OPINION:
Poor Joe.
President Biden went from the savior of the Democratic Party, knocking off then-President Donald Trump in 2020, to the Antichrist in just 3½ years.
A month after announcing he had decided (ha!) not to run for reelection, the avuncular octogenarian dropped into Chicago for the Democratic National Convention’s first night. But he wasn’t the main attraction. If he were a houseguest, he’d sleep on the couch.
It was Monday night, when decidedly low-level speakers took to the podium: two-time loser Hillary Clinton (who couldn’t stop nodding), New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (who looked wired on caffeine) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (who debuted a weird new accent).
The drivel continued through the prime-time show, with boring speeches, canned video pieces and pathetic entertainment (can’t the Democrats get any stars?). On and on it went until finally, at 11:28 p.m. — long after his bedtime — Mr. Biden came out.
Coincidence? Not likely. Mr. Biden is a dead man walking. He was the family member nobody wanted to attend the reunion, but he is old and he’ll probably die soon, so let him come.
Upon his arrival on the stage, the audience offered polite applause. He listed his achievements — as always struggling with the teleprompter and his too-bright choppers. He rambled for 50 minutes, just as Cousin Earl does at Thanksgiving.
For the record, Mr. Biden didn’t suddenly grow a conscience and decide it would be best for the country if he, at 81 years old and fading fast, rode off into the sunset. No, he was pushed out by former President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer and, of course, Rep. Nancy Pelosi.
Despite internal party tensions, Mr. Biden denied any anger toward the fellow Democrats who pressured him to leave the ticket. Notably, Mrs. Pelosi was seen holding a “We Love Joe” sign in the front row.
Hilariously, the former House speaker looked less than convincing as she joined the crowd chanting “Thank you, Joe” during Mr. Biden’s speech. “Holy smokes Pelosi looks guilty as hell chanting ’we love Joe’ after leading the coup against him,” one conservative joked on social media.
The rumor inside the Beltway is that Mrs. Pelosi persuaded Vice President Kamala Harris to go along with a plan to oust the president via the 25th Amendment — a threat that would be made real only if Mr. Biden refused to step down from the Democratic ticket. Mr. Obama played a large role in the bloodless coup, but insiders say it was driven by Nasty Nancy.
Of course, she didn’t care. “I have my relationship with the president, and I just wanted to win this election. So if they’re upset, I’m sorry for them,” she said of her critics who wanted to see Mr. Biden stand for reelection. “But the country is very happy. I don’t know who they are, but, you know. that’s their problem. Not mine.”
Not hers indeed. She’ll be taking the oath of office come January, just as she has since Abraham Lincoln was president. And yet another president will have come and gone — this time at her hand.
Democratic National Committee officials told Fox News that Mr. Biden’s late start time could not be avoided “because of the raucous applause interrupting speaker after speaker.”
But it was clear to anyone with a brain that the powers that be didn’t want Mr. Biden eating up any precious prime time. They agreed to let him speak only because it would have been too weird for him to be absent throughout the convention.
What was even sadder, the president and first lady Jill Biden — still the Lady Macbeth character who wanted to cling to power at any cost — left Chicago right after his speech and flew to California wine country for a vacation, landing at 2 a.m.
On Tuesday, early in the day, the White House sent out a message saying a lid had been called. That means the president wasn’t going to do anything else of note, that reporters and photographers can go home.
It was hard to tell if a lid had been called for the day, or for Mr. Biden’s entire presidency.
• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on X @josephcurl.
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