notes on joe, after midnight

“Some peo­ple are in pol­i­tics be­cause they’re in love with pol­i­cy, but they’re not nec­es­sar­i­ly in love with humans.”
—Peg­gy Noo­nan, Wall Street Journal
 

Last night around mid­night, I was on YouTube and came across a Front­line episode about Joe Biden.

I saw it was two hours long and thought I would watch a bit and then fin­ish it some oth­er time. 

I end­ed up watch­ing the whole thing. 

 

It was great. Well, I love me some Frontline. 

It woke me up so I got up and played Strat-O-Mat­ic Base­ball on my lap­top, and fi­nal­ly fell asleep around 4:30.

A few things that stood out – or weren’t in the show at all but made me go on some doom­scrolling tangents:

•  Not in show: Biden had an aneurysm in his 40s and was giv­en a small chance to sur­vive. Was not in the show so I had to go dig­ging. Wild!!! I heard about it only very recently. 

•  I think Afghanistan – the with­draw­al – was the be­gin­ning of Biden’s de­cline. Trump ne­go­ti­at­ed a deal that Biden didn’t have to accept. 

Ac­cord­ing to au­thor Chris Whip­ple, “Biden was hell­bent on with­draw­ing.” And he was in charge and it didn’t go well. Not that it would have gone well un­der anyone.

It was a fire wait­ing to be lit. The footage of fa­thers say­ing Joe only talked about Beau, which his peo­ple said he thought was com­fort­ing, was not good. Biden meant well. It’s who he is. But it was a low point. 

•  Ear­ly as veep, Oba­ma made Joe the punch­line or ob­ject of jokes. Biden asked him to stop and he did. But I have read about ten­sion be­tween the Oba­ma camp and the Biden camp. Obama’s peo­ple sup­pos­ed­ly looked down on Joe or at least it was per­ceived that way. 

The fur­ther away we get from the Oba­ma years, the more some of the shine comes off. 

Part of Obama’s suc­cess was his per­son­al­i­ty. He’s cool, de­tached, seems will­ing to move on with or with­out peo­ple who sup­port­ed him. He, like they all do, has a huge ego. I be­lieve he was be­hind Joe be­ing pushed out. Which prob­a­bly had to hap­pen. But it’s com­pli­cat­ed with Obama. 

•  In 2019, the Trump cam­paign sold “Where’s Hunter?” t‑shirts. It was in­for­ma­tive to see the de­bate where Bones Spurs mocked Hunter’s strug­gles. To his father.

That’s Trump in a nut­shell. Cru­el per­son­al attacks. 

•  Biden’s de­ci­sion to step down means he is – in my mind – up there with Jim­my Carter as the best per­son to have been US Pres­i­dent in my lifetime. 

They are the first two by far I would want around my loved ones. Oba­ma or Ford are dis­tant bronze medal winners. 

•  “I know Willie Brown very well,” Mr. Trump said about the al­leged in­ci­dent. “In fact, I went down in a he­li­copter with him.” It’d be a shame if peo­ple post­ed this with­out con­text, right?

•  I don’t ap­pre­ci­ate The Red Hot Chili Pep­pers like I should. I don’t plan to do any­thing to cor­rect this. But I ac­knowl­edge it.

•  If you could in­vent on de­mand co­caine, would that be in­s­ta gram?
 

I’ll see my­self out.
 

—lar­ry peters

Flom­mist Lar­ry Pe­ters is a Port­land-based mu­si­cian, writer, sales­man, and over­all trou­ble­mak­er with twen­ty years of ad­ver­tis­ing, news­pa­pers and pub­li­ca­tions, decades of play­ing and per­form­ing mu­sic, and a life­long af­flic­tion of think­ing he has some­thing in­ter­est­ing to say. Copy­right © 2024 Lar­ry Pe­ters. Top im­age: Ken Adam.

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