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Monday, December 7, 2020

Bidenisms

President Trump was roundly mocked by the liberal press for his awkward way of phrasing things. Sometimes the criticism was justified, sometimes it wasn't. Now Mr. Biden appears as though he'll surpass his predecessor in cringeworthiness although in his case our delinquent media will surely choose not to take notice.

Indeed, he's not even in the White House yet and already he's providing plenty of ammo for late night comics, at least those intrepid enough to risk the opprobrium that attaches to making merry at the expense of a liberal Democrat.

Here's an example. Last week Mr. Biden delivered himself of this mathematical head-scratcher:
Christmas is going to be a lot harder. I don’t want to scare anybody here, but understand the facts — we’re likely to lose another 250,000 people dead between now and January. You hear me?
Frightening stuff, to be sure, but on what data was this claim based? Jim Geraghty at NRO took the trouble to do the math:
I am all for taking the virus seriously, but there is such a thing as fearmongering, and precision counts in public statements about a topic as serious as this. The United States suffered about 3,000 deaths from the coronavirus yesterday. There are 27 days left in this awful year. If we lose 3,000 people per day for 27 days, we will see 81,000 deaths. That will be terrible, but that will not be “another 250,000 by January.”

If we are generous and assume Biden meant the end of January, another 3,000 deaths for another 31 days would be 174,000 deaths — still well short of the 250,000 that Biden predicted.
Imagine the hooting from the media if Mr. Trump had said something so ridiculous. As it happened, the talking heads at MSNBC and CNN must've all been on coffee break at the moment Mr. Biden chose to put his mathematical proficiency on display.

Throughout the campaign, candidate Biden promised in so many words that he'd get us out of the pandemic. His administration would do things better. He'd listen to the experts. He'd follow the science. So now that he seems to have been elected what will he do to relieve us of our covid-induced misery? Well, he's going to ask us to wear masks for a hundred days.

That's it? Wear masks? After consulting with all of his experts about what to do about the pandemic and after all his promises to fix the problem the most he offers us is a reiteration of the same advice we've been getting from every fifth grader for the past nine months?

Then there was the bizarre promise to resign from office if he and his Vice-President, Kamala Harris, ever had a serious disagreement:
When we disagree, so far it’s been just like when Barack and I did. It’s in private. She’ll say, "I think we should do A, B, C, or D," and I’ll say, "I like A, don’t like B and C." Like I told Barack, if I reach something where there’s a fundamental disagreement we have based on a moral principle, I’ll develop some disease and say I have to resign.
This was stunning. Why would the president resign if he had a disagreement with the vice-president? Was this some sort of slip of the tongue in which Mr. Biden inadvertently admitted that he's just a figurehead and Kamala Harris is really the power behind the throne? Was it a Freudian admission that the plan all along has been for him to resign so that the far-lefty Ms. Harris could seize the reins of power?

Some say he was joking. Maybe he was, but it doesn't sound like a joke and nobody, including Mr. Biden, was laughing. Watch the video and decide for yourself:
At the rate the president-elect is churning out these Bidenisms the electorate will be chortling so heartily by the end of his first term, if he's still around four years hence, that he'll be re-elected in a landslide just for the entertainment value.