MAUREEN CALLAHAN: I demanded doddery Biden get off his sun lounger and go to Hawaii. But after THAT shambolic visit, I take it all back… The people of Maui have suffered enough
We all called for the President last week. Where was he, days after the apocalyptic Maui wildfires?
Actually, we knew where he was: On the beach at his shore home in Delaware. Prepping for his next vacation in Lake Tahoe. Issuing a reptilian ‘no comment’ when asked about the thousand-plus people missing and the Pompeii-like damage and what his plan was.
When was he going to visit?
For what it’s worth, I wrote an impassioned column imploring the president to go.
Now I take it all back. The people of Maui have suffered enough.
Joe Biden finally saw fit to interrupt his second vacation since the wildfires, to don his well-worn mantle as Empathizer-in-Chief, put his feet on the ground in Hawaii and comfort the survivors, 13 days after the fires.
It did not go well.
‘F**k you!’ was the prevailing greeting to his motorcade. Residents held unwelcoming signs: ‘It’s too late’. ‘Actions speak louder than words’.
Right they are.
We all called for the President last week. Where was he, days after the apocalyptic Maui wildfires? I wrote an impassioned column imploring the president to go. Now I take it all back. The people of Maui have suffered enough.
Joe Biden finally saw fit to interrupt his second vacation since the wildfires, to don his well-worn mantle as Empathizer-in-Chief and comfort the survivors, 13 days after the fires. It did not go well. ‘F**k you!’ was the prevailing greeting to his motorcade.
Yet Joe Biden was not humbled. Joe Biden doesn’t know shame. Instead he gave a meandering speech invoking, yet again, his own tragedies, dosed as usual with a soupçon of exaggeration.
‘I don’t want to compare difficulties,’ he said. Spoiler alert: He compared difficulties.
Once upon a time, he and Jill had suffered a kitchen fire while he was off doing a glamorous TV spot on ‘Meet the Press’. He almost lost his classic Corvette! Parked at his waterfront house!
Would the people of Maui, living through the agonies of entire families burned to ashes in their homes, of a 14-year-old boy’s body discovered alone and clutching his dead dog, care to hear those details?
‘It was a sunny Sunday,’ Biden said — oh my God, is there no one in this White House who can keep this president on-message? — ‘and lightning struck at home on a little lake that’s outside of our home — not a lake, a big pond — and hit a wire and came up underneath our home into our heating ducts, the air conditioning ducts.
‘To make a long story short, I almost lost my wife, my ’67 Corvette, and my cat. But all kidding aside’ — there’s a joke in here? — ‘I watched the firefighters, the way they responded… they ran into flames to save my wife and save my family… sometimes smoke is so thick… it was that thick inside the home.’
Not so, said the firefighters who responded. The Biden kitchen fire, according to the Cranston Heights Fire Company, was ‘insignificant’ and put out in just 20 minutes.
But hey — Joe Biden never lets facts get in the way of a good story. And no one’s suffering can ever compare to his own.
His speech to the people of Maui was disgusting. It was all about him. Note this line: ‘I give you my word, as a Biden.’
As a Biden? How about as President of the United States?
He had such a low bar to clear: Get on the ground, shake hands and offer hugs, look survivors in the eye and listen to their stories, and offer a clear plan of action.
All he had to do was deliver a brief, locked-and-loaded speech and cede the stage to local heroes — take a page from George W. Bush’s promise on the World Trade Center pile after 9/11.
But he can’t do it. Joe Biden is fundamentally, constitutionally incapable of allowing others their grief. He literally claimed that he had ‘a similar experience’ to the Maui survivors.
He had such a low bar to clear: Get on the ground, shake hands, offer hugs – and a clear plan of action. But he can’t do it. Joe Biden is fundamentally, constitutionally incapable of allowing others their grief. (Pictured: Flames devastate Lahaina, Hawaii, earlier this month).
‘By the way,’ he continued, ‘for 36 years I was listed as the poorest man in Congress, so I didn’t get there based on my income.’
Can you believe that was part of his speech to the survivors? How is it germane? Remotely relevant? Does Biden really want to invoke his family’s suspicious riches?
To quote Barack Obama: ‘Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up.’
Biden went on to perseverate over the loss of his first wife and infant daughter in a car crash — a tragedy he blamed on the other driver, who Biden infamously falsely accused of being drunk.
‘So, I have a little bit of sense of what it’s like.’
No, Mr. President, you do not.
It was the same when he met with Gold Star families whose loved ones died in his botched Afghanistan withdrawal, repeatedly invoking his late son Beau, who he often claims died in Iraq. (Beau died of a brain tumor.)
It was the same when he was caught checking his watch every single time one of those 13 flag-draped caskets were loaded off military planes at Dover.
‘The most disrespectful thing I’ve ever seen,’ said Darin Hoover, father of fallen Marine Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover. ‘They would release the salute and he looked down at his watch on every last one. All 13, he looked down at his watch.’
So now I know: Joe Biden should have stayed away from Maui. He should have sent thoughts and prayers and far more than a $700 check to each surviving family. He should have begged Barack Obama or another esteemed Hawaiian to go.
The Rock would have done better. Jason Momoa. Hell, anyone but tone-deaf, crusty old Joe.
Looking at a canine rescue and recovery dog with protective paw gear, Biden ‘joked’ to the press: ‘You guys catch the boots out here? That’s some hot ground, man.’
Ugh, that ‘man’. Joe’s such a cool cat, don’t you know, just one of us. Amtrak Joe. Watch out: He might beat you up in the parking lot after fourth period. Remember ‘CornPop’? The gang leader with a razor blade at the community pool back in 1962? The ‘bad dude’ Joe Biden beat back with a 6ft-long chain?
Joe Biden, pathological fabulist, national embarrassment.
He should have stayed away from Maui. He should have sent thoughts and prayers and far more than a $700 check to each surviving family. He should have begged Barack Obama or another esteemed Hawaiian to go. The Rock would have done better. Hell, anyone but tone-deaf, crusty old Joe. (Pictured: Joe and Jill on the beach in Delaware earlier this month).
Those canines, by the way, have only been able to work in short shifts because the ground in Lahaina remains sizzling hot. That’s cause for alarm, not a comedy bit.
How about that climate crisis, Mr. President?
Speaking of — please, for the love of all that is sacred, stay away from Palm Springs and Los Angeles and any future disaster areas in general. The American people don’t need to see their doddering, likely demented president wandering away from a podium, mouth slack and eyes vacant, needing to be guided, as we witnessed on Monday.
This sad showing is a microcosm of the Biden presidency: No one’s at the wheel. The whole world can see it. Is this who the Dems really want to prop up in 2024?
And where’s Jill Biden in all of this? Most wives would gently take their husband by the hand and say: ‘Time’s up. You did your best, but it’s time to leave.’
Most wives would want to protect what’s left of their husband’s dignity. Legacy.
Not so for the Bidens, now safely ensconced in an $18 million vacation home, out of sight.
That is, after all, where their priorities lie: Grafting and grifting, all in the guise of national service. What this must look like to Maui’s homeless, whose only relief is that Joe Biden has left.
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