If he has said even 100 generations that would not have made much sense. The Western World has had centres of learning for adults for only 3 000 years at most and those were in Greece and Rome.

The college speech was not the only one he copied from another politician. He cut and paste a speech by Bobby Kennedy.

As far back as law school Biden was caught cheating. Why on earth was he not kicked out? How has he not been expelled from the bar? The man is morally suboptimal to say the least.

Biden plainly thinks that lying under oath is entirely acceptable – so long as it is Democrat who is the liar. When Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury Biden voted to acquit.

It is easy to see why Biden is regarded as a lightweight. It is shocking that he qualified as a lawyer. In the US it is easier to pass the bar than in any other country. The superabundance of lawyers has led to over governance. That is why suing people is the national sport.

Joe Biden is as inconsistent and as ethically compromised as you would expect for a politician who has been in Washington for almost half a century. He has been involved in some of the United States’ most contentious policy decisions.

As Kamala Harris noted Biden opposed bussing. This was a policy in the 1970s and 1980s with the objective of effectually racially integrating schools. It was opposed by many parents and not for racist reasons in most cases. Why can my daughter not go to the school within walking distance? Why does she have to go on a bus for a four hour round trip? It is costly, environmentally unfriendly and leads to sleep deprivation. Joe Biden was very cosy with white supremacist politicians. Biden has been excoriated for his anti-black and anti-Indian remarks.

The Crime Bill of the 1990s had Biden voting for it. This exacerbated mass incarceration. This grossly unjust legislation has made the United States the prison of the world. The US has a higher per capita incarceration rate in the world. This has had a particularly deleterious effect on African-Americans.

Senator Biden was an outspoken proponent of the illegal occupation and oppression of Palestine. He orated for the glories of racist policies towards the downtrodden Palestinians. As a zealous Zionist he won plaudits from his paymasters in Tel Aviv. This kept donations rolling into his war chest.

Joseph Biden also beat the war drums for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. At least it can be said in defence of Barak Obama that he opposed what most now regard as the most unpardonable madcap venture.

First of all let’s look at Biden’s stance on some touchstone issues. Joe Biden seldom tires of telling people that he is a Catholic. Biden supports abortion, gay marriage, the death penalty (until last year), the war in Iraq, nuclear weapons and divorce. So he believes in Catholicism all except for Catholicism. This is as illogical and moronic as Tony Blair crossing the Tiber despite disagreeing with the Catholic Church’s doctrines on every ethical issue you can think of. You might concur with Joseph Biden on these ethical issues. I can respect that. I cannot respect someone who advocates for these positions and then calls himself a Catholic too. The cognitive dissonance that is apparent in Biden should trouble anyone who values reason and constancy.

Joseph Biden has long been a warmonger. In the mid 1990s he was straining at the lead to get America into a war against Yugoslavia. George H W Bush and Bill Clinton were loathe to involve the United States in the Balkan imbroglio. There was no American interest in that. Slobodan Milosevic was a wicked man and many Bosniak civilians were killed by his forces. But Yugoslavia took no offensive action against the United States.

Anyone who cares for civil liberty should oppose Biden. He shepherded the Violence Against Women Act (VAW) through the Senate. No right thinking person wants there to be violence against females or for that matter males. The VAW was given a morally blackmailing name to intimidate people into abandoning the presumption of innocence and other centuries old safeguards.

In the Senate Biden was behind the war on drugs. This cataclysmic policy lead to the jailing of millions of people for the possession of plants. And I mean millions. This illiberal policy was mind-blowingly profligate of public funds. It also handed untold billions to criminal syndicates. It was a public health disaster. Civil liberties were thrown out in the monomaniacal endeavour to end everyone’s bodily autonomy. Hundreds of unarmed people were shot dead by police in furtherance of this policy. And in the war on drugs it was drugs that won.

It is odd that many feminists are on the Biden train. When Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment Biden voted against Hill having witnesses corroborate her story. In these days of me too he ought to be hung out to dry. But many feminists will forgive him anything so long as he is an extreme pro abortionist.

Several women have accused Biden of molesting them. These allegations are credible precisely because they said they regarded his conduct as unethical rather than criminal. His unwanted touching stopped short of sexual assault. If they were out to besmirch his name they would surely have accused him of something more career terminating.

Biden is so old that he makes Mount Rushmore seem young. He has a limited appeal to a party that prides itself on courting the youth vote. The cortazone cohorts do not seem to be rallying to Biden’s banner either.

It is hard not to feel sympathy for Biden bearing in mind he has suffered the very premature deaths of his wife, daughter and son. But the impact such grief could have might impair his judgement and mental health.

Some hail Joe as their saviour. But he has gone from rising hope to elder statesman with little intervening success. Yes, he was vice-president. But what did he achieve as vice-president? The Obama Administration avoided financial meltdown. It lifted the United States and the world out of the deepest economic crisis since the 1930s. But few of Obama’s successes were down to Biden.

The Obama Administration failed to win in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria. Obama withdrew most of the troops from these lands. Why not withdraw them all? That at least would have the virtue of getting America’s sons and daughters out of harm’s way. Conversely, if he was going to leave American troops in these combat zones they should be there to win and not just as targets for America’s deadly nemeses. Biden was intimately involved in running these wars. The drone war against the Taleban was something that he was kept briefed on and directed from time to time. Drone strikes against the Taleban in Afghanistan and Pakistan decimated the Talibs. One the other than these attacks also killed at least hundreds of civilians.

Biden agreed to the US pullout from Afghanistan. This is staggering in view of his earlier passion for America fighting to the finish there.

Let us not forget Libya’s sorrowful degeneration from a highly developed land of stability to a morass of anarchy and penury. Libya is witnessing the proverbial war of all against all. Biden was one of the war hawks on Libya. Having used the US Air Force as the insurgent’s air force the Obama Administration did not obey pottery barn rules: you broke it you fix it. If the US had occupied the country and rebuilt it then this might have resolve the situation. Instead 9 years on the country is in bloody chaos. The one leading the revolt against the legitimate government of Libya is Khalifa Haftar who is American! Why has the US Government not warned him off? Why has it not sequestered his property?

The Obama Administration deported hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrations. Not very progressive but progressives give Biden an easy ride anyway. Those booted out were overwhelmingly Hispanic. Small wonder then that the Spanish-speaking community is decidedly lukewarm on Biden.

Many people say that Russia hacked the US election in 2016. If that is true why was there no pushback? The Obama Administration should have retaliated? Why did the Obama White House not launch a cyberattack on the Russian Federation. Freezing Russia’s transport system, taking over Russian TV to broadcast anti-Putin messages, taking down government websites or halting hydrocarbon production for a few hours were all options. These would have been profoundly humiliating from the Kremlin. V V Putin likes to project an image of omnipotence. Showing this up as a bogus boast would have gone a long way towards discouraging cyberaggression in future. But as the Obama-Biden administration did nothing it begs some questions. Did they not believe that Russians meddled in the US election? Or were they simply negligent in not robustly defending American interests?

Why do some people dig Joe Biden? He is bonhomous and his vacuous smile masks his sinister mind effectively. Rhetorical vacuity tricks many.

There is Ronald Reagan quality to Biden. He seems plausible. Biden can put on a suit and read from a teleprompter. A white male d’une certaine age is assumed to have gravitas. He comes across as unthreatening and grandfatherly.  Many are willing to be forgiving to a seemingly well-meaning septuagenarian. He never raises his voice and has affability on his side. His forgetfulness and injudiciousness should also be taken into account.

Biden’s loquacity and ineptitude make him a hostage to fortune. Even his ardent supporters live in terror about the next phoneme out of his mouth.

The fact ought to be faced: Biden is not all there. If he is elected president then Kamala Harris will be a back seat driver from day one.