Friday, December 17, 2021

For Country, Party, And The Republic



A few days before President Joe Biden, on December 17, was to give a commencement speech at South Carolina State University, Interim President Alex Conyers exclaimed "This is an exciting and historic time for South Carolina State University."

It turned into an historic time not only for South Carolina State University but also for Kamala Harris because, as Van Jones would put it, she "became President of the United States in that moment, period."

From the official transcript at whitehouse.gov:

Though I’m from Delaware — I’ve got to put Delaware State up there — the President of Delaware State used to work for me.  He went and got his doctorate and said, “This is not the good job; I’m going to be president of the university.”  (Laughter.)

But, all kidding aside, of course, [Vice] President Harris, who’s a proud Howard alum, she might have something to say about Delaware State.


Nine months ago, the New York Post had reported

President Biden on Thursday called his vice president, Kamala Harris, “President Harris” while celebrating the US nearing administration of 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses.

Biden said, “Now when President Harris and I took a virtual tour of a vaccination center in Arizona not long ago, one of the nurses on that, on that tour injecting people, giving vaccinations, said that each shot was like administering a dose of hope.”

Harris joined Biden for his remarks at the White House, but her reaction to the slip was not recorded in the official video feed.

It’s not the first time Biden has given Harris an oral promotion.

In December, Biden referred to Harris as the president-elect while discussing how they publicly received COVID-19 vaccine shots.

“I took it to instill public confidence in the vaccine. President-elect Harris took hers today for the same reason,” Biden said at the time.


If we politely disregard Biden's error last December- before he became President of the USA- Biden now has twice referred to Kamala Harris as "President Harris."  Earlier in the week, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, a center-right anti-Trump Republican, had argued that President Biden should soon announce that he will not stand for re-election. He noted that Harris' poll numbers currently "are the worst of those of any vice president in recent history" and "if she winds up as her party's default nominee if Biden pulls out late, Democrats will have every reason to panic."

Biden will not do so because he wants most what any incumbent, first-term President wants: a second term.  But Stephens is right. "Middle-class Joe," as he has periodically called himself, is not getting any younger and he shows signs of getting older, dangerously. 

Neither Stephens, nor I, nor anyone who has not examined Joe Biden can make a valid diagnosis of the incumbent's health. However, if the Democratic Party and the mainstream media  continue (except for the right) to pretend that this is not a problem for either party or country, they are doing no one, except the Republican Party and its Project For Authoritarianism, any favors.

 


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