All the President’s Incoherence

O n the homepage, Matthew Continetti submits that the “goal of President Biden’s State of the Union Address” was to “reset his presidency after one of the worst inaugural years in American history.” I discern no evidence that this is true. At no point in last night’s rambling, incoherent address did Biden attempt anything close to what could be considered a “reset.” He altered neither his style nor his substance. He admitted neither error nor misfortune. He acknowledged neither cause nor effect. It was, from start to belated finish, a joke. On Twitter, Ramesh Ponnuru noted that Biden’s speech was suited to “a presidency that is going well and needs no major course correction.” One must assume that the president, and those around him, believe this to be the case.

Prior to the event, it was reported that Biden would eschew his dead “Build Back Better” agenda and focus instead on “deficit reduction.” He did no such thing. He briefly insisted that he was “the only president ever to cut the deficit by more than one trillion dollars in a single year” — as if this were a function of policy rather than of timing — and then, having done so, proceeded to read the same unbounded laundry list that has led him into the political abyss. The media wondered aloud if this would be enough to fool Joe Manchin. Within minutes of the speech’s conclusion, Joe Manchin made it clear that it was not.

The singer David Bowie liked to write lyrics by cutting scribbled notes into pieces, throwing them wildly up into the air, and then reassembling them at random. Joe Biden’s speech last night had the same tone. Indeed, with the exception of his nod to Ukraine, Biden’s address wasn’t an address, so much as it was a series of “and one more thing . . .” exclamations of the sort one might suffer through from a lazy drunk at a bar. Biden empathized mawkishly with the victims of inflation, but then lauded the binge that helped it spiral. He used “Built in America” as a slogan, but then outlined an agenda that would ensure it never happens. He lied about the things he always lies about — the protections that are supposedly enjoyed by firearms companies, the distribution of the 2017 tax cuts, that as president he has “created” millions of jobs; he shouted about the things that excite him; and he ignored the things that do not. The Afghanistan withdrawal, which he still maintains was an “extraordinary success,” was not mentioned at all.

And then there was his delivery. As a rule, I am a dove when it comes to politicians’ rhetorical mistakes. Presidents are busy and tired and constantly in motion, and from time to time they are bound to forget which city they are in or to mispronounce a foreign word. But with Biden, it is relentless. Because they must, the president’s apologists like to pretend that his shortcomings are the product of a persistent childhood “stutter.” But this, of course, is nonsense, as anyone who remembers him ten years ago can attest. Simply put, Joe Biden can no longer speak properly. He slurs and mangles his words; he struggles mightily to distinguish between concepts — and contexts; his memory cannot keep up with his folksy off-script digressions, which now end with a trail-off or a pivot or an involuntary Kerouacian riff. Unable to read or process the contents of the Teleprompter, Biden talked last night about “a pound of Ukrainian people,” confused “Ukrainian” with “Iranian” (provoking a mouthed correction from Kamala Harris), referenced “other freedee loving nations,” and praised the Ukrainian “mall of strength.” And those were just the highlights. Throughout, Biden exhibited the talent for compressing full sentences into single words that brought us his campaign-trail commitment to “truindenashendduvbapresser.” No wonder Nancy Pelosi looked so nervous.

So no, there was no attempt to “reset his presidency,” because this is a presidency that cannot be reset. I spent the first year of the last administration wondering when Donald Trump would realize that this was no longer a game and consent to be shaped by his office, before recognizing to my dismay that the answer, alas, was “never.” So it is with Joe Biden. This is who he is, and what his presidency will be like. It’s not an act or a calculation or a bout of 3D chess. He won’t change on the advice of the wise or the circumspect. This is it. The man’s an oblivious, ignorant, overconfident blowhard. Corrections will be brought only by the clock.