He is selfish. He puts himself before country. He surrounds himself with opportunistic backers. He has created a reality distortion field, telling us not to believe what we are clearly seeing. His arrogance is infuriating. He says he is doing this for us, but in reality he is doing it for himself.
I'm not talking about Donald Trump, I'm talking about the other president.
In Washington, people often become the same people they first despised. That's what happened with Joe Biden. In his misguided pursuit of a second term that will end when he's 86, he has succumbed to behavior reminiscent of Trump. And he's endangering the democracy he says he wants to protect.
I first learned of Biden when he was running for president in 1987. At the time, he was hailed as a leading, if sometimes bombastic, Democratic speaker. I dropped him from the race when I wrote that Biden had clothed himself in the life of British Labour leader Neil Kinnock, an eloquent speaker, and that his speeches had borrowed, perhaps unconsciously, from those of Robert F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey.
I bumped into Biden on the steps of the Senate as he was leaving to deliver a speech. He was alone, studying his notes. We looked at each other in silence, struck by the gravity of the moment, before going our separate ways to the same press conference room.
Biden was a bright soul who people had been telling him he should be president ever since he was elected to the Senate at age 29. He wasn't going to let the plagiarism scandal or subsequent health problems get him down — he suffered two aneurysms in 1988 and later said his doctor told him he wouldn't have survived if he'd continued campaigning, joking that “I saved my life” — or let other tragedies that scarred his life drag him down.
I was surprised that Biden forgave me. He said it was better for us to maintain a good relationship. He didn't get angry, even when I joked at the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearing that his new hair plugs looked like an okra field. He called to reprimand me in a humorous way, but I was so scared to answer the phone that I hid under my desk.
I criticized him for his sleazy and obscene performance as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when, in his attempt to be fair, he allowed the Republicans to win unfairly, resulting in the appointment of a highly unethical and dishonest right-winger (whose wife was highly partisan and helped lead the Trump coup a few years later) to a life seat on the Supreme Court.
But Biden didn't cut me off. When he became vice president, he invited me to St. Patrick's Day breakfasts and Christmas parties. He was so unvindictive that I wondered if he was Irish at all.
After elevating Biden to heights many thought he would never reach, the pompous Obama campaign began treating the vice president with barely concealed contempt. Barack Obama's aides lambasted Biden to reporters, while an infuriated Hunter told me the betrayal felt like “a friendly attack.”
Biden was a good, loyal vice president. I think President Obama made a mistake in 2016 by choosing Hillary over him. Hillary was the elitist, pro-status quo candidate, but the mood of the electorate was anti-elitist, anti-status quo. Biden had a Scranton Joe vibe about him.
The Obama campaign promoted the idea that Biden was too heartbroken by Beau's death to campaign, but Biden is the only one who could use Beau's grief to fuel an empathetic candidacy. Biden told people that it was him, not Clinton's restoration, who Beau wanted in the White House.
If Biden had been the nominee, he would have defeated the immoral Allie Cat, and by now he would be finishing up his second term and ready for a golden retirement in his beloved plastic beach chair in Rehoboth Beach.
On the contrary, he has been in office too long, and his abilities have clearly deteriorated in recent years. In a volatile world where AI is revolutionizing our country and a Supreme Court filled with religious fanatics is changing the way Americans live, this is a dangerous development.
That's why I wrote a column about two years ago called “Don't Try So Hard, Joe,” suggesting that he take a victory lap for the good he's done and give the party's younger stars a chance.
“The timing of your exit could determine your place in history,” I advised.
But after being pushed aside by his Ivy League counterparts, he regained his Irish pride and developed working-class resentment, and fought to prove he could be a better president than the one who had sidelined him.
Jill Biden, less calm than Melania and more relishing the role of first lady, has pushed and defended her husband. After Thursday's embarrassing debate performance, she pepped up the audience, playing teacher to a proud student: “Well done! You answered all the questions! You knew all the facts!” That's a lot to say about the man who controls the nuclear codes.
After Democrats, even the normally sycophantic hosts of MSNBC, expressed sympathy for the debate in a somber mood, Nancy Pelosi, Jim Clyburn, Bill and Hillary, and Obama fought back and got defensive. CNN's Van Jones said black leaders had called him and chided him for accurately assessing the disaster.
At a Friday rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, after the crowd chanted “Four more years!” and “Send him to prison!” presidential historian Doug Brinkley called Biden a “rebound kid” on CNN.
Democratic strategist Paul Begala, who called the debate a “disaster,” explained on CNN that “the first Democratic politician to call on Biden to resign will be ending their career,” adding, “None of them are going to say, 'Hey, let me go ahead and knife Julius Caesar.' Biden is a beloved figure in the Democratic Party.”
Because Biden is beloved, and because he has real accomplishments as president, he needs to stop walking this nerve-wracking, maddening tightrope leading up to the inauguration.
He will have his moments of vigor, like Laurie's, but he will also have his somber moments, like during a debate that CNN's Audie Cornish labeled “Sick vs. Unstable.”
Biden wasn't just off the ball, like President Obama's sulky demeanor in the first debate with Mitt Romney. He walked timidly, looked like a ghost, couldn't remember rehearsed lines or numbers. He has problems with aging, and it only goes one way. It was heartbreaking to watch the president's childhood stutter return.
His wife and staff will build ever-higher barriers and ward off reporters who press even harder about aging, but Biden, Jill and the Democratic leadership must face up to the fact that this is an incredibly risky gamble and, as they are hammering home to us, our democracy is on the line.
James Carville, who has previously said the president should forego a second term, told me that Biden should invite former presidents Clinton and Obama to the White House to help choose five Democratic stars to speak at the party convention in August.
“Do you know what the ratings will be?” he asked. “The whole world will be watching and people will say, 'Wow, these guys have real talent!'”
Carville said the president should use his July 4th address to announce he will develop the next generation of Democratic leaders.
The 79-year-old strategist bleakly noted that the battle against ageing cannot be won.
“I do everything I can to cure this,” he says, “but I just can't.” Stairs can ruin his day.
What would happen if Joe and Jill hung on?
In response, Mr. Carville quoted Herb Stein, a top economist under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford: “If it can't be sustained, it won't be sustained.”
