Joe Biden Is a National Embarrassment

By Rich Lowry

Wednesday, July 17, 2024

 

Will someone make it stop?

 

I can’t be sure how dumping Joe Biden would play out for Democrats, whether it would improve their position, further erode it, or — perhaps most likely, given how dug in most voters are — not change it much one way or the other.

 

Regardless, this should end. In interviews and out on the stump, Biden is simply embarrassing — it should be embarrassing for him, his family, and his inner circle, and it is certainly embarrassing for the country.

 

We’ve never seen a president of the United States like this. Wilson was incapacitated, but we didn’t see him. FDR was desperately ill, but he, too, hid it. JFK willed himself into the picture of youthful vigor even though he was riddled with terrible ailments. Other presidents have been diminished by the pressures of the office and of events.

 

This, though, is completely new.

 

A president who can barely stumble his way through teleprompter speeches.

 

A president who is giving a series of the worst interviews we’ve ever seen from someone occupying the office, but getting a passing grade from commentators because the standard for judging his performance is now so abysmally low.

 

A president who can’t even impress when sitting down with sympathetic influencers.

 

A president whom foreign officials have long been worried about, with one leader betting months ago that he wouldn’t be on the ticket in November.

 

A president who at times looks blank and confused, and often seems in danger of falling down.

 

Joe Biden is a proud man. If his pride has always outstripped his talents, still, he used to be better than this, and not too long ago. Whatever Biden lacked in precision or eloquence in his expression, he made up for in blustery self-confidence.

 

Now, without meaning to or probably even realizing it, he is disgracing his office.

 

The president of the United States is a representative of the country. That is one of the reasons we surround him with various trappings that are meant to create a certain majesty around his person and around the office.

 

Biden’s current state undermines all of that.

 

You shouldn’t feel sorry for a president of the United States. It shouldn’t make you nervous to listen to him. You shouldn’t worry about him hurting himself in a fall. You shouldn’t have to wonder what he meant to say. He shouldn’t remind you of an elderly relative who began to walk and talk in a certain way before everything fell apart.

 

Whatever you think of Biden, he shouldn’t be doing this to himself or to the country. Some people obviously like the president and support his policies, but can anyone feel proud of him in his diminished state? Have confidence in his energy and capabilities? Believe that he is projecting an image abroad that is good for the country?

 

It is tricky for elected Democrats who realize all or most of this, because if they publicly call on Biden to go, they have undermined their nominee in an election that is already very difficult for them to win. It is Biden’s ever-shrinking inner circle that should do the right thing. It doesn’t take data or complex electoral analysis to come to the correct conclusion.

 

All it takes is looking at Biden during any given interview or event, and wanting to protect him and the country from further embarrassment.