What kind of man must Joe Biden be to accept being illegitimately put into the Oval Office?
We’ve all seen the clips. Nearly every recent Joe Biden public appearance has been an embarrassment. The media called his garbled statements ‘gaffes,’ as if they were innocent, harmless mistakes, but many have suggested far worse age-related cognitive failures. We experienced embarrassment with him, and pitied a man clearly past his prime. What seemed most prominent about Joe Biden, other than his mental decline, was his obsession with one singular goal — to be president of the United States.
He first ran for president in the 1988 presidential election. He didn’t last until the first primary, being forced to drop out when caught in multiple lies about his background, his upbringing, his academic record, and for plagiarizing other politicians. Twenty years later, he ran again in the 2008 presidential election, but dropped out after coming in fifth in the Iowa caucuses, with less than 1% of the vote. He was later chosen as Barack Obama’s running mate.
After eight years of office there, and four years out, he announced his run in the 2020 presidential election, where his plagiarism problem came up again as some of his policy positions were lifted verbatim from other organizations. The blame was immediately deflected to his staff, and the scandal seemed not to touch him.
For most politicians, such scandals end careers, but Joe Biden outlasted the scandals, and remained in office for more than four decades, really only rising above the noise on three occasions.