TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! The Biden Administration Is Hilarious.

While researching a subject on Monday, I clicked on a link to an opinion piece hosted on CNN’s website. This news outlet is one of many media venues that serves up most of its offerings with an ancillary embedded video that is  supposed to augment the reader’s experience. The video—which no one wanted to see in the first place—plays automatically, startling the reader with an unexpected aural bombardment. On this occasion, though, the intrusive video proved useful.

The clip featured President Joe Biden delivering a solemn address to the nation on Memorial Day. And though I lunged for the pause button, I was still privy to the first five seconds of the selected clip in which the president said the following: “You know, America’s been forged in the basil and the fires of war.” Go listen to the clip yourself and check my work.

Now, my first thought was that this was just another verbal flub to which Biden is prone, and he clearly wanted to say “battles.” But my second thought was less charitable: How had this not been brought to my attention for over a week? How is it that the industries built around cultural and political commentary failed to dwell on the objective hilarity of the “basil” of war? On a conceptual level alone, the potential for herb-and-spice-related puns is off the charts. Where are our caustic satirists, who spent the last four years mining every last ounce of humor out of the seemingly endless reservoir of comedy provided by our last president?

Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and late night comics as the Dems’ palace guard, and it all makes sense.

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