Tuesday, 23 Apr 2024

Joe Biden is totally flailing on the ‘virtual’ campaign trail

Joe Biden had yet another sad event the other night, a Yahoo-sponsored virtual town-hall gathering that made zero news.

His failing memory continued to show, as he stumbled over the name “coronavirus,” forgot the size of the 2009 stimulus bill he claims he shepherded through (he was off by a factor of 10) and muttered, “I don’t recall” when asked about an inspector general fired when he was vice president — as well as forgetting that it’s now the 21st century (hey, it’s only been that for two decades).

At least this didn’t feature the technical glitches of his other events, such as the time Ol’ Joe tried to have a conversation with a pre-recorded video.

Meanwhile, Biden is dodging questions on two top controversies: ObamaGate and Tara Reade’s accusations.

Asked about his and then-President Barack Obama’s role in the underhanded persecution of Gen. Michael Flynn, he says he doesn’t “want to get down in the mud with these guys” — treating the whole thing as a Team Trump distraction.

“This is his pattern. Diversion, diversion, diversion, diversion,” Biden said Tuesday.

On Reade, he’s now simply saying Americans “should vote with their heart, and if they believe Tara Reade, they probably shouldn’t vote for me,” as he put it on MSNBC. “I wouldn’t vote for me if I believed Tara Reade.”

Which neatly lets him sidestep the larger issue — namely, that when it comes to sexual accusations at colleges, he backs the “presume the accused guilty” standard of evidence and even denounced Education Secretary Betsy DeVos when she recently reversed the Obama-era directive that imposed that standard nationwide.

Then again, “don’t vote for me” has long been Biden’s approach to questions of principle: He’s said the same to immigration and climate-change activists who come at him from the left.

But that’s all his campaign offers: He’s the only alternative to Trump, so . . .

Realizing that this might not move enough people to actually vote, his campaign staff is busy putting together a radical platform, borrowing heavily from Bernie Sanders — apparently because they don’t see any other ideas to steal. The plan is to let him wave those proposals — the Green New Deal, mass student-loan forgiveness, more steps toward a UK-style nationalized health-care system — so he has something besides “I’m not Trump” to say in the fall campaign.

Just don’t expect him to recall any of the details of “his” new positions. That’s not a Biden thing.

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