Much of the growing concern about President Joe Biden’s overall decline has focused on his obvious speech and physical challenges.
They are, indeed, concerning, scary, and, yes, clearly worsening. We see his garbled mind and words in the Oval Office cocoon and virtually every time he ventures outside.
The other day, for instance, the president of the United States told a Pennsylvania campaign audience, "My mom didn't live in Scranton since she was 1954." And he continued on.
Such signs of a muddled mind, combined with his worsening physical abilities, continue. Yet no one does anything about this smoldering national security threat except handlers change his shoes, steer him to shorter airplane stairs, and provide very simple, detailed crib notes that he still screws up.
For no apparent reason, in speeches, this president will yell or whisper, then salute an invisible someone in a field. In a blackly humorous way, Biden's blithe glide through garbles and nonsequiturs can seem entertaining. Forgotten now are times when some might even like a president.
Less noticed, however, and far more dangerous for our country’s future is the larger message of national weakness that this glassy-eyed, 81-year-old, serial liar projects repeatedly to a world replete with adversaries. They are eager and ready to take advantage of the once unchallenged superpower that now has a daft commander in chief for at least nine more months, absent some intervention.
The threats are not all visible yet. More seem certain to emerge as the window of perceived American weakness and opportunity narrows to the election and potential change of administrations in January.
The threats are mounting, and we see almost daily evidence in news reports from abroad as the United States and other closely allied countries come under attack in large part because our perpetually dazed commander in chief projects inviting weakness.
The assaults on Israel by Hamas in October, and now Iran, were followed not by Biden’s outright, ongoing, and unequivocal support.
They were followed instead by public kibitzing, leaked criticisms, and warnings from this White House about the tactics and intentions of the only functioning Mideast democracy and our closest ally there.
When the United States was attacked on 9/11, every single NATO ally provided public, military, and logistical support through troops, materiel, and advisory personnel at great cost in treasure and blood. Allies who were not attacked on 9/11 suffered fully one-third of the Afghan war dead.
Not one ally warned the U.S. publicly: “Don’t overreact now.” “Be careful.” “How could your FBI miss so many Saudis on tourist visas taking jumbo-jet flying lessons?” “Why didn’t you see this coming?”
To be sure, Secy. of State Antony Blinken did recently tweet:
The United States condemns Iran’s attack on Israel. As the President said, our commitment to Israel’s security against threats from Iran is ironclad.
But then Friday, Blinken, a former John Kerry aide, stressed that the U.S. is not involved in any Israeli offensive operations.
Why say such a thing? How ironclad does that sound?
That statement was clearly aimed at U.S. Muslims and Hamas supporters – I mean, voters – who’ve been street-demonstrating widely against Israel, blocking major thoroughfares and bridges.
Blinken could have ignored that question and instead addressed the world’s largest exporter of terrorism by saying something like: “You better think about U.S. power before you go attacking our allies."
Why not make the Persian troublemakers ponder what the United States might or might not do?
But that’s clearly more assertive than desired by Joe Biden, who has given Iran billions in sanctions relief recently.
To be fair, instead of attacking Biden for his Iran policies last week, Donald Trump also could have acted like a leader and said something on the order of: “Iran should never mistake anything in American politics for lack of support for the great nation of Israel.”
For some reason, both Biden and Barack Obama have consistently demonstrated an inexplicable desire to appease Iran.