Commentary

BEFORE I GET INTO THE CONTENT of the president’s address, there were two obvious things missing, at the beginning and at the end. 

First, missing was a confident Congress.  Not only did they meekly scale down the number of our representatives and senators permitted to attend, but those who did attend wore masks, even though they were seated more than six feet apart. That does not project confidence in our vaccines.  Surely, they have all been vaccinated by now. 

The sight of the vice president and speaker seated behind the president wearing masks while he was maskless, was not only ridiculous, it was a LOL moment. He made it worse by calling attention to them when he acknowledged them saying, “thank you madam speaker, madam vice president” adding “no president has ever said those words from this podium. No president ever said those words and it is about time,” to applause.

I wasn’t alone in my observation.  “Biden’s Joint Session Mask-Fetish Party Was Totally Creepy,” read the headline over Stephen Kruiser’s piece in PJ Media.  Sarah Ferris and Burgess Everett at Politico said, “It was weird.”

Then, at the end of the address, missing was Speaker Pelosi jumping to her feet and tearing up her copy of the address with a flair for the cameras.  What are we to make of that?

Early in his address, the president boasted that 220 million Covid-19 shots were given in his first 100 days, as he had promised, as if the Trump administration wouldn’t have committed to such results or better.

Missing in the content was any recognition of President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed as Biden took credit for “one of the greatest logistical achievements this country has ever seen.”

One hundred days after shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline, ending some 11,000 good-paying jobs for blue collar workers in the nation’s midlands, he told those pipeline workers of his American Jobs Plan that “will create thousands of good-paying jobs.” must be skeptical.

Especially since he turned to Vice President Harris during his speech to say, “I am asking the vice president to lead this effort if she would because I know it will get done.” 

Biden’s address was basically a sales job for his multi-trillion-dollar fantasy we are supposed to be enthralled with because it’s his bold giveaway creatively named the American Families Plan.

Referring to his plan to tax the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, those making $400,000 or more, he seemingly thought he could win our approval just because the tax bracket under George W. Bush was at 30.9 percent. It was too high then, too.

It was typical Biden, filled with his gratuitous soul saving phrases, like “revitalizing our democracy,” “America always gets up … America is on the move again … America is rising … and America is ready for takeoff,” “leading the world again,” and “there’s no quit in America.”

Unlike half of America, Biden concluded his address with a claim that he has “never been more confident or optimistic about America,” adding that “our adversaries were certain we would fall apart and fail, we came together and we united.”  Obviously, he was talking about the radicals and moderates of his party, not Democrats and Republicans.

As for Republican input in his massive infrastructure plan, Biden applauded the GOP senators who put forth a plan, and said, “I welcome those ideas.”  That didn’t work when Republican input to the so-called rescue plan was pushed through without a single Republican vote.

Unless a courageous Democrat senator dares to cross Chuck Schumer, Biden’s new spending will reach $6 trillion.

In other news …

Senator Tim Scott, giving the Republican rebuttal to the Biden address, was a breath of fresh air to those of us who are unwilling to believe that America is guilty of systemic racism.  Even Kamala, interviewed the morning after, had to agree that America is not a racist country.

FROM STEPHEN KRUISER’S Morning Briefing come this choice remark: “I used to think it was nightmarish to imagine Joe Biden having to become president if something happened to Barack Obama. Now we’re living that nightmare with an even bigger nightmare backing him up.  A cackling nightmare.”

IN THE POLLS – While the NPR/Marist Poll revealed that 53 percent disapproved of his performance overall, just 34 percent approved of his handling of the immigration issue.  In the ABC News/Ipsos survey, 57 percent of Americans disapproved of his handling of immigration.

Now, more than ever … may God continue to bless the United States of America.