Joe Biden is leaving workplace the best way he got here in — on a cloud of self-delusion and a rancid stench of lies.
He promised to be a standard-bearer of decency, respecter of norms and the rule of regulation.
He introduced himself as a unifier who would assist the nation heal after the pandemic, a person of integrity and impeccable character, in contrast to his wretched predecessor.
But behind closed doorways, within the devious recesses of his soul, Joe plotted and deliberate simply two issues: self-aggrandizement and vengeance.
Joe paid lip service to a seize bag of virtuous objectives however, actually, he was all about himself.
As he has been all his life.
Therefore his Jerry Springer-style household life that he and Jill all the time have dressed up because the Waltons.
Now he leaves workplace as essentially the most unpopular president in historical past apart from Nixon, in accordance with a Gallup ballot.
So within the days earlier than his failed presidency vanishes, he and Jill are scurrying round delivering set-piece speeches and soft-soap interviews in a useless effort to craft a glowing “legacy.”
His farewell deal with from the Oval Workplace Wednesday night time was the final of those scripted delusions, studded with lies and boasts and grandiose traces from historical past written by others.
Essentially the most divisive president in latest reminiscence claimed he had “saved my dedication to be president for all People.”
The president whose administration and deep-state protectors bullied social-media corporations into censoring American speech, together with within the New York Submit, claimed to champion a “free and impartial press.”
Marked by lying
The congenital liar whose profession is marked by plagiarism, lying and corruption warned of a future through which “the reality is smothered by lies advised for energy and for revenue.”
The person whose household raked in tens of millions from promoting his affect to shady oligarchs and Chinese language Communist Social gathering entities, who simply gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to George Soros, railed in opposition to “darkish cash.”
The speech wouldn’t have modified a single thoughts about Biden’s legacy. No person is fooled.
He additionally launched a farewell letter Wednesday, laughably claiming he has left the nation “stronger, extra affluent and safer.”
Nothing might be farther from the reality.
On his watch, America is embroiled in two proxy wars, tens of tens of millions of unvetted unlawful immigrants are roaming the nation, we simply suffered the second worst terrorist assault since 9/11, and inflation has ravaged the center class.
The president who weaponized the Justice Division in opposition to his political enemies and recurrently defamed Donald Trump and his supporters as “fascists” additionally claimed he was a unifier: “We got here collectively as People, and . . . we emerged stronger, extra affluent, and safer.”
No person buys it.
His legacy might be discerned in two particular counsel studies out this week: Trump-hunter Jack Smith’s final gasp was to say that the president-elect would have been convicted if he hadn’t received the election.
Hunter Biden protector-turned-prosecutor David Weiss’ flimsy, 27-page report whitewashed his sham investigation of the primary son in Delaware, which might have resulted in zero costs if IRS investigators Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler hadn’t blown the whistle on DOJ obstruction.
However the American folks noticed the lawfare and corruption for what it was and rejected Joe Biden on the poll field.
In fact, Biden doesn’t see the election outcomes as a rejection of him.
He claimed final week he would have received the election if his get together hadn’t pushed him apart.
Seizing credit score
Vainglorious and small till the bitter finish, Biden referred to as a press convention Wednesday to grab private credit score for the hostage deal in Israel, with out a point out of Trump, regardless of Israel and Arab officers alike crediting the president-elect with the breakthrough.
“In the event that they [the hostages] usually are not again by the point I get into workplace, all hell is gonna escape,” Trump had warned Hamas and Iran final month, and certain sufficient, The Instances of Israel studies that Trump hostage negotiator Steve Witkoff has completed “extra to sway [Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu than outgoing president Joe Biden did in a yr.”
However when a reporter requested Biden how a lot credit score Trump deserves for the deal, he replied: “Properly, that is the precise framework that I proposed again in Might — precise.”
So why weren’t the hostages launched again then?
As he was leaving the rostrum, one other reporter requested who ought to get credit score for the deal, “you or Trump?” Biden stopped, turned his head with a smirk and snarled, “Is {that a} joke?”
Then he turned on his heels and shuffled out the door.
It was classic Biden, a graceless seize for ego gratification that defines his character.
Sure, legacy is very essential to Joe and Jill.
It consumes the couple.
It’s a “household mission,” as The Washington Submit characterised Jill’s angle in a schmaltzy interview printed Wednesday through which she expressed bitterness about former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s function in knifing Joe.
“We have been pals for 50 years. It was disappointing,” Jill stated.
Regardless of the rancor, she is decided to burnish her personal legacy as “a healer who traveled the nation to consolation People as they emerged from the depths of the pandemic.”
Her favourite occasion was a primary state dinner for lecturers overwhelmed by the pomp and ceremony she turned on.
“It took their breath away,” she says with pleasure.
She frets that “folks received’t credit score Joe for a few of his achievements . . . I hope that they bear in mind Joe as a powerful, empathetic president with integrity and character. I imply, character actually is all the pieces, isn’t it?”
Sure. Character is future. Joe’s is carved in stone now as completely because the greats on Mount Rushmore whose reminiscence he sullied and who Pelosi laughably mused he may be a part of.
However legacies can’t be managed.
They’re the sum whole of your character, the best way you lived your life, the opposite lives you touched, the character of the youngsters you raised, the judgment of everybody who noticed your conduct.
America sees Joe Biden now for who he’s, a one-term failure, a Tammany Corridor grifter who bought out his nation, an unbearable blowhard whose solely declare to fame was that he did extra injury than any of his predecessors.
His time period in workplace was a short and unlucky interruption of the actually historic presidency of the person he tried to destroy.
Joe’s legacy is to be sandwiched by Trump in historical past.
