Back at Home in Time for Some Great Debates, and Biden’s problems accelerating (posted 10/28/22)

I’m back after a fantastic but sometimes heartbreaking week visiting my mom in TN.  We took a trip to a new location each day, and though her memory issues manifested themselves regularly, we really did have a good time together. 

We saw downtown squares and old house districts in Franklin and Murfreesboro, and some great Fall colors and elaborate Halloween yard decorations in every nearby town. We drove part of the Natchez Trace Parkway and saw Meriwether Lewis’ grave.  Even on the day when we didn’t do any traveling, and the biggest event of the day was to get an oil change in my car, we had fun.

I’ve decided to try to learn some conversational German, so on my trip I listened to German lessons on cd.  Mom’s grandparents and dad spoke some German around the house, so she was interested, and had me play bits of the lessons during parts of our drives.

She thought my attempts at pronouncing some of the back-of-the-throat consonants were hilarious.  I could not say “nicht” without her laughing like a schoolkid. 

So we sat in the car while the oil was being changed, asking each other directions to Goethe Street and saying “not very well” until we both had tears in our eyes.  (Vo ist die GUR-TA SCH-STRASSE?  Nicht sehr goot!)   

The oil change guy thought we’d lost our minds.

On my last day there, we put in more than 6000 steps walking through the pretty neighborhoods in Columbia, not far from the President James K. Polk house. 

Of course I’d introduced my mom and sister to the great They Might be Giants song, “James K. Polk” when they first moved to Columbia, years ago.  And no visit is complete without me belting out at least part of one verse and the chorus.  (“Having done all this he sought no second TERRRRMMMMM!  Mr. James K Polk, Napoleon of the Stump!”)   

If you haven’t heard it before, find it on YouTube immediately.  For my money, it’s the best rock song about the 1844 electoral contest among Martin Van Buren, James Buchanan and James Polk ever recorded!

While I was gone, the polls have been breaking for the GOP, helped along by some truly amazing debates.

Everyone is talking about the Uncle Fester in the room at the Fetterman/Oz conflagration: a candidate who is incapable of thinking coherent thoughts or saying intelligible words.

Sorry, that’s “elephant” in the room.  Honest mistake.

I caught myself starting to feel sorry for Fetterman, just as a fellow human being.  But when I remember what a radical and horrible pol he was before his stroke, my sympathies are dampened.

Along with the usual terrible Dem policies – tax everything that moves, anti-school-choice, abortion even after the Braxton Hicks contractions have started – he’s as bad on crime as any of this year’s Dems.  And that’s saying a lot!

When he was asked what he’d do if he had a magic wand and could fix one thing, he said that he’d end life without parole for murderers.

Good lord!  Even 18-year-old beauty pageant contestants know that you’re supposed to answer the magic wand question with something like “world peace” or “end cancer.” 

But not Fetterwoman.  He’s all, “Open the prison gates.  You’re free, recidivist predators!  Go forth and prey on the citizens whose votes I’m trying to win!”

The three best things about the Fetterman implosion:  

1. His opening with a closing: “Hi, goodnight everybody!” (In retrospecticus, he should have just waved to the crowd and left right then.  You had us at “goodnight,” Lurch.)

2. The train wreck/dumpster fire/Hindenburg disaster of a performance offered the truly egregious mainstream media the chance to beclown themselves for the thousandth time this election cycle.  And before you could say, “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?” they were decked out in floppy shoes, red noses and fright wigs.

Some “journalists” said Oz was an able-ist bully for actually debating Fetterman.  Others said that Fetterman’s meltdown was actually pretty effective, since he provided an inspiring and transparent role model for stroke victims.

The opinion writers of the Philly Inquirer actually scored the debate and said that Fetterman won!

The man couldn’t have done worse if he’d confessed to Nazi sympathies, revealed a long-term amorous relationship with a farm animal, then knocked himself out cold by hitting his head on the podium as he jackknifed forward to vomit on his shoes.

And those dopes said that he won.  They should be driven from public life in disgrace!  (Instead of getting hired to teach at some Ivy League J-school, which we all know is where they’ll end up.)

3. While that performance should end Fetterman’s chances in PA, at least he made Biden look like a silver-tongued devil by comparison. 

Well, that might be going too far. 

Biden has been plumbing new depths in presidential performance this month, but I’d like to defend him. Or at least one of his most recent gaffes.

After Liz Truss’ fruit-fly lifespan as British Prime Minister, somebody named Rishi Sunak is the new one.  And Biden immediately called him “Rashee Sanuk.”

Of all of Biden’s flubs, this is one is both understandable and acceptable.  Because everyone knows that a British leader should be named something like Winston or Nigel or Henry.  Or Richard. 

“Rishi Sunak” might be a good name for a Persian satrap, or possibly a Klingon warlord.  But I don’t blame Biden for mangling that name, especially since he’s got an advanced degree in English word mangling. 

He’s not even good at counting words.  See his recent performance at a DC-area Denny’s that he mistook for the Democrat National Convention: “I’ve got two words: Four score and seven years ago… um… you know… you know the thing.”

Also, he thinks dead people might show up for press conferences, and he can’t tell the difference between his wife and his sister.

So is anyone surprised that THAT guy bungled a name that looks like a series of random tiles in a Scrabble game?  (Which he hasn’t played since he was a middle-aged man, during the Truman administration.)  

The new PM has only been in office for a few days, and I’ve already caught myself calling him “Maha Rishi” and “Poison Sumac.”  And I’m four standard deviations better than Joe Biden with language.

By the way, I’ve got an unrelated theory about Biden: his handlers hate him.

How else can you explain the way they NEVER are standing next to him when he finishes a mumbling, regurgitated word salad? 

Sorry, a speech.  They’re never standing next to him when he finishes a speech.

For a regular politician, that wouldn’t be a big deal.  But by now, everybody knows that when he’s done speaking – you can tell because he trails off from grouchy disoriented rambling, to mumbled nonsequiturs, to baffled silence – that he’s going to stand there blankly. 

Then he’s going to turn in one direction – inevitably the wrong one – and give a nod or a hand gesture to one of the dearly departed whom no one else can see, before he takes a few shuffling steps toward the closest hedge, tree trunk, or blank wall.

Then a minion, a flunky, or Dr.  Jill will intervene with brisk alarm, just in time to keep him from falling off a stage, or down a staircase, or into a nearby poison sumac bush.  (Double points for two poison sumac references in one column!)  Then they’ll redirect his halting steps in the right direction.

The effect is to reinforce what a doddering husk he has become, and to make him look awful.  In other words: it makes for terrible optics.  And yet none of his people ever plan for that, or make the slightest effort to avoid it.

And it happens every time!

Thus my theory: his handlers hate him.

So yeah, that was my defense of Joe Biden.  Stirring, wasn’t it?

I’m trying not to get my hopes up, but if the red wave on 11/8 is as big as it looks like it may be, the Democrat long knives will be out for Biden right after the new year, if not before.  I expect something like the scene last week in China’s big CCP Noodle-Hall Putsch, when Winnie the Xi sat there with a poker face while his predecessor was pulled from his seat by a couple of thugs and hustled out of the room, never to be heard from again.

Except with Joe, they’ll probably just hold a bowl of ice cream out in front of him, and walk slowly toward the nearest exit.  He’ll shuffle after them like a somnambulant mummy with a sweet tooth, until they’ve led him into the back of a windowless van. 

Then it’s off to a farm upstate, where he can run and play with the Fettermans, Feinsteins and Pelosis of the world. (Until they each break a hip, and have to be put down.)

Either way, Brandon is going to join James K. Polk as one who “never sought a second terrrmmmm!” (Sing it with me: “He’s Joseph P Biden with the acuity of a stump!”)

And then things will get really interesting.  Normally his replacement would be the VP.

But Dios mio, it’s Que Mala!

So then we go to the Democrat bench, which is loaded with such has-beens and never-weres as ancient Bernie, Mayor Pete, Sandy “juicy booty” Cortez (her words, not mine), and the Unbearable Whiteness of Lizzie. (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

2023 is going to be interesting.

But in the meantime, what are the Dems’ chances on November 8^th? 

I don’t want to count my chickens, but… NICHT SEHR GUT! Avenatti/ the Ghost of James K. Polk, 2024!