It is not completely impossible that in a moment of electoral desperation, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr will be called into a private meeting with Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod and told that it's time for him to announce that he wants to spend more time with his family. But it's not very likely.
The chief function of a Vice President is making the President look good and by that measure Joe Biden is one of the best vice presidents who ever lived. The rule of thumb is that the more incompetent the man at the top is, the more of a buffoon the man just below him needs to be to make him look good. And again Biden does this job brilliantly.
James Monroe put as many political rivals in his cabinet as possible, but Barack Hussein Obama and the people around him are too insecure and paranoid to do such a thing. Monroe might have presided over the Era of Good Feeling, but the age of O is the Era of Bad Feelings. Hillary Clinton was never going to be on the ticket. Even giving her the Secretary of State position would never have been an option if it had not been a matter of pure survival, with the Obamas terrified of losing moderate Democrats to McCain.
Joe Biden, never a serious candidate, was the perfect match for Obama. A dumb old white man, to confirm all the dirty impulses of the left, while mockingly giving mainstream Democrats someone they could relate to. Biden's gaffes aren't an embarrassment, they are the whole point, signaling the end of the old American era of leadership. Their implicit message is that you can choose a McCain or Biden, another old white man, or the savvy multicultural representative of a new generation that looks like the America of 2050.
Obama and Biden are both symbols of the Post-American America. Biden represents the outgoing American administration and Obama represents the incoming Post-American administration. It is vital to make the American administration look weak, foolish and useless so as to affirm the right of the Post-American administration to seize power from it.
Biden's ego has made it impossible for him to understand the uses he has been put to. And that is part of the joke. Joe Biden wasn't selected despite his penchant for saying stupid things in public. He was selected because of it. He is there to project incompetence in order to make Obama look better. He is there to make the idea of white male leadership look like a joke. That is his one and only job and he has succeeded at it.
Biden is the successor of every dumb white male father figure on TV gawping at the screen, tumbling over chairs and down the stairs, scratching his head cluelessly at the wiser new generation around him. He is every man in a commercial who can't figure out how to start a car, make coffee or clean the house until his wife or a helpful minority figure shows up and explains it to him.
Doofus Dad is no longer just unable to perform simple tasks in a commercial, rubbing his eyes to the sound of canned laughter. He is the Vice President of the United States who was chosen to live up to that calculatingly manufactured stereotype. And he is rubbing his eyes and saying stupid things to the sound of canned laughter at press conferences.
No halfway responsible man would have deliberately chosen an idiot as his potential replacement. But an administration that has done the things to America that this one has done is not in any way responsible. If you step into Obama's head for a moment, you realize that he does not care at all what happens if he should die. A man who can't be bothered to take care of his own extended family is not likely to care one way or another what happens to a country of several hundred million, most of whom are not even related to him.
Obama truly is a post-racial candidate. His tribalism is a feint. While African-Americans saw him as one of theirs, he has never seen himself that way. His racial identity is as much a scam as anything else about him. Obama has done as much for African-Americans as he has for his half-brother who is calling strangers to help pay his medical bills. Obama dispenses group privileges only when it suits his needs. He exploits accusations of racism, but race means very little to him. Racial identity, like national identity, is a pose that he adopts on the appropriate occasions.
The post-racialism of Obama is the reverse of Martin Luther King's invocation of a society that has transcended race. Obama privileges race over character as a means of invoking guilt and group solidarity. He does not care about all Americans in a way that transcends race, nor does he care about one race exclusively. He cares about no one at all. If he appears to have any warm feelings for a particular group, they seem to be limited to the Muslims of his childhood who helped raise him.
There is nothing reassuring or transcendent about Obama's post-racialism. Like his post-nationalism, it is a symptom of a man who belongs nowhere but who can do his best to pass everywhere by appropriating identities and symbols as if they were currencies to be traded on an international trip. A man such as this is adept at speaking on more than one level, at sending coded messages that say different things to different people in a single word.
To moderate liberals, the selection of Biden sends a message that race has finally been transcended through the hard work of men and women like them. To the left, the message is that the old patriarchy is on the way out and is about to be replaced by a multicultural people's leadership that knows what a ridiculous joke the old white male power structure is. The left is not at all troubled when Republicans ridicule Biden. They chuckle because Republicans aren't in on the joke. Biden is meant to be them. They are Biden.
The left harbors its greatest contempt, not for Republicans, but for liberals. "I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy/I hope every colored boy becomes a star/But don't talk about revolution/That's going a little bit too far," Phil Ochs sang mockingly. "Love me, love me, I'm a liberal." Obama's people are singing Phil Ochs' song and displaying the traditional contempt for all the parts of the Democratic Party that aren't as committed to revolution as they are.
Biden is a joke because the Democratic Party is a joke. He represents what the left sees as the flaws of the Democratic Party and liberalism, the old white males who wanted slow reforms and gradual change instead of abrupt revolution. Obama's people could have chosen a more credible figure who would have provided useful cover, but instead they couldn't hold back their contempt.
That arrogance and contempt are the greatest flaws of the men and women looking down at the world from the capital city of the enemy nation that they have finally seized. They could replace Biden, they should replace Biden, but they probably won't. Their revolutionary ideals are fueled by their egotism. They want to overthrow everything not because they care about everyone, as they claim to, but because they truly don't care about anyone at all. Not only don't they care, but they feel nothing but contempt for the people looking up at them, pleading for jobs or tax relief. And it shows.
To the left race is a means to an end, it is not the end. Its collectivism requires enlisting individual groups dissatisfied with the system to help overthrow it in a coalition whose ultimate aims do not serve the needs of any of the individual groups. The racial identity of millions of African-Americans is a tool, like the former Senator from Delaware who somewhere beneath his hairpiece, past nerves deadened by Botox injections, harbors dreams of inheriting the job in 2016.
Biden still does not understand what he is. He is a fellow traveler, a dupe, a scarecrow of the old white male liberal establishment hung up over a cornfield to attract unknowing liberals while serving as a figure of fun to the left. And despite his corruption and arrogance, there is something sad and pathetic in the spectacle of a hollow man with capped teeth set in a grin making a fool of himself for the amusement of the Post-American crowd. A crowd that he thinks are laughing with him, when they are actually laughing at him.
James Monroe put as many political rivals in his cabinet as possible, but Barack Hussein Obama and the people around him are too insecure and paranoid to do such a thing. Monroe might have presided over the Era of Good Feeling, but the age of O is the Era of Bad Feelings. Hillary Clinton was never going to be on the ticket. Even giving her the Secretary of State position would never have been an option if it had not been a matter of pure survival, with the Obamas terrified of losing moderate Democrats to McCain.
Joe Biden, never a serious candidate, was the perfect match for Obama. A dumb old white man, to confirm all the dirty impulses of the left, while mockingly giving mainstream Democrats someone they could relate to. Biden's gaffes aren't an embarrassment, they are the whole point, signaling the end of the old American era of leadership. Their implicit message is that you can choose a McCain or Biden, another old white man, or the savvy multicultural representative of a new generation that looks like the America of 2050.
Obama and Biden are both symbols of the Post-American America. Biden represents the outgoing American administration and Obama represents the incoming Post-American administration. It is vital to make the American administration look weak, foolish and useless so as to affirm the right of the Post-American administration to seize power from it.
Biden's ego has made it impossible for him to understand the uses he has been put to. And that is part of the joke. Joe Biden wasn't selected despite his penchant for saying stupid things in public. He was selected because of it. He is there to project incompetence in order to make Obama look better. He is there to make the idea of white male leadership look like a joke. That is his one and only job and he has succeeded at it.
Biden is the successor of every dumb white male father figure on TV gawping at the screen, tumbling over chairs and down the stairs, scratching his head cluelessly at the wiser new generation around him. He is every man in a commercial who can't figure out how to start a car, make coffee or clean the house until his wife or a helpful minority figure shows up and explains it to him.
Doofus Dad is no longer just unable to perform simple tasks in a commercial, rubbing his eyes to the sound of canned laughter. He is the Vice President of the United States who was chosen to live up to that calculatingly manufactured stereotype. And he is rubbing his eyes and saying stupid things to the sound of canned laughter at press conferences.
No halfway responsible man would have deliberately chosen an idiot as his potential replacement. But an administration that has done the things to America that this one has done is not in any way responsible. If you step into Obama's head for a moment, you realize that he does not care at all what happens if he should die. A man who can't be bothered to take care of his own extended family is not likely to care one way or another what happens to a country of several hundred million, most of whom are not even related to him.
The post-racialism of Obama is the reverse of Martin Luther King's invocation of a society that has transcended race. Obama privileges race over character as a means of invoking guilt and group solidarity. He does not care about all Americans in a way that transcends race, nor does he care about one race exclusively. He cares about no one at all. If he appears to have any warm feelings for a particular group, they seem to be limited to the Muslims of his childhood who helped raise him.
There is nothing reassuring or transcendent about Obama's post-racialism. Like his post-nationalism, it is a symptom of a man who belongs nowhere but who can do his best to pass everywhere by appropriating identities and symbols as if they were currencies to be traded on an international trip. A man such as this is adept at speaking on more than one level, at sending coded messages that say different things to different people in a single word.
To moderate liberals, the selection of Biden sends a message that race has finally been transcended through the hard work of men and women like them. To the left, the message is that the old patriarchy is on the way out and is about to be replaced by a multicultural people's leadership that knows what a ridiculous joke the old white male power structure is. The left is not at all troubled when Republicans ridicule Biden. They chuckle because Republicans aren't in on the joke. Biden is meant to be them. They are Biden.
The left harbors its greatest contempt, not for Republicans, but for liberals. "I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy/I hope every colored boy becomes a star/But don't talk about revolution/That's going a little bit too far," Phil Ochs sang mockingly. "Love me, love me, I'm a liberal." Obama's people are singing Phil Ochs' song and displaying the traditional contempt for all the parts of the Democratic Party that aren't as committed to revolution as they are.
Biden is a joke because the Democratic Party is a joke. He represents what the left sees as the flaws of the Democratic Party and liberalism, the old white males who wanted slow reforms and gradual change instead of abrupt revolution. Obama's people could have chosen a more credible figure who would have provided useful cover, but instead they couldn't hold back their contempt.
To the left race is a means to an end, it is not the end. Its collectivism requires enlisting individual groups dissatisfied with the system to help overthrow it in a coalition whose ultimate aims do not serve the needs of any of the individual groups. The racial identity of millions of African-Americans is a tool, like the former Senator from Delaware who somewhere beneath his hairpiece, past nerves deadened by Botox injections, harbors dreams of inheriting the job in 2016.
Biden still does not understand what he is. He is a fellow traveler, a dupe, a scarecrow of the old white male liberal establishment hung up over a cornfield to attract unknowing liberals while serving as a figure of fun to the left. And despite his corruption and arrogance, there is something sad and pathetic in the spectacle of a hollow man with capped teeth set in a grin making a fool of himself for the amusement of the Post-American crowd. A crowd that he thinks are laughing with him, when they are actually laughing at him.
Comments
An excellent piece by an excellent writer.
ReplyDelete"It is vital to make the American administration look weak, foolish and useless so as to affirm the right of the Post-American administration to seize power from it."...Exactly what was done in 2008. You nailed it over and over in this piece.
ReplyDeleteBTW: for what its worth - Phil Ochs admitted he liked...Merle Haggard. Shortly before committing suicide.
Not Ovenready
Joe Biden is the cracker that shows how stupid the white man really is. He has been made the fall guy for all the wrong with this administration. He is what one would say, an IDIOT, a pawn,court jester, and most of all grandpa.
ReplyDeleteBiden actually has a hair transplant, not a hairpiece.
ReplyDeleteWell, they found another stupid white guy with Akin.
ReplyDeleteAkin represents the neanderthal right wing. The libs will no-doubt continue to parade Akin's head on a pike after the Repubs killed him and delivered his body to them. You'll see it deep into October. Kinda Like Banquo's Ghost appearing so late in the play.
Another "moral High Ground" reclaimed and just another scintylla of proof that the GOP is waging a war on women, they will shriek.
Only Hussein can save us from ourselves. Wrapped in swaddling cloth and ushering in a new era of forgiveness to those that choose to believe.
Loaves and fishes.. no, Shredded Cabbage Sloppy-joes and ersatz beverages distributed by Lady Michelle.
Call me infidel.
Much like Anthony Weiner is Huma Abedin's 'Beard' designed to make her look like she isn't the intolerant Islamic Supremacist of the Muslim Brotherhood, Joe Biden is the same for Barack Obama. It's a, "See, I can tolerate white infidels, I made one my Veep."
ReplyDeletewow. stunning assessments, once again. your posts are a constant reminder of the essence and importance of this phrase: know thyself.
ReplyDeletekudos and thanks.
I was pretty sure Obama would have chosen Clinton as his running mate but I can now see why he chose Biden.
ReplyDelete"That arrogance and contempt are the greatest flaws of the men and women looking down at the world from the capital city of the enemy nation that they have finally seized."
ReplyDeleteThat explains why so many pictures of Obama show him with his chin up and a smirk on his face. Arrogance and contempt.
Wow.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that Biden was Mafia/union lawyer before he was elected to office?
ReplyDeleteDan Kurt
Obama reflects the concept that any American can grow up to be President. Biden reflects the concept that any American Dementia patient can be Vice-President.
ReplyDeleteReally a great piece of writing. On the bright side I believe that the true nature of Obama has been revealed to KMart and Reality TV America who voted him in with the Dems core consitituencies based on Axelrod's prodigious job of packaging. While some of these folks may want the wealth transfer, most have come to realize that he can't produce the "hope and change" he shilled extensively in 2008, and doesn't exactly represent them. Proof of the pudding is their scorched earth campaign against Romney and Ryan that Axelrod is running this time. Obama's "Hail Mary" is that the dim bulbs amoung our electorate can be made to resent the facts that Romney is rich, is too white (Mormon, gasp!), and has a horse, and will vote accordingly. Add to it that Ryan wants to kill grandma via health coverage changes. The Carlos Slim NY Times just keeps on laying out the Obama game plan in desperate bold, blinking lights for all to see. Close election. Romney pulls it off. Then expect 4 years of MSM coverage of "Is Mormonism a Dangerous Cult?", and Ryan as Dan Quayle, until the Dems post up Hillary.
ReplyDeleteIn the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
ReplyDeleteI think the Obama era has already ended, the Majority recognizes the absolute petty incompetence and understands the danger that approaches. They will never return to the fold.
ReplyDeleteExcellent, thought-provoking piece, Sultan Knish. (Are you and I related?)
ReplyDeleteOne hates to imagine this degree of cynicism, callousness, and deviousness residing in the skull and sharing synapses with the massive ego and narcissism of our president.
Very unsettling. But what about Obama isn't unsettling?
I loathe conspiracy theories.
But while the level of coordination and cooperation required to pull off such a diabolical farce stretches credulity, one would be a fool not to recognize the level of coordination and cooperation that brought this gutter-dwelling Chicago thug into the White House in the first place, which itself makes your theory seem mere child's play.
In that context, Sultan Knish, your theory is the most plausible explanation I have seen for the White House's tolerance and continued support of this buffoon.
Biden needed explaining, and Daniel was the one to do it. Obama thought America needed a court jester. He could have picked Moe, Shep, or Curley. He picked Biden, the Lost Fourth Stooge.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting take, although we are advised not to assume conspiracy when mere stupidity will do as an explanation.
ReplyDeleteThe editor of The Daily Caller said recently in an interview that he has met and spoken with both Biden and Obama and of the two he said Biden is by far the more impressive man. Of course that isn't exactly high praise.
Well done. An interesting take and a valuable addition to the topic:
ReplyDeletehttp://plbirnamwood.blogspot.com/2012/08/joe-biden-is-national-embarrassment.html
Every WARLORD needs a sidekick to validate him!
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteMy Dad used to say "nobody is completely worthless, if nothing else you can always serve as a bad example". Seems an appropriate description of the majority of our political class.
Holy crap, are you guys drinking some conservative Kool Aid. Biden has accomplished more for America than anyone commenting on this blog. VAWA alone makes him a hero. DIAF.
ReplyDeleteLOL.
DeleteWhat has he accomplished?
This is one of the most idiotic things I've ever read. It's no wonder the GOP has no chance of winning the presidential election. Conservatives have gone completely off their rails. In the process, they've alienated their core base in favor of idiots who spew this type of idiocy under the guise of intelligent discourse.
ReplyDeleteRomney/Ryan by 8%.
DeleteCount on it.
That's right, I forgot that you Liberals have cornered the market on intelligence, in your own minds.
DeleteDo you work for the DNC?
There are military veterans commenting on this blog. Are you seriously saying that Biden accomplished more than them?
ReplyDelete"Conservatives have gone completely off their rails. In the process, they've alienated their core base in favor of idiots who spew this type of idiocy under the guise of intelligent discourse."
Liberal Talking Point #3 in every election in the last 50 years.
"There are military veterans commenting on this blog. Are you seriously saying that Biden accomplished more than them?"
ReplyDeleteI have no problem saying that.
Probably because, like Obama, you despise the military.
DeleteWell, the American military, anyway.
Obama truly is a post-racial candidate --tribalism - feint --he has never seen himself that way.
ReplyDeleteAnd, should we ask; Does he bear "resentments"?
His racial identity is as much a scam as anything else about him. Obama has done as much for African-Americans as he has for his half-brother who is calling strangers to help pay his medical bills.
But, resent as he might; that racial identity is critical for him now.
"He is there to project incompetence in order to make Obama look better. He is there to make the idea of white male leadership look like a joke."
ReplyDeleteBasically it's not impossible and I like it. But to believe it one has to allow that 0bama and his gang actually had that much foresight. Maybe though.
I'm new this blog,I like it.Well written and thought out.I will be back,if you'll have me.
ReplyDeleteThank's
"A crowd that he thinks are laughing with him, when they are actually laughing at him."
ReplyDeleteno no no. You Have that completely wrong. We are laughing with him. At people like you.
You oughtta get that looked into, champ.
DeleteThat's because you have the gift of Nihilism:
Deletehttp://www.renewamerica.com/columns/hutchison/070307
My what a moron this writer is. May I guess the Sultan believes he may be shown preference by the mighty nabobs of the Tea Party movement - if he grovels enough.
ReplyDeleteBiden: one of the most experience foreign policy Senators in the Congress; a man who has survived personal tragedy; a politician who overcame a 30 point deficit to be elected to Congress; a man never seriously challenged by any Republican in 35 years in congress; a man who knew more about the Constitution than a certain Clarence Thomas.
Biden's tenure is matched only by the paucity of legislation he managed to push through while retaining a job for 30 years - on our dime - whose only requirement is that one actually, you know...legislate.
Delete"Experienced foreign policy"??? You mean, like when he suggssted we just give the mullahs in Iran $800,000,000 to stop their nuclear program? Or his plan to split Iraq into three parts - Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd - thus ensuring three times as many wars?
"A man never seriously challenged by any Republican in 35 years in congress..."
HAHAHAHAHA!!!! DUDE! It was DELAWARE! You know who beats Slow Joe's record three times over in that context? The Yankees! In over 100 years of existence, they have never been managed by the Red Sox manager!
John Edwards also "survived personal tragedy." ' Nuff said.
"...a man never seriously challenged by any Republican in 35 years in congress; a man who knew more about the Constitution than a certain Clarence Thomas."
DeleteReally?
Are you familiar with section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012? That was the brainchild of his buddy, Mr. Obama.
How about the second amendment?
How about the first amendment?
Or are you unaware of this administration's assault on the Bill of Rights?
Sheik Yerbouti said...
ReplyDeleteRomney/Ryan by 8%.
Count on it.
23/8/12
That's the funniest thing I've seen for awhile now.
Zappa was a conservative but he'd turn in his grave at the thought of that travesty.
You defile his name.
Zappa would be appalled, sickened, and inspired to new heights of musical parody by this administration's assault on free speech, the "president"bowing to dictators, and the socialist/class warfare tone of this charlatan's entire ONE term.
DeleteObama and Biden: the amateur and the fool.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous: Biden: the man who said "They gonna put y'all in chains."
Checkmate.
Came here through Zark and gotta tell you this has changed my mind!
ReplyDeleteYou are right.
70% of Obama's 19 million TWITTER followers faked.
ReplyDeleteWhat isn't fake about the man?
"They want to overthrow everything not because they care about everyone, as they claim to, but because they truly don't care about anyone at all."
ReplyDeleteWow, what a line...!
-- Spanky
Damn good job channeling Niccolo Machavielli. If people truely want to understand how politics works (especially International politics), one only needs to read him and Cicero.
ReplyDelete-David
Biden is Homer Simpson.
ReplyDeleteYou were exactly correct... and continue in your acuity. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteYou were exactly correct... and continue in your acuity. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI agree with almost everything Daniel wrote except for this: "A man such as this is adept at speaking on more than one level, at sending coded messages that say different things to different people in a single word."
ReplyDeleteObama without a TelePrompter is in articulate in all "57 states" (of course he was really thinking of all 57 muslim countries). He is only adept at speaking what others have written for him to speak. Without a prompter or notes, he can barely string three words together, unless it is to spew the Marxist cant he learned at his real daddy's knee.
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