A Short Anatomy of a Biden Disaster

by Victor Davis Hanson

There really was not a debate last night, merely a one-sided slugfest. The arguments over the issues, such as they were, were over in 30 minutes. The rest was unnecessary. In bullfighting terms, the end-stage tercio de muerte lasted an entire hour.

The back-and-forth invective was overshadowed by Biden thrashing about and the accompanying optics of a near comatose President of the United States.

One candidate was animated and alive; the other cognitively inert, despite apparently more than a week of rest and preparation and perhaps medications. No one believes Biden had a “cold,” given he seemed like the real Biden we’ve all seen over the last four years. He did not ever come out with a wild screaming fit as in his State of the Union address or the creepy Phantom of the Opera semi-fascist rant.

So, Biden was hoarse and almost impossible to understand. He slurred his words; his sentences were jumbled. Sometimes Biden closed his eyes during a brain freeze. Some of his repartee was unworldly, like beating Medicare or women raped by family members (including “sisters”?)

Most of the time, he simply looked down (were they notes?) for talking points, and then recited his prepped and formulaic canned replies, one … two … three….

Of course, some have pointed out that Trump could have been more detailed in his answers in the fashion De Santis dissected Newsom, but he was still vigorous—no notes, ad hoc, and did what he had to do in comparing his successful record to Biden’s failures. Trump stayed calm as Biden’s prepared slurs trailed off into never-never land.

Again, it took Trump about 10 minutes to explain his record on inflation, the border, taxes, foreign policy, and abortion. And after that it was the story of an 82-year-old man forced to stand for an hour-and-a-half and in muddled efforts to remember all the things he was told to say and to follow the prompts on the rostrum.

Biden slandered Trump as a sexual alley cat, a convicted felon, and an insurrectionist while resurrecting all the old, debunked boilerplate: the “suckers” allegation, the tired Charlottesville debunked charge; and oddly blaming Trump for Biden’s own failures like inflation, the border, crime, Afghanistan, Iran, Gaza. etc.

Trump sometimes proved repetitive as he pulled no punches in serially and monotonously describing Biden as the “worst” president in history—but he often used that line successfully to point out he had no desire to go through his current ordeal had Biden just been a mediocre president rather than a trainwreck.

Sometimes the deep visceral antipathy that both harbored for each other became off-putting or, if you like, hilarious, as when it descended into rival boasts about golfing.

But again, these are just minor irrelevant details to what otherwise was an ungodly Biden disaster, of losing his train of thought, of those dead blank stares, of looking downward cribbing from something or other, and of an angry scowl, frightening voice and scary pallor.

The post-debate clips and commentary will be brutal for Biden. And the media who stuck to the years-long ‘narrative’ of an astounding Biden mind should be disgraced and ashamed for the nearly four-year ruse they played on the American people and the vitriol they leveled at anyone who simply told the truth about Biden’s condition.

Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are all today wondering whether this non-president means they have a window of opportunity before January 20, 2024, to do something really stupid, as they calibrate and argue over who really is running America?

A good question, ranging from the Obamas’ third-term team—to no one at all.

First posted on X.