Joe Biden's First Press Conference

 What the Heck Was That?

The View from the Middle

 

I just finished watching Joe Biden’s first press conference of his Presidency and I’m a little jittery.  I have to admit that I had to drink two cups of coffee and take a NoDoz to stay awake.  Before I get into the substance of the press conference, because there was so little of it, let’s talk a little about the format and process of it.

They created a very sterile and stifling environment where all 30 reporters were seated with perfect posture, at least six feet apart, all politely wearing their masks even when they were asking questions.  I should note here that Joe Biden didn’t wear a mask while speaking and no reporter asked him to put it on as they did to Senator Ted Cruz just yesterday.  But I digress.

It was also obvious that they had preselected the questioners and the questions well before the event.  First of all, all of the questions came from friendly (liberal) sources like the AP, CNN, ABC and the other left leaning networks. There was not one question asked by Fox, Newsmax or The New York Post.  And it was clear that Joe knew the questions beforehand, as he frequently shuffled through papers after each question to get to the right page of notes for his answer.  He would then regularly look down and simply read his answer from his prepared notes. 

It was actually kind of amusing at one point when he pulled out a list of infrastructure problems that he said he had his staff prepare.  Of course, he suggested that he didn’t do that in preparation for this press conference, but he just happened to have that list in his coat pocket.  Now, you can believe that he didn’t do this in preparation for today’s press conference if you like, but I don’t.

I would like to see President Biden confront the kind of Press Conferences that President Trump faced on a weekly and sometimes daily basis.  Not only was there not the absolutely rude screaming out of questions (remember Jim Acosta from CNN), but not a single reporter even spoke out of turn.  They weren’t even allowed to raise their hands for fear that Uncle Joe might call on the wrong person and get a question he wasn’t prepared for.  The President suggested at least a couple of times that the battle of the future of the world will be between Democracy and Autocracy (a government of absolute power, like China or Russia), and I agree.  But, it should have occurred to everyone watching this performance that this is exactly the kind of press conference you will find in China or Russia.  No real or difficult questions, no surprises, very little substance and very little truth.

When asked about the filibuster in the Senate, Joe said that it had only been used about 50 times in the first 50 years of its existence.  He then talked about how it had been “abused” just last year over 250 times.  He either forgot or was unaware that the “abuse” he was talking about came from the Democrats, who were the minority party in the Senate last year.  He also didn’t mention that 27 Democrat Senators signed a letter just four years ago suggesting that the elimination of the filibuster would be “the end of Democracy as we know it”.  I agreed with those Democrat Senators then, and now!

He only absolutely lost track of what he was talking about three times during this press conference.  I say “only” because that is probably going to be an acceptable performance for Uncle Joe, while it would have been grounds to invoke the 25^th Amendment for every other President (at least a Republican President).  He also said some absolutely crazy things during this event.  For example, he said that we will need to be building roads three feet higher across the country because of climate change and, I guess, because of the rise of the oceans.  I can’t believe that no one asked a follow-up question to that statement.  Where in the heck did he get that information?  He also said that the vast majority of people at the border were being returned to Mexico right now, while I have it on good authority that 87% are not.  Was that a lie?  Or just another famous Uncle Joe Gaffe?

And as if those crazy statements weren’t enough, he threw in some hyperbolic fearmonger for good measure.  Just minutes after suggesting that he wants to unite the country, Joe suggested that any state that wants to control their own election laws was trying to unleash Jim Crow on steroids, what he called “Jim Eagle” in an attempt to be clever.  Personally, I found this comparison to be pathetic, fraudulent and divisive.  He is suggesting that anyone who disagrees with his definition of election integrity is a racist bigot.  Yah, that kind of rhetoric will bring the country together!

He did, however, manage to improve our rank in the world in regards to infrastructure during his press conference.  When he started talking about infrastructure and was trying to suggest how bad things are here, he stated that the US was ranked 85^th in the world when it comes to infrastructure.  But then two minutes later, when reading his infrastructure cliff notes from his staff, he stated that we were ranked 13^th in the world in that area.  Now THAT is fast work for any President!  Way to go Joe.  We moved up from 85^th to 13^th in two minutes.  How did you do it?

The bottom line is, The United States of America needs and deserves better than this.  The lame-stream media and the Democrat party might allow this President to put training wheels on his press conferences, but Xi Xing Ping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un will not.  Even his staunchest advocates are calling his performance “fine” and “OK” for a near octogenarian, thus grading him on a curve for his age.  While the media and his party may want to lower the expectations or requirements of our President, the world will not.  Our enemies and even our allies will take advantage of any shortcomings that he exhibits.  Contrary to what Joe thinks, I believe there are 80 million people in this country experiencing buyer’s remorse this morning.