The chat on X at zero-dark-thirty on Tuesday — unconfirmed as yet — is that "the first numbers of deceased Western North Carolinians are in the mid-hundreds," and that's just in Asheville. Meanwhile, the old man on the beach griped — our POTUS in name only — on Monday that he "was on the phone for at least two hours" on Saturday and Sunday, so he'd done all he could for Hurricane Helene relief.
Whether or not Biden was actually in "command," as he put it during a press conference that he coughed his way through before another one of his curt exits, the optics of POTUS lounging on the beach while his fellow Americans waited on rooftops for rescue were awful.
Besides, few people believe Biden is in command of anything anymore. World leaders — particularly Israel's Bibi Netanyahu, thank goodness — no longer give a rat's patootie what the Formerly Most Powerful Man in the World™ has to say about anything. So why should his cabinet? Or FEMA?
Biden's checked-out attitude seems to be contagious. A longshoreman's strike began Tuesday on America's East Coast and Gulf Coast ports, effectively shutting down more than 40% of our exports and imports just as shoppers are gearing up for the holidays. Biden's Commerce Secretary, Gina Raimondo, admitted to CNBC on Monday, "I have not been very focused on that."
The Commerce Secretary — who was last seen claiming she had no knowledge of the 800,000-plus jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics had hallucinated — hasn't been very focused on what might prove the biggest event to hit American commerce since the lockdowns.
On the other hand, it isn't like nobody is doing anything — they just don't happen to be the current president, or at least not yet.
Not only was this good and right for Trump to do, what an own-goal by Harris and Biden. https://t.co/QddJYFGggl
— Jon Gabriel (@exjon) September 30, 2024
Out of office, Trump is getting more done than Biden can in office.
As Longtime Sharp VodkaPundit Readers™ might remember, I've never been big on complaining about presidents going on "vacation." Democrats called W lazy and out-of-touch every time he went to his Texas ranch, and Republicans said the same thing about Obama whenever he went to Martha's Vineyard or wherever. Thanks to modern communications, presidents are never really on vacation, no matter where they are.
But Biden is checked out, no matter where he is. This guy couldn't put on a show of strength if the CIA used weapons-grade AI to generate flawless images of Biden benching 375 pounds with one hand while throttling Vladimir Putin's throat with the other.
You'd think that his handlers, fully aware of the situation, would take more care to at least present the optics of a POTUS in charge. But no — they're checked out, too. Underlings take their cues from the boss and the boss is all out of Q's, F's, or any other letter to give.
So the danger here isn't that the titular President of the United States has left the building, or even that his good days have become increasingly rare (and shorter, too). The danger is that the executive branch continues to chug along on autopilot. It might be leaderless, but the president's underlings wield all the power they could (almost) ever want — with complete unaccountability.
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