“A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.” – Jane Austin
In 2009, the Los Angeles Times did a story titled “Hi, I’m Jill. Jill Biden. But please call me Dr. Biden” that included this fascinating revelation:
Joe Biden, on the campaign trail, explained that his wife’s desire for the highest degree was in response to what she perceived as her second-class status on their mail.
“She said, ‘I was so sick of the mail coming to Sen. and Mrs. Biden. I wanted to get mail addressed to Dr. and Sen. Biden.’ That’s the real reason she got her doctorate,” he said.
That’s quite a startling admission, isn’t it? Then again, we can always count on Joe to accidentally say the quiet part out loud. You know, like bragging about their “extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization.”
Mrs. Biden didn’t like getting mail addressed to “Mrs. Biden.” So Mrs. Biden went back to school in order to get a vanity degree that allowed her to call herself DOCTOR Biden.
Now that’s someone who is obsessed with what other people think of her.
Naturally she chose the University of Delaware – the same institution that hides houses her husband’s Senate records and is the home of the Joe Biden School of Public Policy and Administration.
There’s an episode of Downton Abbey where the village is holding its annual flower show. Newcomer Mrs. Crawley discovers that her cousin the Dowager Countess of Grantham always wins the Grantham Cup for best bloom. Always. Every year.
Mrs. Crawley concludes that the Dowager doesn’t win every year because she has the best bloom, but rather because the village feels obligated to present their Matron with the cup for no other reason than she is their Matron.
Getting an EdD from the University of Delaware was Mrs. Jill Biden’s Grantham Cup for best bloom.
You think the University of Delaware is going to make it hard for the wife of Delaware Senator Biden to get her vanity degree? You think they’re going to put her through her paces or expect her to write a coherent, thoughtful, valuable dissertation? They knew it was a vanity degree. And they were more than happy to play along for the wife of Delaware’s senior Senator.
On Sunday, a man named Matt Bramanti reviewed Mrs. Biden’s “executive position paper” (aka her dissertation) and broke it down in a Twitter thread. He also provided a link so you can read it yourself.
This is the funniest passage Bramanti highlights:
Oh, and this one’s good too:
As Kyle Smith wrote in his National Review column “Jill Biden’s Doctorate is Garbage Because Her Dissertation is Garbage:”
Jill Biden’s dissertation is not an addition to the sum total of human knowledge. It is not a demonstration of expertise in its specific topic or its broad field. It is a gasping, wheezing, frail little Disney forest creature that begs you to notice the effort it makes to be the thing it is imitating while failing so pathetically that any witnesses to its ineptitude must feel compelled, out of manners alone, to drag it to the nearest podium and give it a participation trophy. Which is more or less what an Ed.D. is. It’s a degree that only deeply unimpressive people feel confers the honorific of “Doctor.” People who are actually smart understand that being in possession of a credential is no proof of intelligence.
My friends, I have read this document in its entirety and it is so equally lacking in rhetorical force, boldness of conception, and original research that it amounts to a triple null set, a vacuum inside a blank inside an abyss. If Ingmar Bergman were alive and hired to make a film about this paper, he would say, “I can’t do it, there’s so much emptiness even I cannot grasp it,” and it would sound so much worse in Swedish that suicide hotlines would have to hire extra staff. Gene Simmons has a better claim to be a Doctor of Love than Jill Biden to be a Doctor of Education; after all, Simmons has spent a lifetime demonstrating mastery of his field. As for Biden, she has spent a lot of time teaching remedial English to slow learners in community colleges. Which is like being a rock musician who’s in a bar band. That plays covers. At mixers. Held in assisted-living facilities. Mrs. Biden’s dissertation emits so much noxious methane the EPA should regulate it, Greta Thunberg should denounce it, and Hollywood celebrities should hold a telethon to draw awareness to its dangers.
Mrs. Biden’s vanity degree isn’t worth the parchment paper its printed on.
Truth is, Mrs. Biden could’ve transcribed the phone book and the University of Delaware would’ve awarded her a doctorate.
Or, as Kyle Smith put it in his column:
Mrs. Biden could have turned in a quarter-a**ed excuse for a magazine article written at the level of Simple English Wikipedia and been heartily congratulated by the university for her towering mastery. Which is exactly what happened.
I mean, why make it hard for her? Mrs. Biden didn’t get her doctorate in Education because of some deeply-held commitment to educating children.
Mrs. Biden got her doctorate because she wanted to be called Dr. Biden instead of Mrs. Biden.
Jill’s EdD is a vanity degree handed to her on a silver platter from a university beholden to her Senator husband – a university that is home to the Joe Biden School of Public Policy.
It’s a vanity degree to aid that Senator’s wife in her quest to appear more important than she actually is.
In that respect, Jill spending the last thirteen years proudly calling herself Dr. Jill Biden is all the more laughable.
Now folks are starting to notice just how laughable it is, and boy howdy are the credential-loving prats in the establishment super upset.
Ah, yes. The infamous “BUT TRUMP!” argument.
Well, the difference of course is President Trump didn’t get a vanity degree and then insist everyone call him Dr. Trump. Did he, Preet you prat?
They will never stop being prickly over us normals mocking Jill Biden’s vanity degree.
Jill’s doctorate is nothing more than a participation trophy — as unearned as the Dowager Countess of Grantham’s prize for best bloom.
