Joe Biden
“DON’T TALK ... DON’T TALK ... DON’T TALK ... SMILE AND CLAP ... DON’T TALK”
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) — that old, obscure white guy standing next to that young, infinitely more charismatic (and clean) black guy — is the 46th and current President of the United States. Previously, he was best known for being the U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1973 to 2009, and the Vice Presidential pick of President Barack "Pronounces Words Correctly" Obama from 2009 to 2017.
Obama, aside from being the first openly black president of the United States, is the only reason anyone will ever remember the name "Biden". His wife and children, prior to the 2008 Presidential election, had frequently mistaken Biden for various pieces of household furniture and would often bring him to the local antique shop and have him appraised. This would later prove particularly embarrassing for Biden during an unfortunate appearance on the PBS program Antiques Roadshow.
Early life and 1948 Presidential campaign
Biden was born in 1942, and was one of four children. He was allegedly[1] born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a town chock-full of both coal and small-town politicians. Biden is known for his public gaffes even in childhood, such as the famous incident where he asked FDR if he would "Stand up. Stand up, Frank; let them see ya ... oh shoot, you're a God-damned cripple, aren't ya?!" Biden would go on to call FDR's successor, Harry S. Truman, a "lying dog-faced pony soldier"; these traits would follow young Joe to adulthood.
Biden became the first six-year-old boy ever to run for U.S. President. Considered a shoo-in against mad scientist Truman, Biden was disqualified from the 1948 presidential election due both to not meeting the Constitutional requirement to be 35 years of age, and to being slow-witted (a subject on which the Constitution is silent). However, Biden eventually did attain the age of 35. And much, much more.
At age 11, the Biden family moved to Delaware. The state's segregated schools might have been a factor, as it would insulate young Joe from the dark-skinned folks he would eventually become the nation's authority on whether you were one. Biden studied at the University of Delaware before earning his Law Talkin' degree from Syracuse University in 1968. He was elected to the Listen Here Jack Council in 1970.[2]
U.S. Senate
Biden became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history after he was elected to the United States Senate from Delaware in 1972, at age 29. Unfortunately, Delaware is one of the smallest states in the U.S., third only after Rhode Island and Queen Latifah. As a result, no one can recall having seen or heard of this "Joe Biden" until the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary.
Speechwriter and actor
After a brief stint as Neil Kinnock's ghostwriter, Biden found a career as a mildly successful crime film actor. His classics include ... And Joestice for Uhh, School of Syracuse, and the original Deep Throat; this is where he earned the nickname "Jumpin' Joe Fed". He also became the leading face in Hennessy commercials and played one of the old guys in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
Biden's brief film career put him in touch with many politicians, such as Barack Obama, about whom Biden remarked: "He is so clean and presentable! No shuck-and-jive with that one, doesn't wear a dashiki, doesn't use Afro-Sheen!" Obama was so impressed by such remarks distinguishing him from garden-variety African American riff-raff that he selected Biden as his running mate on the 2008 Democrat ticket. He also hoped that Biden's penchant to stick his foot in his mouth up to the knee would distract the public from researching Obama's own personal history.
2008 Presidential campaign
Biden made his mainstream debut to a previously-ignorant America at the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary. There, he unfortunately lost to two young, inexperienced and non-potty-trained opponents. To add insult to irony, the eventual victor turned out to be Baraka Obama, the younger, less experienced, and blacker of the two. Unlike Joe Biden, however, people actually knew his name and he even inspired a religious cult. Members of the cult believed Obama was the son of God, and would often bathe in fresh goat blood during ceremonies known as "Baraka-brations". In addition, during the general election, John McCain, a Republican much older and more experienced than Biden himself, was also defeated.
According to various sources, Joe Biden was also part of the 2008 Election Process, though no one interviewed for a USA Today story even knew who or what a "Joe Biden" is. The majority of people surveyed thought he was some sort of "new Starbucks coffee-drink".
2020 Presidential campaign
For many Democrats, their choice for president seemed to be Bernie Sanders (the Oldest American Socialist), any woman of color, any man who wasn't straight, or a geek to appeal to suburban nerds. No one expected Joe Biden would try to make it third-time-lucky. His Democrat party opponents painted Biden as one step off gaga, not meaning the Lady. A 77-year-old electoral savior appeared to be a bad joke. But then, as is often the case in history and politics, the unexpected inexplicable happened: Several of Biden's strongest opponents threw in their cards a week before the crucial Super Tuesday elections. Sanders toughed it out, but unfortunately for him, he was an obvious moonbat, while Biden was a not-obvious one.
This was about the time that President Donald Trump was telephoning the new Prime Minister of Ukraine, a phone call, nay! a perfect phone call, during which Trump would ask the PM for help getting to the bottom of some notorious Biden-family grift. If Biden were the nominee, then Trump would be asking a foreign power for help getting rid of his election opponent! That would mean ... impeachment. Impeachment passed the House, but while Trump was being tried in the Senate, a funny thing happened: China let loose the Coronavirus. While Trump dismissed it as a bad cold curable by inhaling bleach, Biden took the pandemic seriously — and went into hiding and covered his face for the duration of the campaign. On the vital selection of a running mate whose life expectancy might reach single digits, Biden jousted with voting blocs until he had painted himself into a corner and he had to select Kamala Harris. Harris had not reached single digits in her home state of California and had no achievements on the Presidential stage except that time in one of the debates where she got her only traction by calling Biden a racist. That didn't stick — but Harris did.
Biden became the Invisible Challenger, seldom seen except for some video conferencing with chosen supportive interviewers. However, never seeing Biden would turn out to be more palatable than always seeing Trump. Democrat legislators in the states — also Democrat Secretaries of State who "don't need no stinkin' laws" — decreed that elections in the Coronavirus year must be conducted completely without person-to-person contact. Plexiglas shields were erected so that Biden could re-emerge in the fall to battle Trump in the debates — as well as his own mental fog. Luckily for Biden, Trump continually pounced rather than leave Biden to wallow in a self-made muddle. This improved Biden's likability, and "impartial" Fox News anchor Chris Wallace served as Biden's tag-team debate partner, much as "Candy" Crowley had sandbagged Mitt Romney to grease Obama's re-election eight years earlier.
In November 2020, Biden surprised no one more than himself by winning both the popular vote and the Electoral College. Despite a few final Trump gambits, including (1) lawsuits and (2) a riot at the Capitol,[3] the man they call Sleepy Joe was inaugurated on January 20, 2021. People's thoughts now turned to William Henry Harrison, who lasted as President for only a single heady month. However, as of now, Biden is still the President, despite predictions by everyone from the Trump children to the Trump lawyers to the makers of My Pillow™ that the U.S. Marines will airdrop Trump back into the White House and this short national nightmare will be over.
Presidency
Biden wasted no time but, the afternoon of Inauguration Day, took aim at everything Trump did by Executive Order and commenced to undo it in the same way. This included:
- A functioning Southern border
- Several oil pipelines and leases
- Women's sports teams that actually contain women
Likewise, everything Trump undid, Biden re-did, including:
- The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that would let Iran decide whether to go nuclear by waiting, or by cheating
- The Paris Accord — not a subcompact as its name implies, but a luxury vehicle toward wrecking the U.S. economy
Biden benefitted from a razor-thin Democrat majority in the House of Representatives, while benefitting more from the fact that out-of-power Republicans never do anything about it except issue absurd statements, tread water, and wait for it to be Election Day again. The Republicans had comfortable control of the U.S. Senate — until Trump went to Georgia, which had runoff elections for both its Senators. He held rallies, talked about himself, and marshalled self-pity, while arguing the state's elections were so corrupt that Georgians had the duty not to vote in the runoff. They graciously complied, and suddenly the Senate was tied, with Biden's Vice President breaking all ties.
Afghanistan
One key way for Biden to Not Be Trump was to end the war in Afghanistan.
The U.S. had invaded following the September 11 attacks in 2001 to destroy al-Qaeda for masterminding the attacks and to punish the Taliban government for harboring them. This was achieved in record time, so President George W. Bush decided it might be a nice use of the remaining military budget to install American-style democracy, including tract houses, Rotary Clubs, and drive-through beer stores. Given the annual skirmishes from terrorists in the mountains, this took the remainder of the twenty years. Biden's own nation-building favored free sex change surgery and teaching secular humanism in the schools.
Trump had wanted to pull the U.S. out, and made a deal with the Taliban, "subject to good behavior". Biden painted himself into another corner and replaced it with a pullout, subject to nothing. He confidently assured Americans that nothing would go to Hell like that previous pullout, but unfortunately, in the haste to meet the self-imposed deadline, Biden neglected three key steps to a pleasant pullout:
- Get the American aircraft, tanks, weapons, and vehicles out;
- Get the Americans out; and
- Hold onto at least one air base in case steps 1 and 2 don't go as planned.
Biden expected the Democratically Elected Government of Afghanistan would keep order after the U.S. departure, even after Biden vacated Bagram AFB and 6,000 enemy prisoners got Get Out Of Jail cards. Instead, the Afghan President jotted down a resignation note and boarded his Lear Jet with suitcases of cash. (He wound up in the United Arab Emirates, Paraguay not being the haven for ex-despots it once was.) This sealed the deal and gave Biden a handy scapegoat (alongside Trump, of course).
They say that "war makes strange bedfellows", or something; and one consequence of falling back to the one-runway airport in the capital city is that the U.S. had to rely on the Taliban to give its citizens safe passage to the airport, which meant handing over to the enemy the names of Americans (and Afghani infidel collaborators) to whom to give safe passage. Sadly, the ragtag terrorist army (which had just defeated the U.S.) screwed this up. It turns out that the Taliban are the good terrorists. The bad terrorists, along with the perennial al-Qaeda, are a new gang called ISIS-K.[4] One of their suicide bombers got past the Taliban and killed thirteen Americans. However, technically, this battle was an American victory, as Afghanistan lost about a hundred.
International aid was withdrawn and banks stopped clearing transactions. This closed Afghanistan's ATMs, while Taliban checkpoints dried up commerce faster than a Coronavirus lockdown. The prospect of halting all female employment was not good for GDP either. Afghanistan's only asset to fight off mass starvation was to sell its captured Black Hawk helicopters to Russia and China for disassembly and study; also its abandoned Americans.
Another fuse lit in the Trump years that detonated under Biden was the Coronavirus. The cynical believed the stats were exaggerated to get Trump to kill his showcase American economic engine, and the pandemic was a ruse to break election law and thrust Biden into office. These cynics said Coronavirus would suddenly stop being a problem after the election. Indeed, CNN dropped its on-screen Covid Death Count, and the World Health Organization dropped hints that the world should go back to not testing people who weren't sick. The only one who couldn't see the strategy was Biden himself. He kept wearing his fabric mask (at least when the cameras were on) and got passionate about everyone getting vaccinated, during press conferences on Afghanistan and hurricane relief.
Meanwhile, the vaccine Trump rushed out at "warp speed" — meaning without the usual testing — started to fail. It made human cells churn out millions of copies of one Covid protein, so that the body would learn to destroy it, unless the body learned to destroy its own cells instead. As everyone not at risk got "the jab", the only Covid viruses that could find a good home and raise a family were those that had mutated that protein into something different.
Biden promoted Anthony Fauci, who got the nation into the mess, to Chief Medical Advisor, and asked him for another one-size-fits-all solution. It was awkward, as Fauci had told the nation that vaccination meant they could take the masks off. But the solution now was all-of-the-above. Vaccine, masks, one-way aisles in supermarkets, plus spend workdays in the corner of the basement, huddling and worrying. Spokeswoman Jen Isuzu told the nation that only in this way could we "kneecap" the virus. Then Fauci said that even the vaccinated would need a booster shot in eight months...no, six...no, five! But that would be the last thing citizens would have to do — if their papers were in order.
Lint in the steel trap
Biden continued to perform flawlessly despite "disinformation" and "cheap fakes" prepared by the Republican Party that purported to show him stumbling down the steps of Air Force One, botching seemingly simple Teleprompter reads, and mixing up millions, billions, and zillions. His opponents sullied Biden's steel-trap mind, as though he were George W. Bush or Sarah Palin or something. However, these cheap shots were priming the pump that would eventually suck him out of the 2024 race.
As Trump dispatched his opponents in the Republican primary, Biden sensed another Corn Pop moment and demanded that Trump debate him on national television on June 28, 2024. The principals were ready, and their seconds negotiated eminently fair ground rules: CNN would host the debate, the moderators would be journalists who had compared Trump to Hitler, there would be no audience for Trump to play off, and Trump's microphone would be turned off at the end of each thirty-second response. Nothing could possibly go wrong, from Biden's standpoint. However, Biden stole the show with a slack-jawed performance in which every question...Whatever. You know, the thing.
Biden still had the pity factor. Investigator Robert Hur had interviewed Biden about his alleged misuse of government secrets while Vice President and concluded Biden was so feeble and forgetful that no jury in the nation would find him guilty. However, on July 13, an assassin in Butler, Pennsylvania shot at Trump but succeeded only at shooting off the top of his ear. The pity factor shifted to Trump.
Democrats in Congress and state capitols, staunchly behind Biden, began to imagine that the gathering fiasco might cost their own re-elections, and feet began to get cold. High-rolling donors shifted their contributions to local races. Aides insisted that Biden had a high likelihood of being attentive from 10:00 to 4:00 each day (deducting nap-time) and pushed him out on the campaign trail — and the American electorate was now prepped to notice each screw-up, like the time Biden could not remember his Defense Secretary's name, department, or five-sided workplace, but only his color.
Biden insisted he was in it for the long-term — repeating the assertion four times, which John Kenneth Galbraith once said was the tell that doom was about to fall. Indeed, Biden described unlikely events that might make him quit the campaign, such as a medical diagnosis or a visit from The Almighty. To order, he was diagnosed with Covid and was shuffled back to his Delaware home for emergency skullduggery and secret meetings. Sure enough, on July 21, he announced that he was abandoning his re-election — and one injection later, announced that Kamala Harris should take his place.
Happily, although Biden declared himself unfit to seek a second term, he remained perfectly fit to finish the first one.
Personal life
Biden was the father of three children and proud husband to Neilia Hunter. Then God, mistaking Beau for Joe, decided to take one of Biden's children as part of a bet with the Devil over the strength of his faith. Realizing that losing a child can be very difficult for a mother, God decided to kill Biden's wife too, allowing him to became a single father of two children ... two severely injured and now-motherless children. Until then, Biden had always been a mild-mannered "Clark Kent" type of person.
See also
Footnotes
- ↑ Many dispute this claim, since Pennsylvanians have notoriously poor record-keeping skills, as can be demonstrated by their lack of statehood records prior to the 1770s.
- ↑ Meetings were called to order by the phrase, "So here's the thing ..."
- ↑ Trump insisted he could hold onto the office if his Vice President would simply count the Electoral Votes "the right way" — never mind that this would show Biden how to have his VP do the same thing in every future election.
- ↑ Though ISIS-K, like Special K, are good for roughage, Biden's favorite is Corn Pops.
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