Joe Biden lies the same way you and I breathe air. Yet for how naturally the president speaks mistruths, he cannot help but offer us all manner of tells as to his deception. “Folks, seriously” is a common one. “I’m not joking” is probably the most ironic. Whenever he says these things, you can be sure that he has just dished you out a steaming hot plate of … malarkey.
My favorite of all Biden’s verbal tics is, “I give you my word as a Biden.” This one is employed less frequently, used for more ... complicated ... falsehoods.
The implied value of “I give you my word as a <insert noun here>” is that the person or institution being referenced is known to be honest and trustworthy. It’s accessing a type of social credit. If George Washington’s nephew Bushrod said, “I give you my word as a Washington,” that would be good enough.
Uncle George was honest as oak, so we’ll trust Bushrod on this one. Or if your local minister vouched, “I give you my word as a man of God,” that would merit trust, based on the knowledge that men in such an occupation tend to be honest.
But, “my word as a Biden?” Does the Biden family have some established reputation for honest and fair dealing? Goodness, no. Joe is a politician. Even if he were more honest than the normal politician, that would not be worth much — about as much as if his family were used car salesmen.
And Biden is not more honest than the normal politician. He’s much, much less. For fifty years he’s been known as a known a fabulist and a blowhard. Prior to his joining the ticket with the Great One, Barack Obama, that was the reputation of the paterfamilias of clan Biden. Granted, Obama — in shining his merciful and enlightened countenance upon Biden — bestowed upon Old Joe a touch of that divine grace. So, Biden’s … Bidenness … was no longer spoken of among those in the know, but it was still an open secret.
And anybody who ever cared to dig a little deeper into his story came to see that Biden was pretty much a scumbag. The extent of his biographical fabulism is truly shocking. His grift in Congress, moreover, was getting into bed with the credit card companies. And of course, after his crackhead son left his laptop at a Wilmington repair shop, the perfidious operation of Biden, Inc. was there for anybody who dared look.
So, “my word as a Biden” is perhaps his most honest tell. It’s Joe’s way of saying that the following might be true, might be false, but it serves his interests, which is all that matters. At the end of the day, Joe doesn’t care about the truth. He cares about money, prestige, and power.
And it is in this context that we should read this stunner of a line from his speech in Raleigh, North Carolina last Friday:
Folks, I give you my word as a Biden. I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul I can do this job.
This was Biden’s way of saying fuck you to his doubters. Maybe I can stop Donald Trump, maybe I can’t. But the only thing that matters is that I stay as president.
The profound irony of the Age of Biden is on display for all to see, right here in this line. If you’re on the left, it’s horribly tragic. If, like me, you’re on the right, it’s pretty funny.
Scared out of their wits in the spring of 2020 that the party’s voters were about to nominate socialist Bernie Sanders, Democratic elites coalesced around Biden to stop Trump, for (as they saw it) the good of the country.
For the good of the country, they looked the other way from Biden’s record as a serial liar. He had to become a tribune of the working American’s honesty and integrity. They had to stop Trump.
For the good of the country, they pretended that crackhead Hunter's laptop was Russian disinformation. Old Joe would never helm an international influence-peddling racket.
They had to stop Trump.
For the good of the country, they denied that Biden screwed up one thing after another. He was not to blame for everything that had gone wrong.
They had to stop Trump.
For the good of the country, they turned a blind eye to Biden’s rapidly declining mental and physical abilities. He was not clearly falling to pieces in front of them. They had to stop Trump.
But last Thursday they could no longer look away. So, they turned to Biden and begged him. Please drop out, they implored, for the good of the country. We must stop Trump.
And Biden replied, no. Not because staying in the race is for the good of the country. But because he doesn’t care about the good of the country. All he cares about is Joe Biden. He has always been the small-minded, dishonest, power-hungry politician they had pretended he wasn’t.
Like I said — pretty funny!
Armand Jean du Plessis, 1st Duke of Richelieu was minister to Louis XIII of France from 1624 until his death in 1642.
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