Many families have that one guy, let’s call him “Uncle Joe,” who makes everybody tense up and cringe a little every time he clears his throat to speak.
Maybe Uncle Joe is one of those people who doesn’t have a filter. Maybe he has some old-school opinions about the sexes or races that offend modern ears. Maybe Joe is just getting up there in years and says stuff that’s embarrassingly wrong.
Whichever version of Uncle Joe you might be personally familiar with, the reaction from everyone around him usually amounts to: “Oh, no — he’s talking again. What’s he going to say this time?”
Now imagine that cringeworthy old Uncle Joe occupies the Oval Office and is, at least on paper, The Most Powerful Man in the World™.
And you aren’t a member of the family. You’re a high-level staffer right there in the White House.
What would you do?
According to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, embarrassed staffers are putting Presidentish Joe Biden on mute when he speaks.
Literally.
BIDEN: “I’ll lead an effective strategy to mobilize trunalimunumaprzure.”
pic.twitter.com/TAkj7bJndN— Eddie Zipperer (@EddieZipperer) October 30, 2020
POLITICO being POLITICO, White House correspondent Alex Thompson opens up gently against the Democrat alleged president, saying that Biden “often thinks he’s his own best messenger,” but “many people in his own White House don’t always agree.”
That’s why “some White House staffers will either mute him or turn off his remarks.”
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And that’s “according to White House officials” who apparently wanted their names as muted as Joe’s weak, confused, and nonsensical public statements.
Thompson continues:
On Afghanistan, he told reporters that a Taliban takeover of the country was “highly unlikely,” said Al Qaeda was “gone” from Afghanistan when it wasn’t, and declared that he’d seen “no question of our credibility” from allies when there had been a lot.
Biden has even flubbed scripted remarks, such as when he said the administration had evacuated 90 percent of Americans from Afghanistan when he was supposed to say 98 percent.
There’s just one problem with Thompson’s reporting here: He’s covering for Biden.
Staffers aren’t embarrassed when Biden lies. He’s supposed to lie.
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Those examples Thompson gave weren’t cringe-inducing gaffes. They were scripted lies, told for the purpose of deceiving the American public.
Did Biden veer slightly off script and say 90% instead of 98%? Big whoop. The truth is that weeks later we still don’t know how many Americans Biden left behind.
More on point, we still don’t know what word we’re supposed to use instead of “tornado.”
Biden: “…you know the…looks like a tornado, they don’t call them that anymore.”
pic.twitter.com/FH6L7hHz5P— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) September 7, 2021
To that point, the Washington Examiner’s Jeremy Beaman nailed the real reason White House staffers go diving for the mute button. It’s the same reason I wish I could, except my job requires me to hear or read about moments like these:
The president mistakenly referred to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as “Jennifer” during an event in August, and in March, he said “President” Harris when referring to Vice President Kamala Harris.
On Tuesday, Biden asserted during a briefing about the damage incurred from Hurricane Ida that tornadoes are called something else now.
“The members of Congress know, from their colleagues in Congress, that, uh, you know, the, looks like a tornado, they don’t call them that anymore, that hit the crops and wetlands in the middle of the country, in Iowa and Nevada. It’s just across the board,” Biden said at a press conference in New Jersey.
Some days I honestly don’t know which is worse: That Biden lies so easily and so obviously, or that his senescence is advanced enough that he just has no clue what he’s saying or what’s real.
A moment ago I asked, what would you do in this sad and dangerous situation. But the more apropos question is: What should you do?
A staffer with real integrity would go public, maybe even resign in protest because they just can’t cover any longer for a man so clearly disassociated from reality.
A serious person would find it impossible to appear in such a clown show.
But serious people of integrity aren’t easy to find in today’s Washington, and apparently, they don’t exist inside the Biden White House.
