By Sushil Kutty
‘No’, President Joe Biden is in no mood to step away from the race. Not for the sake of Vice President Kamala Harris nor for making the “Vice President Donald J Trump” gaffe. President Joe Biden mixed up names and titles at the Nato presser in Washington DC, where he answered tricky questions and defended his mental acuity. One skeptical journalist wrote that President Joe Biden “dropped the Ming vase” and then spent the rest of the presser putting it back in shape.
If the Biden-Trump debate left Democrats in panic, after the Nato display, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin wouldn’t want President Joe Biden to be replaced at the top of the Democrat ticket. In any case, Biden says there is no way he will quit the race. But Biden’s friend, George Clooney, the ‘Ocean Eleven’ actor, says Biden is all at sea and should call it a day.
Clooney penned an op-ed in the New York Times to catch Biden’s attention which is firmly fixed on becoming the “47th”. But Clooney and half the Democratic line-up appearing on Fox, CNN, ABC and NBC, not to mention CBS and MSNBC, want President Joe Biden to take Clooney’s hint and get the hell out.
The evening prime-time also is concerned about President Joe Biden’s cognitive ability to negotiate the slippery slope ahead. Republican Party rival and candidate Donald Trump watched Joe’s presser on TV and didn’t mind Joe demoting him to “Vice President”. Also, Kamala Harris will be excused if she sues President Biden for mistakenly mentioning her as “Vice President Donald Trump”.
Reports say Vice President Kamala Harris is being “secretly tested” to find out if she would be a fit replacement for “Candidate Biden”. Will the test be carried out at the Democratic National Convention? President Joe Biden will face the test of his life and Kamala Harris wouldn’t mind if she’s the centre of attention. “President Harris” sounds fine to all manner of tongues, Ukrainian or Pidgin Mandarin.
At the Nato Summit presser, President Joe Biden ruled out any surprises at the Democratic convention. But then, Joe Biden placed himself in danger’s reach when he introduced Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky with the words: “Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin!” President Joe Biden’s forgetfulness will one day lead him to the brink’s edge.
Fact is, if President Joe Biden answered questions at the Nato Summit without slipping off-stage, it didn’t mean he wasn’t on the brink. Biden corrected himself after the Putin slip-up, but Biden was living up to his gaffe-prone age – 81 going on 82! Was his performance up to expectations? Perhaps Hunter or Jill Biden would be able to answer better except that both have a conflict of interest.
The truth is, the Joe with “vim and vigour” is a thing of the past. And but for the calamitous June 27 debate, Democrats wouldn’t be in the ‘Panic Room’. A defiant Joe Biden is no panacea for the Democrats’ troubles. Also, President Joe Biden has heard so much about Vice-President Kamala Harris replacing him at the top of the ticket that he’s beyond embarrassment.
“Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice-President Trump to be Vice President if I didn’t think she was qualified to be president,” Joe replied, leaving everybody in the room in consternation. Thankfully, Vice President Harris was made of sterner stuff. Mistaking the “59-year-old Black woman” for the “78-year-old orange-man” was akin to blasphemy but in the “pin drop”, the only person unaware of the gaffe was the gaffe-prone President of the United States.
Also, downtown Washington gave President Biden slack. Joe’s friends say he should quit the race while he still can walk! After all, what are friends for? One reporter wrote of the “frog in Joe’s throat” and didn’t find Joe’s “whispering habit” bad-wear! At one point, President Biden said, “I’m following the advice of my commander-in-chief.” Nobody flinched. Not even when he settled for an “anyway” and left it hanging.
‘Ocean’s Eleven’ star George Clooney should have been on stage to rescue Biden though Biden wasn’t all at sea all the time. His decades-long experience in diplomacy, going back to the time of Golda Meir, stood by his stead all through the presser. And he had a good grasp of almost all the international issues dogging the United States.
Trump will have to steal talking points from Biden’s presser to beat Biden in the game. Will Trump be able to best Biden? Biden was asked if he was “damaging America’s standing in the world?” and Biden laughed. “Did you see any damage to our standing in my leading this conference? Have you seen a more successful conference? Find me a world leader who didn’t think it was.”
Once bitten by the presidential bug, President Joe Biden is not twice shy. His hunger to be President for a second time is stronger than all the cries demanding he step down for the sake of party and country, not “putting his own interests ahead of the nation.” It is hard to believe but President Biden says he starts at 7 am and is up till midnight. “I’m not in this for my legacy, I am in this to complete the job I started.”
So, what’s the job he started? Nato, China, Israel, Russia and also ‘India’. Biden takes pride he rebuilt alliances and he enjoys the near-total harmony he has with leaders of the world. There were 11 reporters at the Nato presser. Will President Joe Biden, like Danny Ocean in ‘Ocean’s Eleven’, make a getaway with the biggest political heist in years? (IPA Service)
