On Friday, a reporter asked Old Joe Biden the big question of the moment: “Will you go to East Palestine, Ohio? Are you planning to travel to East Palestine, Ohio?” Biden, true to form, once again inspired confidence in his leadership by responding with a more or less coherent ramble about Zoom and an old Aretha Franklin song. Meanwhile, MSNBC reported Thursday that “Fifty percent of Democrats say President Biden gives the party the best chance in 2024, according to new Marist College polling.” Are these people totally cut off from the outside world except for what the Democratic National Committee feeds them through the establishment media? Or are they just big Aretha Franklin fans?
Biden answered the reporter’s question by saying: “At this moment not. I was, I did a whole video, I mean, uh, you know, the uh, what the hell? On…” A reporter helpfully offered: “Zoom?” Biden was grateful for the assist: “Zoom! Zoom. All I can hear every time I think of Zoom is that song of my generation, ‘Who’s Zoomin’ Who?’”
Q: “Are you planning on traveling to East Palestine?”
BIDEN: “At this moment not. I was, I did a whole video, I mean, uh, you know, the uh, what the Hell? On Zoom. All I can hear every time I think of Zoom is that song of my generation, 'Who's Zoomin' Who?'” pic.twitter.com/tFo4zHhEkk
— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) February 24, 2023
Then as the reporters began shouting other questions, Old Joe quieted them down: “Wai—wai—wai—wait, lemme answer the question. The answer is that, I, uh, had a long meeting with my team and what they’re doing, you know, we were there two hours after the train went down. Two hours. I’ve spoken with every single major figure in both the Uni— in both Pennsylvania and in Okla — and in Ohio. And so, the idea that we’re not engaged is just simply not, not there. And, initially, there was not a request for me to go out, even before I was heading over to, uh, to Kyiv. So, I’m keeping very close tabs on it. We’re doing all we can.”
Biden has to wait for a request to go? It would have been in keeping with his stated goal of uniting the nation if he had gone immediately. But as Joy Behar noted, the people of East Palestine voted for Trump. Those aren’t the kind of folks to whom Biden wants to reach out; to do so would interfere with the Left’s “insurrectionist” narrative.
Meanwhile, as is usually the case, everything else Biden said was false as well. Maybe he does think of the song “Who’s Zoomin’ Who?” when he hears about Zoom, but there is no way it can be accurately said to be a song from Old Joe’s generation. “Who’s Zoomin’ Who?” is a song by the “Queen of Soul,” Aretha Franklin; it was released on July 9, 1985, on Franklin’s album of the same name. At that time, Joe Biden was 42 years old. A generation is generally considered to be twenty or thirty years long. Some songs of Old Joe’s generation include “Mah Nà Mah Nà” by Piero Umiliani, Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made for Walking,” Elvis’ “Crying in the Chapel,” and the immortal “Woolly Bully” by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs.
Related: Biden Snaps: ‘You Think I Don’t Know How F**king Old I Am?’
“Who’s Zoomin’ Who?” came around way too late to be rightly termed a song from Old Joe Biden’s generation. Now, it’s certainly possible that back in the mid-80s, when Old Joe was Young Joe and the sap was running high, the energetic young senator in his early forties would grab the lissome Dr. Jill and do a little break dancing to Aretha Franklin. But there’s no denying that if that actually happened, Joe would have been a long in the tooth for it even then. Musical tastes vary widely, of course, but when it comes to pop music, most people generally prefer what was current when they were in their teens and twenties, not later. Joe could be an exception. Or he could be trying to deflect attention away from the fact that he is 80 years old now and will be 86 at the end of his term if 50% of Democrats get their way and he is renominated, and the mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting, and all the rest of it put him over the top again.
Old Joe can hardly be said to be at full cognitive operating speed now; what will he be like then? Rambling about Zoom and an old Aretha song when asked about the disaster in East Palestine is at best cavalier and callous in the face of a human tragedy, and at worst, yet another sign that the putative president is not all there. As Aretha Franklin put it in her classic “Who’s Zoomin’ Who?,” “You can’t hide your stuff.” Take it to heart, Joe. You can’t hide your stuff indeed. It’s time for you to forget about 2024, for the good of all of us.
