Biden’s maskless disrespect for a war hero proves he is unfit for the presidency
Tuesday was a typical day in President Biden’s life.
First, he did something incomprehensibly stupid by presenting the Medal of Honor to a senior Vietnam War veteran without wearing a protective face mask — despite the fact that his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, is currently infected with COVID.
Incredibly, he did so just minutes after White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the president would “wear a mask indoors and around people, consistent with CDC guidelines.”
And Biden did so despite knowing that the Medal of Honor recipient, retired Army Captain Larry Taylor, is 81 and therefore at a very vulnerable age should he contract the deadly virus.
That was bad enough.
But then he also did something incomprehensibly insensitive, leaving the ceremony before it was over, without waiting for the moving blessing that Chaplain Brig read aloud. General William Green Jr.
Other military veterans were understandably upset by what they felt was a shockingly disrespectful act.
“Please excuse my French. . . But what an idiot,” raged former Navy SEAL and podcast host Shawn Ryan. “The enduring lack of respect Biden has for anyone is appalling. Hawaii, military personnel, active shooting victims, the list goes on.”
“At least he wasn’t checking his watch this time,” tweeted Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas), an Army veteran, referring to Biden’s glancing at his watch during a ceremony for 13 U.S. service members killed in the terrorist attack in Texas August 2021 were killed near Kabul Airport in Afghanistan.
Both of the things Biden did yesterday were kind of mind-blowing from the perspective of America’s most powerful person.
Or they should have been.
Instead, I suspect most people reacted the same way I did and slowly shook their heads in bleak amazement that this guy is still leading the world’s #1 superpower when he seems barely able, physically or mentally, to take a bath.
I’m honestly looking at Biden now and really wondering if he knows what day it is, let alone what to do.
To say his behavior is alarmingly erratic is the understatement of the millennium.
It came as no surprise to learn from a new book by The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer that Biden’s own advisers treat him like a “toddler” for making so many faux pas that need to be undone quickly, such as the proposal to remove Vladimir Putin from power. and he admits that he feels tired, as Foer says, because of “physical deterioration and the dulling of the mental faculties with time,” and has very few public functions before 10 a.m
Let’s face it, it’s no surprise to anyone, is it?
Even the vast majority of Democrats (69% according to the latest polls) think he’s too old to be president, and the idea that he might try to serve another four-year term is as startling as it is terrifying .
It’s not just the way he regularly stumbles down the steps of Air Force One, falls off bikes, falls flat on his face on stage — or just wanders around seemingly dazed most of the time that’s most concerning.
No, it’s the way his brain just doesn’t seem to work the way it used to and how it would be sorely needed for someone who holds the Oval Office and is making endless important life-or-death decisions.
As I wrote in June, I was particularly shocked when he recently ended a gun control speech by saying, “God save the Queen, man.”
Why would he say that when my Queen, Elizabeth II, died a year ago this Friday?
He was even in London for her funeral!
Biden’s shocking memory loss was just as disturbing as the time he asked during another speech, “Jackie, are you here?” as he searched the room for Jackie Walorski, an Indiana congresswoman who died in a car accident a month earlier and whose death he had greeted with a heartfelt public expression of condolences.
This is not normal behavior.
Usually, people do not forget the deaths of those to whom they recently personally paid tribute.
Doing it once can be attributed to a careless slip of the tongue, but continuing to do it is certainly a sign of serious cognitive problems.
The sad, troubling reality is that every time President Biden appears in public now, everyone – including his own White House staff – holds their breath to see what verbal mistake he’s going to make, what major US policy he could suddenly and dangerously rewrite what if he manages to stay on his own two feet.
As my Post colleague Michael Goodwin wrote on Wednesday, it’s becoming increasingly painful that Democrats should fire Biden as their 2024 nominee because even most Democrats don’t want him running again, not least because of the corruption scandals surrounding his Son Hunter know getting closer to devouring the President as well.
I agree.
But I fear that Joe Biden, like his likely Republican opponent Donald Trump, is far too stubborn, self-centered, and power-hungry to just willingly quit what they both think is the best job on the planet.
He would have to be dragged out of the race screaming and kicking like the toddler his staff thinks he is.
So Americans are left with no choice but to watch with increasing despair as the President of the United States continues to weaken and degrade the country’s greatest office with each passing day, with every move he makes, and with every utterance in his mouth.
What happened yesterday in the East Room of the White House was not an anomaly.
It’s the new normal for President Biden, and things are only going to get worse as he gets older and starts losing weight.
America deserves better than this unedifying, embarrassing farce.
