By Andrea Widburg
When leftists used to say George W. Bush was loose-cannon cowboy, the defense was that, if true, it kept the world’s bad guys off balance. In 2022, we must ask whether Joe Biden’s dementia persona does the same thing. Is he lost in the dim recesses of his own mind, leaking secret plans, or just bloviating? That question came to the fore in Poland, when Biden threatened Putin. The instant White House walk-back must still have left Putin wondering.
The occasion for this outburst was a speech that Biden gave at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Poland. The speech got off to a good start, with the speechwriter cleverly using the Warsaw venue to quote Pope John Paul II and his statement, “Be not afraid” and laud Solidarity’s and Lech Walesa’s role in ending the Soviet Union. Then it got silly when Biden said, “It reminds me of that phrase of philosopher Kierkegaard: ‘[F]aith sees best in the dark.’” No one believes that Biden has ever thought about Kierkegaard.
Days after warning of food shortages, Biden explained, “This battle will not be won in days or months either. We need to steel ourselves for the long fight ahead.” Joe Biden—prophet of doom.
Laughably, Biden said that, despite the Cold War’s end, the battle continues against “the forces of autocracy”: “Its hallmarks are familiar ones: contempt for the rule of law, contempt for democratic freedom, contempt for the truth itself.” Strange words from the most corrupt man ever to occupy the office, a compulsive liar, and the president under whom the January 6 detainees have languished for over a year in jail, without bail or functional access to attorneys.
Biden spoke of Zelensky’s Jewishness. However, Zelensky, while his grandfather was a Holocaust survivor and he lost ancestors to the Holocaust, is genetically Jewish only. He admits that his upbringing was not Jewish, he married a non-Jewish woman, and his children are Christian. Nothing wrong with any of that but there’s strong evidence he’s no friend to Jews or Israel, so let’s not pretend. Ukraine’s protection does not depend on Zelensky’s faux-Jewish identity.
The speech went on and on, with Cold War platitudes, half-truths, self-aggrandizement, and boasts about destroying Russia’s economy and stealing the private wealth of Russian citizens, even though America is not at war with Russia. “As a result of these unprecedented sanctions, the ruble almost is immediately reduced to rubble.”
There was the creepy echo of Biden’s story about the kids playing with his hairy legs: “I didn’t have to speak the language or understand the language to feel the emotion in their eyes, the way they gripped my hand, and little kids hung on to my leg….”
And of course, he yelled, mumbled, and stumbled. Grandpa Simpson was on full display.
Biden wrapped up the speech by touting clean energy, ignoring (a) that Biden has been begging Iran, Venezuela, and the Saudis for their dirty energy and (b) that there will never be enough clean energy to go around as long as leftists reject nuclear energy.
Then, just when he seemed finally to be done speaking, Biden casually threw in a spontaneous threat to overthrow or even assassinate Putin: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”