"Five people were running the country, and Joe Biden was at best a senior member of the board. I’ve never seen a situation like this before..."

"... with so few people having so much power. They would make huge economic decisions without calling [Treasury] secretary Yellen."

Said an unnamed member of Biden's Cabinet, quoted in "Meet the Biden 'politburo' accused of running the country in secret/There was the aide who demanded $4 million to advise the re-election campaign. There was the enforcer who 'cast out heretics.' And there was Jill Biden" (London Times).

The Five: Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti, Ron Klain, Bruce Reed, Anthony Bernal. Plus: Jill Biden, Hunter Biden.

A bubble-wrapped President protected by a chimera in a mirage in an alternate universe.

I'm trying to read "The Tragedy of Joe Biden" by Maureen Dowd:

By the end, when he was bubble-wrapped in 2024, he trusted only his family and his closest aides. And they protected him with a damaging chimera. Sugarcoated interpretations of polls that were not reflected elsewhere. Extreme efforts to redesign the presidency to adapt to his ever more fragile state. Trashing Robert Hur for telling the truth. Refusing to do the cognitive testing that might have established a diagnosis....Tapper and Thompson show how Biden and his inner circle created an alternate universe that they tried to sell to the media and the public — the sort of corrosive mirage of unreality that Trump excels at building....

Trump! How did Trump get into that metaphorical mishmash?

I do like this part, which names names:

It was not just Joe and Jill who wanted to hang on to power, with all the perks and trips and, for Jill, glamorous Vogue covers. It was also their advisers, Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti, Anita Dunn, Anthony Bernal, Ron Klain and Annie Tomasini. The “palace guard,” as Chuck Schumer derisively dubbed top Biden advisers, slid from sycophancy to solipsism. The more Biden was out of it, the more his hours and responsibilities were curtailed, the more of a vacuum there was at the top, the more power the advisers had...

They bubble-wrapped the President, put him in a mirage in an alternate universe, and set up a chimera to do whatever it is chimeras do. So they fooled him and they also fooled us, they being Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti, Anita Dunn, Anthony Bernal, Ron Klain and Annie Tomasini... and who else? Where was Maureen Dowd and the rest of the press — among the foolers or the fooled? And she's saying Joe Biden is a tragedy? Too many fools. Too many villains. It's a comedy. 

Instead of "The Tragedy of Biden," write a column titled "The Comedy of Biden." Use Shakespeare as your model of tragedy and comedy and tell me why we, the audience — we the People — experience Trump as Falstaff and — for all his faults — love him.

A right jolly old elf.

President Biden makes a new friend during a visit to Children’s National Hospital. pic.twitter.com/37gC6Qpmbg

— The Recount (@therecount) December 20, 2024

Don't say "Christmas." Don't even say "joy."

A Grok summary, at X:

During a recent event at the White House, Jill Biden mentioned the need for 'joy' during the holiday season, a comment which some interpreted as a subtle mockery of Kamala Harris's previous campaign slogan 'sense of joy.' Jill Biden later clarified that her remarks were not meant to be taken as an insult, emphasizing that the audience was reading too much into her statement. The incident has sparked discussions about the dynamics within the Biden administration. This story is a summary of posts on X and may evolve over time. Grok can make mistakes, verify its outputs.

Here's the relevant video clip.

🚨 JUST IN: Jill Biden is now OPENLY MOCKING Kamala Harris’ “joy” line

The audience even knows what’s going on, and breaks out into laughter 😂

Anybody still think Jill Biden DIDN’T vote for Trump? 🤣 pic.twitter.com/8ePBuLQVKD

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) December 11, 2024

"Joy" is a Christmas word: "Joy to the World/The Lord is come"/"Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." It's a word that might be selected by someone who wants to avoid limiting her message to Christians. It seems more general, even as Christians hear it as specific to the Christian religion.

Jill also says "peace" and "light": "I hope that you all feel that sense of, you know, peace and light." 

"Peace" and "light" are also words that, for Christians, call to mind Jesus Christ. Jesus is "the light of the world" — "While I am in the world, I am the light of the world." Jesus is the "Prince of Peace" — "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

But Jill's audience, hearing "joy," thinks not of Jesus Christ but of a worldly power-seeker who used "joy" as a political brand that worked for a couple weeks and then was recognized as idiotic emptiness. Now, it's a laugh line.

Jill hears the laughing and flaps her arms about. Instead of holding steady and conveying the beauty and seriousness of the hope for peace and light and joy at Christmas, she emits a scoffing laugh and acknowledges that she too can hear what they hear, a reference to Kamala Harris.

Finding themselves alongside Kamala and Doug, Joe and Jill won't pretend to emit joy.

At the Kennedy Center Honors last night:

Jill and Joe Biden are refusing to even look at Kamala Harris tonight 😬 pic.twitter.com/qL6jftoLsu

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 9, 2024

I didn't blog this yesterday because I thought Trump's Fight, Fight, Fight cologne was just a joke.

It is funny, but the product is apparently real:

It's possible that the product idea was created in response to the glorious photographs of Jill Biden seemingly flirting with Donald Trump at the Notre Dame festivities in Paris. I see news articles from 2 days ago saying that Trump had just "launched" the product. So I'm thinking first came this hilarious idea for a fake ad and then came the idea that it can be an actual product.

Because, look, that bottle is completely basic — it's not shaped like an upraised fist — and the lettering is very plain and the product name is close to the first thing you'd think of.

It's like an episode of "The Apprentice." Here are these photographs of the President's wife adoring the former President. Your challenge is to design a Trump-branded product and to use one of the photographs in an ad campaign. 

The joke alone would have been great, but the idea of turning it into a money stream like this is brilliant. Now you know what to get your Trump loving dad Christmas... even though it's utterly well known that Dad never wants cologne.

"She ain’t going. Jill Biden’s husband authorized the FBI snooping through her underwear drawer."

"The Bidens are disgusting. Jill Biden isn’t someone Melania needs to meet."

Said a source, quoted in "Melania Trump declines to meet with Jill Biden at White House, citing Mar-a-Lago raid: source" (NY Post).

Meanwhile, "Melania’s husband, President-elect Donald Trump, will sit with President Biden in the Oval Office Wednesday for a traditional post-election meeting."

"Biden hasn't scheduled public events in 43 of the 75 days since he dropped his re-election bid, a reflection of the 81-year-old president's unpopularity and age limitations...."

"Vice President Kamala Harris — who has praised Biden but doesn't routinely talk about him in her speeches — has had just one campaign event with him along with a few official events in Washington. First Lady Jill Biden also has largely withdrawn from campaign events, and Harris' team hasn't pushed for her to do them, people familiar with the matter told Axios.... Some Biden aides and close allies believe he's been aging more rapidly in recent months under the stress of the job and the legal troubles of his son, Hunter (the White House disputes this). Biden has sat for just two interviews since July 21, despite lingering questions about his mental fitness.... Behind closed doors, Biden has acknowledged to aides that he is unpopular and will do whatever Harris' team thinks will help her win — including not campaigning in certain states."

From "The disappearing Bidens: A quiet end to a presidency" (Axios).

That piece is larded with statements that a President's work is mostly done behind closed doors, but that means that the President's work could be done without the President's conscious, competent participation. Aren't we Americans entitled to know if we have a President? This idea that he's fading out quietly is a distraction from the real question: Do we have a real President right now and for the next 4 1/2 months? It's a dangerous world.

"People should be ebullient and happy.... you have to sit back and enjoy this particular period in our history...."

"A senile man refuses to abdicate the presidency. He's being encouraged to stay in the race by his wife, a woman who at 55 years old got a doctorate of education and makes people call her doctor. She's not a doctor. She's no more of a doctor than I'm a doctor. His son, a crack addict... is encouraging him to stay in the race. His wife is saying stay in the race. Everybody else is pulling out... and he still refuses to leave. The senile president refuses to leave. You must enjoy it. You must sit back and enjoy it.... The media has been covering for Biden... and the campaign just dribbled him out for a press conference here a state of the union there — very scripted, very tightly controlled appearances.... They juiced him for the state of the union and it worked and drugs don't always work... so whatever they shot him up with,  whatever... Pulp Fiction adrenaline shot they gave him through the... breast plate.... I'm not a doctor — Jill is — but whatever — that didn't work here...."

In case you want to sit back and enjoy the Biden debacle, there's no better companion than Tim Dillon....

"The image is saintly."

Announces Washington Post fashion writer Rachel Tashjian, in "Jill Biden is Vogue’s cover star. What timing. The first lady covers Vogue for the third time, positioned by the magazine as a savior of the country’s fate."

Here's the image:

Tashjian proclaims that "a striking, fascinatingly out-of-character image in its storytelling."  What's the usual "character"? More smiley? More of a sidekick? I really don't know. Do you? We're told "the religious undertones are startling": "Her pose and visage, not to mention the color of her dress, recall religious paintings of saints communing with their higher power."

IN THE COMMENTS: Rafe — short for Raphael? — says "Which paintings? What a lazy comparison, to paintings which only exist, apparently, in her mind." 

I went looking for paintings of saints gazing upward. There's this, by Raphael:

Notice that Catherine's hands do not hang limply at her sides. They are expressive of ecstasy and placed in locations that would seem truly odd on a modern-day politico. Unlike Jill, she's got her weight shifted to one side, and also unlike Jill, she's leaning on what we know to be the device used to torture-murder-martyr her. Jill exists in an empty brown-gray void.

But it's the difference in the eyes that is most striking. Jill's eyes are rotated sideways, and only slightly upward, as if she is gazing fondly at her somewhat tall husband. They're not fixed on Heaven. 

Can we find paintings of saints with eyes rotated sideways, which seems mildly coy? Consider the entirely un-Jill-like Saint Lucy:

"[O]ne person close to Biden described his mood as humiliated, devoid of confidence, and painfully aware that images of him appearing confused..."

"... during the debate could be damaging to both his campaign and presidential legacy. Another source close to Biden suggested that First Lady Jill Biden’s opinion will significantly influence the President’s decision. 'The only person who has ultimate influence with him is the first lady,' the source said. 'If she decides there should be a change of course, there will be a change of course.'" 

From "White House denies rumors Biden is heading to Camp David to discuss dropping out of race with family/'The premise of the story is not accurate,' a White House official said" (Post Millennial).

I keep seeing this message to Biden: If you drop out, we will portray you as a noble and beloved public servant, but if you don't let go, everything you've done over your long life will count for nothing as against this one cataclysmic wrong — letting Trump back into the Oval Office.

And I guess it's really a message to Jill: That's a grand, honored husband you have there, and if you don't take him home and hide him, he's going to be attacked and scorned for the rest of American history.

"Jill Biden, lacking the detachment of a Melania and enjoying the role of first lady more, has been pushing — and shielding — her husband..."

"... beyond a reasonable point. After Thursday’s embarrassing debate performance, she exhorted the crowd and played teacher to a prized student: 'You did a great job! You answered every question! You knew all the facts!' This, to the guy who controls the nuclear codes.... The Democratic strategist Paul Begala... explained on CNN: 'The first Democratic politician to call on Biden to step down, it’s going to end their career... None of them are going to say, 'Hey, let me step forward and knife Julius Caesar.' Biden is a beloved man in the Democratic Party.'... James Carville... told me Biden should call former Presidents Clinton and Obama to the White House and decide on five Democratic stars to address their convention in August.... Carville said the president should give a July 4 speech announcing he will let the next generation of Democratic leaders bloom.... And what if Joe and Jill cling on? In reply, Carville quoted... That which can’t continue, won’t."

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "The Ghastly vs. the Ghostly" (NYT)(boldface added).

I don't get to use my "Julius Caesar" tag too often. I can't believe Dowd planted that in the text and then ended with "That which can’t continue, won’t." 

The adage is attributed to Herb Stein. See "Is Stein’s Law real?" (Robert J. Samuelson, WaPo, May 30, 2013):

Too true: "He's the President you deserve."

I’m so proud of Joe—I hope you heard his heart tonight. Sign up at https://t.co/40xBoLMo0i—together, we can finish the job for the American people. pic.twitter.com/jbOVaOC6kw

— Dr. Jill Biden (@DrBiden) June 28, 2024

I want the names of everyone who is covering their ass by acting surprised that Biden performed the way he did at the debate last night.

Biden beat my expectations.

I expected the CNN panel to spin for Biden, just like his wife did:

Jill Biden: You did a great job! You answered all your questions!

If: ba#^d gsu%*ruvh%@d dh*&@%uhs

Accepted as an answer so she's right pic.twitter.com/Pd883oI5SC

— Israel & USA forever (@israelUSAforeve) June 28, 2024

Those who have had access to Biden over the last 2 years knew what everyone could see last night, and they choose to gaslight America, saying he's just fine — he's very sharp. They kept him away from any serious interviews, anything that would expose his weakness, but they sent him out for this debate. My hypothesis is that the debate was a set up, and the panic response — reported by the CNN commentators immediately after the debate — was not sudden and emotional but a cold sober plan to cover up 2 years of lying about Biden's condition.

In the last few weeks we've been scolded about believing our own eyes, told what we were seeing were "cheap fakes." These were people using Biden for their own concerted purposes, and now they'd like to drop him. They would have Weekend-at-Bernied him over the finish line if they could, but it seems they decided to wheel him out in public on one big occasion, let us watch him for 90 horrible minutes, and then act as if they suddenly realized this man can't do the job.

Meanwhile, he is the President of the United States, and he will be for 7 more months. That's the immediate emergency. Beyond that, I want responsibility. Shine a light on those who covered for him and who faked surprise last night. How did Democratic Party characters communicate with CNN and how did the CNN panel hit the ground running, all on the same page, all with such intensity? I want to know. So untrustworthy!

"Joe and that other guy are essentially the same age. Let’s not be fooled. But what this election is about..."

"... it’s about the character of the person leading our country. Joe Biden is a healthy, wise 81-year-old ready and willing to work for you every day to make our future better. Joe isn’t one of the most effective presidents of our lives in spite of his age, but because of it."

Said Jill Biden, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, quoted in "Jill Biden pitches the benefits of age on the campaign trail" (CNN).

"The woman I am today is wiser, stronger, more insightful and more confident than I was all those years ago. Every line on my face has been earned by the furrowed brows of difficult decisions made. By the sun of countless roads traveled, by the sweet strain of deep laughter with the people I love. Age is a gift.”"

That made me want to ask ChatGPT, "Write a short speech about why it's good for a candidate to be quite elderly." Here's the answer I got, written out, in less than 5 seconds:

"And yet the relentlessly wholesome story that Jill Biden tells about herself, and possibly to herself, doesn’t quite add up."

"She hitched her wagon to a man who, even when she met him in the 1970s, had world-historical ambition and was angling to become president. (Joe and his siblings openly discussed this plan, and his two brothers took Jill to dinner to be certain she was on board with it.)... In American Woman, Katie Rogers, a reporter at The New York Times, sees Jill Biden as a one-woman force sniffing out her husband’s political enemies, bearing the Biden family grudges, and weighing in on everything from campaign strategy to cabinet hires. More recently, Jill, seventy-two, was reportedly crucial in urging her eighty-one-year-old husband to run for a second presidential term.... Jill Biden has done all this without ever seeming calculating or ambitious.... Rogers depicts a harmonious codependence between the president and his wife: the couple typically spend evenings together in the White House residence reading their briefing books. She’s a confidante and gut check, though her influence has limits. 'Stop it, stop it now, Joe,' he recently said she told him about the slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza."

From "Dr. B/Jill Biden is a barrier-breaking national figure. What are we to make of the wholesome, at times bland story she tells about herself?" by Pamela Druckerman(NYRB)

Non-accidents.

"It is not an accident that on the first day of the Japanese state visit, Dr. Biden greeted Mr. and Mrs. Kishida in a black Armani dress with a keyhole neckline that she had worn several times before. Re-wearing clothes has been one of Dr. Biden’s signatures, part of the conversation around sustainability, which nods to her husband’s climate policies (not to mention the economic realities of the country). She has done so consistently over the course of the administration. To do so again at such a moment of ritual display was to double down on the point. Nor it is an accident that, in the last month, Mrs. Trump has been... stepping out at strategic moments in the luxury brands that are shorthand for the financial success her husband has made part of his selling point, as if to shrug in the face of the civil penalties that have been levied against him...."

Writes Vanessa Friedman, in "At the Japan State Dinner, Jill Biden Makes an Entrance/The first lady was glittering in crystals — four days after Melania Trump stepped out in pink at a Palm Beach fund-raiser. Together, the pictures offer a harbinger of what is to come" (NYT).

For some people, the re-wearing of clothes can be counted as a "signature." And I love this idea that the political wife is a walking symbol of her husband's achievements.

"'Joe may have tamped down his public bedroom declarations winning the presidency, but he has joked to aides that ‘good sex’ is the key to a lasting and happy marriage...'"

"'... much to his wife’s chagrin.'... [I]n 2004 when Biden was considering getting into the race to challenge John Kerry[, d]uring a meeting when aides were begging him to jump in, Jill walked into the room wearing a halter top with the word 'No' scrawled on her stomach. Biden followed that sexy veto.... Some — including Jill — might find the 81-year-old Golden President’s frisky comments about the first lady cringey. But at least he is celebrating sensuality. Conservatives seem determined to stamp it out."

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "Sex and the Capital City" (NYT). She's quoting and drawing on a book by New York Times White House correspondent Katie Rogers, "American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, From Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden."

There's doing and there's talking. Do, but you needn't talk about it, and you certainly don't need to get high-profile columnists to celebrate you for "celebrating sensuality"... whatever that is. Does it include that hair-smelling stuff?

"Jill Biden and his other advisers come up with ways to obscure signs of senescence — from shorter news conferences to almost zero print interviews..."

"... to TV interviews mainly with fawning MSNBC anchors.... [T]he Biden crew clearly has no plan for how to deal with the president’s age except to shield him and hide him and browbeat reporters who point out that his mental state... is a genuine issue.... Cosseting and closeting Uncle Joe all the way to the end — eschewing town halls and the Super Bowl interview — are just not going to work. Going on defense, when Trump is on offense, is not going to work. Counting on Trump’s vileness to secure the win, as Hillary did, is not going to work...."

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "Mr. President, Ditch the Stealth About Health" (NYT).

So... sift through all that jaunty prose and you'll see Dowd predicting a Trump victory.

I think it's nice — tapdancing Nutcracker at the White House.

A bit of magic, wonder, and joy brought to you by the talented tappers of Dorrance Dance, performing their playful interpretation of The Nutcracker Suite.

Enjoy! 💕 pic.twitter.com/qXtCm4t37o

— Jill Biden (@FLOTUS) December 13, 2023

It's churlish grinchery to take potshots.