RUTHFULLY YOURS

Joe Biden was in some kind of foul, putrid mode at the debate last night.Many people have cited memorable lines from the contentious political slugfest, but the lines that stand out are the grotesquely disrespectful ad hominem insults Biden directed at the president of the United States.

The Rev.com transcript shows tons of them:“He’s a fool on this.””Everybody knows he’s a liar.””Will you shut up, man?””Keep yapping, man.””He’s the racist.””He’s Putin’s puppy.””He never keeps his word.”

“Well, it’s hard to get any word in with this clown.””You’re the worst president America has ever had.”

What kind of argument for ‘civility’ and ‘decency’ and ‘dignity,’ — all words Biden uses ad nauseam, is that? Some kind of bottom has dropped out. Some of these insults were so disgusting they actually made viewers feel sorry for President Trump, which is frankly a feat.

Trump can give as good as he gets, but he made no such ad hominems comparable to those. There was one part of the debate where he called Biden ‘not smart,’ but at least he had some academic records to back it up with. In fact, in all of his oppositional statements to Biden, he had some kind of fact, he wasn’t just pulling disembodied insults out as Biden did. Biden had no such backing for his insults, some of the most disgusting words hurled at a president of the United States to his face ever heard. Our worst enemies talk like that – think Nicolas Maduro, Iran’s mullahs, or Kim Jong Un, pre-peace talks.

Which ultimately amounts to insults to the voters. Trump represents us and most of us (I’m not talking about California’s illegals who created the popular vote majority) voted for him, so to hear those insults amounts to insults directed at us, too. Normal candidates sell themselves to voters as something better than their opponent, trying to persuade us, but Biden wasn’t interested in persuading. Far from being Mr. Decency, Biden sounded like the collective demon voice of the deep state, screaming its obscenities at exorcist Trump and the voters who brought him in.

Which is about par, because Biden insulted a lot of little guys out on the campaign trail, calling them names like ‘damned liar,’ ‘hey, fat,’ and ‘you’re full of sh**.’ And of course, years back, he was the author of the kinds of uncivil hearings now taking place over the Supreme Court, introducing the U.S, to the ‘Borking’ of candidates. That’s led him to where he is now, flinging his disgusting insults straight to President Trump.

Whatever that makes Biden, what’s gone now is the notion that he’s a decent guy, a civil guy, a dignity-bringer, which is what his campaign has promoted him as. Many voters, as Thomas Lifson observed to me this morning, dislike Trump because they consider him crude and uncouth. Biden played Mr. Decency to that. But now that act is over. He’s shown himself to be even more uncouth than President Trump — a nasty, insulting, little-guy-hating, dignity-of-office-disrespecting screamer, who can’t even back his insults up with facts. He loses the ‘dignity-decency-civility’ advantage with some voters right there.  Those voters can now decide if they want a crude guy with a good governing record, or a crude guy without a good governing record, who spews insults at both them and the office, just because.

Image credit: Screen shot from a camera aimed at a television set, filtered through Adobe CameraRaw.