"Politicians’ constant compulsion to blame the gap between policy victories and political support simply on poor communications, or worse, poor 'messaging,' is a bit too pat..."

"... both self-serving and self-exonerating. If only they knew about all the great things I’ve done! But Biden — who, by late in his term, 'had become among the most inaccessible presidents in modern history,' Timothy Naftali of Columbia University writes — did himself few favors on that front. 'He did not just fail to tout his achievements; he seldom even tried,' Michael Kazin, a historian at Georgetown, complains.... In her memoir, Jill Biden reimagines her husband’s communications struggles as something between a mistake and a virtue. 'While Joe was in office, I think he and I both erred on the side of silence, dignity and letting news cycles run their course,' she explains.... 'We were trying so hard to reassure everyone that we didn’t take the time to acknowledge that he looked very unwell in that debate, to say to the public: 'Yes. That was bad, no doubt.'"

Writes Carlos Lozada, in "The Verdict on Biden Is In" (NYT).

West Wing?

I'm reading this Axios piece: "Ex-Biden aides give Jill's new book a frosty review":

View from the West Wing!

I know Trump has demolished the old East Wing, so there's no taking a view from it right now, but Jill Biden purports to give readers a "View from the East Wing." That's the title. (And that's a commission-earned link.)

I understand the Axios slip, because who would read a book about what went on in the East Wing? I'm sure Jill's view was what Melania articulated so well: "Who gives a fuck about the Christmas stuff and decorations?"

That's a "commission earned" link for the book, by the way. It comes out tomorrow. It's #1 at Amazon in the category "Sociology of Marriage and Family" and look at the competition:

Crazy stuff, no? Betty Friedan is still hanging on, there's something called "The Ethical Slut," and it's fits in "Marriage and Family," and why is orange the color of marriage? "Fair Play" is up there twice — once as a book and once as a deck of cards — but there's also "It Begins with You" and — clicking around — I'm confronted with....

"[Jill] Biden is a longtime English professor who casually uses the correct group noun for starlings ('murmuration')."

"She quotes many writers here — Albert Camus, Robert Frost, Nikki Giovanni, James Salter — but the author the book recalled most vividly to me, in its careful catalog of small details, was William Carlos Williams, who in his epic poem 'Paterson' wrote 'no ideas but in things.' This tracks, because Biden acknowledges the help of Ada Calhoun, the author of [a book] about Frank O’Hara. Indeed, Biden’s description of being hustled for security reasons through the service entrance to hotels made my O’Hara stand on end, so cleanly could it be broken into stanzas, if you’ll forgive the liberty: 'right by garbage cans/ reeking of rotting room service leftovers/mixed with discarded mini shampoos/ — an odor so sour and pungent/that it almost knocks you down.'"

So writes Alexandra Jacobs in "Jill Biden’s New Memoir Shows Off a Sharp Eye, if Not a Sharp Elbow/Beyond a few pointed digs at her husband’s successor, 'View From the East Wing' largely sticks to the head-spinning details of first lady-hood" (NYT).

Speaking of "no ideas but in things," we're told that, in her new memoir, her second, Jill Biden "marvels at the perks of the office, the masses of flowers, attentive staff and fine art, such as 'Morning on the Seine, Good Weather,' the oil painting that Angela Merkel said Trump called 'my Monet.' ('Our Monet,' Biden corrects, meaning the American people’s.)"

I looked it up. Here's "Our Monet":

According to The White House Historical Association's Facebook page: "On December 4, 1963, the family of John F. Kennedy donated the painting 'A Morning on the Seine; Good Weather' to the White House collection in memory of the late president." That was 2 weeks after the assassination. I'm only noticing this painting now, because I'm reading about Jill and Donald verbalizing possessively about it. And now I feel as though I can see, in that fuzzy image, 2 profiles yelling at each other. And both look like Trump.

Oh! The derangement! An odor so sour and pungent....

ADDED: Did Trump say "my Monet"? It's hearsay — at least double hearsay. Jill Biden is asserting that Angela Merkel said that Trump said something. There's room for mishearing, misquoting, misinterpreting, and lying from Merkel (supposedly hearing Trump) and Biden (supposedly hearing Merkel) and from anyone else who's passed this statement along.

Interestingly, Trump has used the phrase "my Monet," but not to refer to an artwork by Claude Monet. Trump has called one of his golf courses "my Monet": "I have friends who buy Monets. Turnberry is my Monet and it’s far more beautiful." But that quote too is hearsay. Eric Trump wrote it in a book, it says here: "Donald Trump: Turnberry is my Monet — and it’s more beautiful/US president ‘obsessed’ with details about his golf courses in Scotland and continually makes suggestions to improve them, according to his son Eric’s book" (London Times).

Googling for more reporting of Trump's use of the phrase "my Monet," I got a good laugh:

 

I'd like to hear the "Apprentice" theme song with "Monet!" taking the place of "Money!":

"Jill Biden is now out there finally admitting that she did NOT know what went wrong with Sleepy Joe during our spectacular, and highly rated, 2024 Presidential Debate..."

"... where Joe was not exactly performing to the highest level of debate standards. She said that she thought he was having a 'stroke,' and various other really bad things, and yet never rushed onto the stage to help her troubled husband, as any good wife would do. The only thing she failed to mention was how well I was doing prior to his near total collapse. In other words, as many have asked, did my strong performance in that debate cause him to plain and simple 'choke,' leading to his ignominious defeat, or were other reasons the cause? Nobody else knows the answer to that, BUT I DO!!!"

Writes Trump, just now, on Truth Social.

I had to make a second post about Jill and her book because Trump's statement needs its own breathing space.

Especially Trumpy is "Nobody else knows the answer to that, BUT I DO!!!" 

"As the president walked off the stage, he whispered to his wife, 'I really f**ked up, didn’t I?' she writes. '"Yes, you did,'" I whispered back.'"

I'm reading "5 Revelations From Jill Biden’s Upcoming Memoir" (Intelligencer).

I don't believe any of it. She said that during the debate, as she watched it on TV, she thought he might be having a stroke and that he'd never acted like that before or since. Sorry. Not believed. I think the new book exists to be sold — to make money — and to try to escape responsibility for depriving the American people of the power to participate in the selection of the Democratic Party's 2024 presidential candidate.

"To this day, I still don’t know what happened. Why wasn’t he making any sense? It was inexplicable to me," she says elsewhere in the book. Maybe he had rehearsed too much? Maybe he had traveled too much that month? Or was he just ill? The president had seemed exhausted earlier in the day and had told her that he was not feeling too well. Later, after positing that he may have unwittingly taken codeine cough syrup or Ambien to fight off a cold or to help him sleep, Jill Biden seems to rhetorically throw her hands in the air: "I only wish I had the answer."

"Jill Biden’s ex-husband was arrested Monday on charges he murdered his wife in their Delaware home in December...."

The NY Post reports.

"Jill Biden, 74, divorced Stevenson in 1975 after a five-year marriage. Two years later she wed then-Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.). Stevenson has accused Jill of having an affair with the one-term Democratic president prior to their divorce...."

First Ladies read a Christmas story.

It's not a competition. We cherish diversity of expression. It's all a matter of taste...

 

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A post shared by Johnny Palmadessa (@johnnypalmadessa)

ADDED: Sorry, I didn't see the slur on Melania's name until I put this up. I am offering the contrast among the ladies in a neutral spirit. Anyone who assumes Michelle's reading is superior to Melania's is simply being very conventional.

AND: Here's the full reading by Melania:

"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