OPINION:
The thing that scares me about Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is that he is a bully. And he is not just a bully; he is a bully with a hair trigger. Look how quickly he teed off on an 83-year-old man in Iowa who simply asked him a question. Mr. Biden called him a fat liar. When a young college student in New Hampshire asked him about his poor showing in Iowa, he insultingly called her a “lying, dog-faced pony soldier.” So he picks on people who are older, younger or weaker — just like a bully does.
Unlike Mr. Biden, President Trump is able to have discourse with his adversaries in a civil tone. We are taking it for granted that we are at least talking with Russia, China and North Korea now. The bellicosity of Mr. Biden makes me feel that something more unpleasant than talking will happen if he takes office.
To illustrate the difference between the personalities of the two men I like to imagine a situation where both of them get tossed into the same prison for a short term. Within three weeks Mr. Trump would be running a commissary goods exchange store out of his cell, dealing in coffee, stamped envelopes and ramen noodle soups. Mr. Biden, on the other hand, would be cowering in his cell, hiding from all the men he has insulted who want to beat the daylights out of him.
Imagine Mr. Biden getting irritated at Vladimir Putin and calling him a liar. What would be the reaction of the people of China if Mr. Biden called Xi Jinping “a clown and a fool”? How stable would the Koreas be after Mr. Biden got angry and told Kim Jong-un to “shut up, man.” Mr. Biden is willing to testily throw these insults and more at the leader of his own country. We should expect him to be even more adept at insulting the other world leaders and to be prepared, like prisoners disrespected in the yard, to bear their reprisals in turn.
JIM FRENCH
Dakota, Ill.
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