They photoshopped that zoom meeting. He’s actually watching Schitt’s Creek.
— Zach Ryan (@poli_text) August 15, 2021
Post title is a play on the famous Biden quote "Why, why, why, why, why, why, why?"
I don't know if that photograph really is a leak of secret information. Here's what bothers me about it. There's Biden sitting behind a table that's way too big for one man, and his advisers are heads on the TV. That was released by the White House yesterday, presumably to convey the message that Biden is on duty and working hard and to appease us as we're watching TV, seeing Afghanistan collapse in a weekend.
We feel bad and confused and outraged, but we can only sit helplessly watching the TV. And what the White House tries to spoonfeed us is Biden stranded at a big table staring at a TV screen. Biden should have been sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office facing us, speaking directly, explaining, comforting, demonstrating that he is the President.
Why didn't we get that? (Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?) Is it that no one noticed that it would be a good idea — it's what's expected, it's what other Presidents would do? Did they just have no idea what would be appropriate to say or fear that anything they say will be used against them in the political discourse and that leadership must wait until partisan interests show the way? Or is it that Joe Biden wasn't in a presentable mental state over the weekend and had to be kept off video camera? It had to be a still. Prop him up in a chair. That's the best we can do. Look! He's working. He's alive. His eyes are open. Isn't that enough?
This morning I'm seeing, "White House weighs response as Biden faces mounting criticism over Afghanistan crisis/Democrats on Capitol Hill and former Obama administration officials joined Republicans over the weekend in publicly criticizing the president’s handling of the situation" (NBC News). The White House is doing the best it can.
White House officials were discussing how Biden should address the Taliban’s rapid rise to power, a senior administration official said late Sunday, acknowledging there is a sense that the American people wanted to hear from the president. Biden could make a speech from the White House early this week, but no final decision had been made....
It's not even Biden who's "weighing" what the hell to do. Just "White House officials." And they're just acknowledging we'd like "to hear from" the President. He could make a speech. Maybe tomorrow. Or the next day. Haven't really finalized the plan yet....
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Let the conspiracy theories begin.
Also, it looks like intelligence assets were outed. Paging Valerie Plame...
The photo is a terrible one for many reasons. But foremost because he looks tiny and distinctly not powerful or strong in such an enormous room surrounded by empty chairs.
Clint Eastwood, anyone?
Leave Joe alone. He is on vacation. He has screwed up so many things in 7 months, he needs some time away.
Bad lighting. The stark shadow of Nemesis can be clearly seen in the picture.
At least he's not wearing a mask.
There is also of the issue of whether this is really an old picture from earlier year. The the time difference (2 hours) on the London and Moscow clocks reflect standard time, while the current daylight savings time difference is 3 hours (London is on DST, Moscow stays on standard time).
"But, shortly after the photo was uploaded, a host of accounts noticed an error among the row of clocks on the wall, namely in the time difference between London and Moscow. The time for London read 16:29 (4:29 p.m.) and 19:29 (7:29 p.m.) for Moscow, giving it a three-hour difference.
"While Moscow is three time zones ahead of London, the U.K. is currently observing British Summer Time, meaning its clocks have gone forward by an hour and will not go back until October.
"Russia has not observed Daylight Saving Time since 2014, which explains why it is only currently ahead of the U.K. by two hours rather than three.
[...]
"Internet sleuths were quick to notice the error and while some believed it was simply that the clocks were wrong, others speculated the photo used had been taken earlier in the year.
[...]
"Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment."
https://www.newsweek.com/london-moscow-clocks-joe-biden-photo-sparks-wild-conspiracy-theories-1619637
Biden’s “Potemkin” Administration faces the “What do we do now?” question for an utterly predictable situation.
Ozymandias
It's not even Biden who's "weighing" what the hell to do. Just "White House officials."
But wasn’t that the point of the first Trump impeachment? Am I the only person who remembers that the origin of that contretemps was Lt. Col. Vindman testifying that Trump was not doing what the National Security “consensus” dictated that he do?
That picture made me sad. And I don't even like or respect the guy. The President's body language is all wrong. It's the bowed back with the neck sunk down and the hand to the mouth that makes him seem tired and not at all confident. I realize in looking at this picture how much he needs Dr. Jill beside him to have her vitality bolster his. But that would be wildly inappropriate here I guess. Or maybe not.
The Presidency is a lonely job isn't it? I can see how it does really age a person. Well...if there's any aging left to do. Which I guess until you're actually dead there would be.
As to some kind of security breach, well, the whole thing is a massive failure of security isn't it? Why should Doha station be any safer than the thousands of Afghan citizens who are now targets of the Taliban because they worked with us.
"White House Officials" is the tell.
Somebody slipped Biden White House Officials the wrong deck of marked cards and now they're surprised that the sting is falling apart.
Sure am glad we have returned to “normal”. SNAFU from Obama/Biden.
Biden should have been sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office facing us, speaking directly, explaining, comforting, demonstrating that he is the President. Why didn't we get that? (Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?)
Probably because the Biden White House relies on their flying monkeys in the establishment media to prepare the information battle space for them in advance of attempting any such thing.
It was pointed out on Twitter that the clock on the display show the time difference between London and Moscow as 3 hours. the UK time change was in March, and the time difference is now 2 hours. Is this just a stock photo, to show him 'working'?
At this point, does it even matter?
My understanding is that he was last seen Tues. And won't be available until this Wed.
Presidents are supposed to lead-He is the public face of America. Think about it.
The world is laughing at us, and rightly so. the demented touchy-feely uncle joe is the 'leader' we elected.
And now the latest: members of Congress complaining that they’ve heard “more from the Taliban than from Biden.” I guess this is some of the “leading from behind” he learned from Obama?
Twitter also pointed out the clocks are set to Standard Time rather than Daylight Savings Time. So the suspicion is this is a photograph of Biden from before March.
I strongly suspect that Biden undergoes a treatment for his dementia during weekends in Delaware that render him incapable of appearing in front of cameras looking remotely normal. There it is - a president who cannot answer the famous call at 3 a.m. Lord knows who makes decisions during Biden's recovery periods.
The clocks seem to be wrong. They are showing Standard time for the difference between London and Moscow when we're in Daylight Savings Time. The difference should be two hours, not three is this image some type of photoshop?
Based on his campaign and the debates is anyone surprised? And if you are surprised, how dumb are you? It's impossible for me to care about this sort of thing, we already knew "Good Ol' Joe" was half-senile and his advisors were calling the shots along with Dr. Jill. This just cofirms it.
And this isn't a case of advisors sabotoging the Senile Presidents wishes, Biden and his left wing advisors and Dr. Jill pretty much agree on everything. There's no point in saying "Let Biden be Biden". And if we get rid of Biden, we get Kamala Harris. why would that be an improvement?
We all know why Biden's not giving an address behind a desk at the White House - he's simply not capable of projecting anything reassuring - and maybe not even coherently reading sentences from a teleprompter - due to his mental decline.
After last November's election, I told an attorney I worked with that I expected Biden to be gone by Memorial Day 2021. I got a few moments of silence and then a 'why?'. Seems the MSM had done such a good job of covering up for Biden, my colleague was unaware of all of the mental lapses and confusion that Biden had already displayed during the campaign - the the long pauses, losing his place, the misspeaking, the hair-trigger anger when challenged, etc.
My prediction was obviously wrong. Maybe I should have said Labor Day.
As much as I dislike Twitter and loathe Jack Dorsey - and include them among the culpable for Biden being President - Twitter is a platform where you get stories and video clips that the MSM suppresses and that you might otherwise never see.
Of course, what's available on Twitter is the net, after Twitter suppression of both stories and users. You're left to imagine how much worse things really are.
My mom had to move my dad (who's 92) into skilled care (nursing home)last week. I was with him yesterday. The simularities in facial expression between my dad, and Joe Biden are
terrifying. My dad knows what's going on; but Also knows that he's powerless to do Anything more, than work on jigsaw puzzles. The World, has passed him by
My dad is a combat veteran (Korea 52-53), then was a mechanical engineer for 50 years. He's earned his rest. What's Joe done..... EVER?
You're expecting an awful lot from a feeble cognitively declining old man who has been wrong on just about everything for his entire life. On the bright side there are no more mean tweets and it's OK for the Taliban to post on Twitter but not Bad Orange Hair Man.
Also on the plus side, with our open boarders policy the Taliban and every other terror group on the planet has full access to the US. Hell, we'll even give them some walking around money and a free ride to Anywhere USA. They get to use the weapons we left to the so called Afghan army to wage Jihad on a sorry asses. We also get an extra dose of Covid in the bargain.
What a great time to be a Jihadist.
...and speaking of standard, we've impeached Presidents for much, much...much less.
Sally327 pointed out....
Well...if there's any aging left to do. Which I guess until you're actually dead there would be.
Hey! Death doesn't mean you have to stop!
the reanimated corpse of Ruth Bader Ginsburg served How Many years, after Her death?
As Big Mike pointed out; The Whole Problem with Trump, was that he had the gall to think that HE was in charge. Jo Biden KNOWS who is in charge, and it was NEVER Jo Biden
The photo has been altered and is a fake. The "tell" is that the lower right hand panel on the screen has been darkened to hide the cartoon channel.
"The Presidency is a lonely job isn't it? I can see how it does really age a person. Well...if there's any aging left to do."
Last time I checked he'd been running for the office since 1988.
It's like the dog who chases the car and finally catches it...now what?
I can't believe he hasn't addressed the nation on this yet. The optics are terrible and just feed into the belief that he's a weak commander-in-chief.
He can't possibly come out and blame Trump for this. That would be the end.
There is a newly published by no means perfect but very well done long-form National Geographic online piece on the loss of Afghanistan. Given the detail and quality of the story, it is painfully obvious that National Geographic was far better prepared for the fall of Afghanistan than the U.S. Administration, Joint Chiefs or our Intelligence services.
So damn depressing. I weep for all the young Afghan women (I have heard that 2/3 of the population of Kabul is so young they never lived under Taliban rule).
No one's hands are clean in this one.
Side note: someone shared with me two images of U.S. CH-46 helicopters (I've ridden in one, an unpleasant if thankfully uneventful flight) coming in from image right to flair for landing in obviously war-torn urban settings. One image was the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul just the other day. The other was the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon in 1975. The images were so startlingly similar that I distrusted the provenance of the Saigon one... just too convenient, thought I. So, I looked it up and found a 1975 PBS story using the image. Sure enough, History may not repeat but it does rhyme. In looking for that confirmation, I found a story of a Freshman senator from Delaware rejecting President Ford's request for funds to forestall the total collapse of Saigon. Given that young Senator's first hand experience, one would like to thing the lessons then learned would have better equipped him for this.
"Here's what bothers me about it"
It bothers you that Biden looks as helpless and hapless as he is and the picture shows the WH being as foolishly incompetent as it is?
The picture is a visual gaffe--unintentionally exposing the truth.
The picture is obviously old. Ron Klain's people aren't smart enough to take DST into consideration.
"Consider the possibility we are led by idiots..."
Why didn't we get [Biden...sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office facing us, speaking directly, explaining, comforting, demonstrating that he is the President]? ... Is it that no one noticed that it would be a good idea — it's what's expected, it's what other Presidents would do? Did they just have no idea what would be appropriate to say or fear that anything they say will be used against them in the political discourse and that leadership must wait until partisan interests show the way?
Well, this is the team that thought it was a *great* idea to choose September 11th as the date by which all troops would be withdrawn.
President Biden passes the time while waiting for General Milley to bring an ice cream treat,
https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk02VMieOJXZg49qPh7QzWd_FYl_Viw:1629124188564&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=biden+ice+cream&client=firefox-b-1-d&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjA7bbE4LXyAhXDUjUKHen5BkUQjJkEegQIBBAC&biw=1290&bih=970
If the goal of the photo was to make me feel sorry for Biden it worked.
Even as a conservative it makes me sad to see what they’re doing to that poor man.
The Democratic Party really doesn’t have a heart.
Helluva job, Joey! Wonderful pic, reinforces the feeling that this administration is not even trying any longer.
Where’s “Bearclaw” Vindman when we need him?!?!
Biden should have been sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office facing us, speaking directly, explaining, comforting, demonstrating that he is the President.
So many problems with that sentence. The biggest one is that Biden is completely unable to speak directly, explain anything, be comforting to anyone, and unable to demonstrate that he is the President. Every single time he opens his mouth the world laughs at what America has done to its self. The ONLY thing worse at this point than a Presidentish Biden would be a Presidentish Harris. America is at such a sad place right now. The puppet masters behind Biden have managed 4+ years of destruction in only 7 months. Just imagine what they can do in the next 42!
What they have done in Afghanistan is turn a crappy situation into a sh*t-nato. They have the opposite of the Midas touch. Everything they touch turns to sh*t. That would be bad enough but when you add in the lives lost and those that will be...
What they have done in Afghanistan is turn a crappy situation into a sh*t-nato. They have the opposite of the Midas touch. Everything they touch turns to sh*t. That would be bad enough but when you add in the lives lost and those that will be...
I see he has the brown beaded bracelet on in the picture. Signifying pronouns of the day or some other meaning?
Sanders once said "Biden is corrupt"
The left still stick together - corruption or not.
Proof of life.
And nothing from Kamala, Psaki on vacation for a week.
This from Richard Fernandez:
The most tragic thing about Joe Biden’s cascade of failures is what it reveals about the man and his leadership team as a whole. He never had the capability to anticipate the problems which now overwhelm him and still less appears to possess the capacity to improvise a solution. Reality, so long kept at bay by the media narrative, is now inside his OODA loop and pulling ahead. What began with the border crisis was joined by the covid outbreak. The trillions of dollars in stimulus turned on him to become inflation. Without a pause Afghanistan came out of the box months ahead of his scenario. Now with stunning speed, Kabul has almost fallen. Before he can react to one thing, yet another challenge emerges. Each time the loop goes round he is further and further behind.
Keep in mind, this guy was elected, supposedly in a fair election. Which is to say a majority of voters wanted this guy. It's one thing to have a fool in an office o power and influence. It's another to have a majority of the voters be fools.
I don't think the flags in the background are being displayed in the correct order. I see the US flag followed by the Presidential flag and then the Army flag, which is correct because the Army is the senior service in the US, but then you have the Marine Corp flag followed by the Navy flag when the Navy is older than the Marine Corp, by about a month. Then you have a flag I don't recognize but has battle streamers on it, followed by the youngest of all the services, the Space Force and finally the Coast Guard flag. Surely the CG flag should be before the SG flag.
Obama's third term
I'm amazed the White House released this photo. I thought at first it was an out-of-context picture used by dishonest partisans to make the President look alone and lost and weak. I thought at first it was a picture taken before everyone had arrived for a meeting.
But no. It was actually released by the White House. It looks terrible. It doesn't register at all that Biden is talking to people on that faraway screen.
Most of all, it makes Biden look abandoned.
"And nothing from Kamala, Psaki on vacation for a week."
Harris is dumb but she's not that dumb. She wants no part of this shit-show.
She's already tied to the Biden anchor...becoming the face of this would be the end of any chance she has for '24.
I did not notice the TV. I saw “…met with their security team…” and saw a bunch of empty chairs. Thus I saw it as a Kinsley gaffe.
Remember the period from 1982-1985 when the Reagan Administration quietly complained there was no one to talk to at the Kremlin? Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko were dead, dying or physically and mentally incapacitated most of that time. Is the U.S. experiencing a similar event now? Are any of our allies quietly complaining that there's no one in the White House they can talk to? Is it time for 25A?
Which is to say a majority of voters wanted this guy.
Worse still, a majority hated Trump so much that they would vote for an obviously mentally defective candidate instead.
Hate makes you stupid. The worse part is that what’s waiting in the wings might be a down grade.
Eric observed:
"He can't possibly come out and blame Trump for this. That would be the end."
That is what his "advisers" were doing on the Sunday morning programs yesterday. Also, you see it in these threads from Chuck and now Steve Uhr. I suspect when they finally get Biden animated enough to face a camera, he will do exactly that, blame Trump, and the media will run with it, but Biden is the one that has to start this propaganda effort off.
I think the stress of this is going to break Biden--not that he is functioning well anyway. If he lapses into a catatonic state, they'll have to remove him.
Get ready for Kamalarama. She's black, she's beautiful, she's South Asian, she's ready to rock your world. Vogue covers? Vague covers GALORE! Just wait until she sits down with Syria's Al-Assad and his charming and chic wife Asma. TWO roses in the desert...
And, she was in the room where it happened--she was the last person our Sexy Prexy Joe Biden talked to before he announced we were LEAVING Afghanistan!
"It's another to have a majority of the voters be fools."
But the majority of voters are fools. The average person in the U.S. has an IQ of less than 100...
I'm no genius, but half the time I interact with strangers (especially in government jobs), it feels like I'm talking to my dog.
He can't possibly come out and blame Trump for this. That would be the end.
------
I fully expect him to do just that.
Take a good hard look at what happened in the last week in Afghanistan. That is our federal government doing, apparently, the best that it is capable of today. Don't ever forget this as we are asked to bend the knee to their policies going forward on a variety of issues of the day. There is no reason at all to believe the people in charge of the health and welfare of the America people are any more competent than the people who arranged our withdrawal from Afghanistan. Think about this when you are proposing the federal government take on any kind of responsibility for your life. This event is clarifying, or should be if we are any longer capable of self-reflection and learning. I am not optimistic.
Part of this is the East Coast mania for taking August off. It's absolute. It blew my mind when I first moved here. "What? Everybody just up and leaves their post all at once for about three weeks?" It's the damndest thing. The rest of the country doesn't work this way...not in my recollection anyway.
Gerda Sprinchorn said...
I'm amazed the White House released this photo
Actually, the picture itself makes sense.
It's the middle of Covid with everyone working remotely. No one in the same room, but all hard at work
The Trouble IS. The picture is 3 or 4 months old.
It's from the Middle of Covid; back when everybody was working remotely....
Why THE HELL did they release THAT PICTURE, NOW?
Bill Crawford said...
At least he's not wearing a mask.
His mask is there right by his hand.
The first one that talks about this from the administration is going to be left holding the bag. Nobody wants to step up.
I swear watching the White House operations is like watching people who think the West Wing tv series was reality and they can just narrative their way out of any situation. Unfortunately for them, there isn't some scriptwriter that magically makes everything work when you spout some left wing policy.
Anyone else here the song "Who are you? Who, Who, Who, Who?" Or is that just me?
My favorite response to "the clocks are wrong for this time of year" was this from Twitter:
You don't think it could be something stupidly obvious, like maybe the briefing room at Camp David isn't used that often, and those
clocks are so old they have to be changed manually, and no one got around to it yet?
All the times are correctly in sync with each other, except for Moscow. In particular, the DC and London times have the correct difference (5 hours).
So the claim is that this briefing room has the wrong local time, and no one has fixed it in the four and a half months since the US went on DST.
Um, no
Congressional blind squirrel Jackie Speier (D, of course) told MSNBC this debacle is “an intelligence failure”.
There are various articles speculating or showing that the photo of Biden at the Camp David conference table in front of a monitor with multiple participants, and time clocks above the screen is photoshopped.
This is the problem with trying to do a 'Weekend at Bernie's" Presidency. You can't possibly cover all of the angles, speeches, photos, and actual interactions needed to be a President. It's nearly impossible to prevent him from having to interact with the world in an un-choreographed way at some point. And crises? Fuggedaboutit. He can't do it. And the problem is, neither can Kamala.
Do you think we Americans are the only ones who can clearly see this and know what it means? Not just that we have an incompetent as President, but that our agencies, bureaucracies, and media worked tirelessly to put him in this place and tried to hide the truth from the world. But in the end, you cannot hide from reality.
For the bad players around the world, the game board just opened up.
There are rumors that it was Jill Biden who kept Joe at Camp David. I believe this even if the rumors have no actual evidentiary link to anyone. I think Mrs Dr. Jill Biden knows how imperative it is to keep Biden from situations that might require his presence in a room with other people for more than an hour at a time. A disaster like this requires Biden in meetings all day long, or to be conspicuously absent in the presence of dozens of people. This is easier to manage if he isolated from most staff in either Delaware or Camp David. I think it even likely this was why Camp David was chosen precisely this weekend and not immediately previous ones.
There is a second photo on the White House Instagram site which was taken 26 minutes earlier from a slightly different angle. He's wearing a different shirt among a few other differences.
Terrible optics (and instincts by whomever decided to release it), but if you know how SCIFs work, this actually makes some sense. Well, except for the actual photo taken in the SCIF.
With Trump gone, there won't be any more mean tweets. Thank God for that. So what if inflation is raging out of control, the border has collapsed and the Taliban are back in power. No more mean tweets! /snarc
What's frightening about this dotard's decline is not the decline itself; it's because it began at such an amazingly low baseline.
We should not forget that other strange photography released by Biden's White House, the one featuring a giant Biden and his wife alongside the child-sized Carters. This one flips that. There's a tiny Biden with no one else. Then again, maybe his advisors are in the room with him but so tiny we cannot see them.
Somewhere out there, Corn Pop is laughing his as off.
Given the images from Vietnam 1975 and now - the Chinook above the US embassy, the desperate people clinging to the sides of rising planes - I could not but help think of this one when I saw that WH release.
https://i.imgflip.com/5jszpe.jpg
That photo shows a lot of emptiness, with a small old man at the margin of things. It seems oddly appropriate.
“I like to watch”
—President Chauncey Gardiner
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