Here’s the thought I couldn’t shake while watching Thursday’s debate: President Biden looks like a corpse.
Of course, anyone who looks pale when standing next to former President Trump is orange, but Biden’s paleness is alarming.
When he doesn’t speak, Biden’s eyes look distant, and what’s worse, his mouth is slack. Compared to the overanimated Trump – who scowled, sneered and screwed up his mouth in a pout – Biden’s face looked like it had been dipped in Botox and frozen.
And the voice! What happened to the voice of our loquacious president? It was so whispery and phlegmy, I wanted to shout, “Clear your throat, for God’s sake!”
Biden’s performance Thursday was a revelation, for all the wrong reasons.
For years, Republicans have tried to make us believe that Biden is weak. He has deceptively edited the video to make himself look clueless, exaggerating every little bumble and exploiting his lifelong stutter, which is age-old.
On Thursday, tragically, he had his work cut out for him.
Trump, of course, Trump: He throws a volcano of lies, misrepresentations, exaggerations and fear-mongering. It seems that almost nothing comes out of his mouth is true, especially he insists that the United States under Biden has become the laughing stock of the whole world, that Putin will not attack Ukraine on his watch, that Hamas will not attack Israel.
I recorded the debate and didn’t watch it until it was over. I refused to look at my phone — which was blinking like crazy — because I didn’t want to be swayed by other people’s opinions of what had gone down. I want my impressions to be mine alone, free from whatever conventional wisdom is hastily assembled in the cybersphere. And on Friday morning, I tried not to look at the headlines, even though it was clear Biden had a terrible night.
I did a thought experiment: If I read the transcript, would I be as surprised by Biden’s performance as I was when I watched it on TV? Will his grave presentation be visible? Will he be seen as someone who manages facts and history? Are they, frankly, making sense?
The answer is surprising but bittersweet, because the bottom line will be less important than geriatric behavior.
Take the exchange on abortion, which will be a key issue in November, as it has been in every election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade two years ago.
This is Biden: “The idea that politicians, that the founders want politicians to be the ones making decisions about women’s health, is absurd. The bottom line – no politicians should make those decisions. Doctors should make those decisions. This is how it should be done. That’s what you’re going to do. And if I’m elected, I’m going to bring back Roe v. Wade.
Trump came back with a crazy spigot in the blast: “So that means he can take the life of a baby at nine months and even after birth, because some states – Democrat-run – take it after birth. Again, the governor – the former governor of Virginia: ‘One baby down, then what are we going to do with it.’ So they’re in – they’re willing to, as we say, rip the baby out of the womb at nine months and kill the baby. Nobody wants that to happen.
(For years, Trump misrepresented a 2019 statement by then-Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a Democratic neurologist and pediatrician, about what happens when a non-viable fetus with severe deformities is delivered.)
Trump’s statements are often ridiculous to the point of making no sense, but he speaks with the conviction of a pathological liar. When going back and forth on immigration, for example, he spoke strongly, but I had no idea what he was saying:
“They decided to open our borders, open our country to people from prisons, people from mental institutions, insane asylums, terrorists,” Trump said. “We have the largest number of terrorists coming into our country today. … We have the most secure border in history. In the last few months of his presidency, we, according to the Border Patrol, are great – and, by the way, who approved me to be president. But I won’t talk. But he approves of me being president, talk to him.”
I’m sorry, what?
“I’m not saying no terrorists can get through,” Biden said of the border. “But his idea of emptying prisons, we welcome these people, is just not true. There is no data to support what he is saying. Once again, he is exaggerating. He is lying.”
Again, who’s confused?
On the economy, the No. 1 issue for most voters, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Biden, “What do you say to voters who feel worse under your presidency than under President Trump?”
“We have to look at what’s left of his presidency, what Mr. Trump has left behind,” Biden replied. “We had an economy that was in a free fall. The pandemic was handled badly. A lot of people were dying. They just said, ‘It’s not serious, just inject bleach in your arm. You’ll be fine.’ The economy collapsed. There were no jobs. The unemployment rate was 15%.
“And, what we have to do is try to put it back together. … We created 15,000 new jobs. We got to a position where we have 800,000 new manufacturing jobs. (Biden means to say the total of 15 million new jobs, which is often announced by the campaign.)
Trump’s response to the question was, again, lies and nonsense:
“We have the largest economy in the history of our country,” he said wrongly. “We have never done it well. Everyone – everyone is amazed. Other countries are copying us. We got COVID. And when we did, we spent the necessary money so that we would not end up in the Great Depression, as we had in 1929. In our time is over — so we’re doing a great job. We’re getting a lot of credit for the economy, a lot of credit for the military, and there’s no war and stuff.
Yes, Thursday’s debate was painful to watch. Biden, who has remained anonymous at 81, could not make such a claim. His decline was troubling.
But, whether he declines the race or not, the choice facing voters in November is stark: Do we want a democracy, or do we want a dictatorship? The answer should be clear.
