The Other McCain

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Media Monday: Does Joe Biden Really Have a ‘Brand as an Empathetic Leader’?

Posted on | May 13, 2024 | Comments Off on Media Monday: Does Joe Biden Really Have a ‘Brand as an Empathetic Leader’?

There are days when I read things in the mainstream media that just boggle my mind. Today was one of those days:

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki claims in her new book that President Biden never looked at his watch during the ceremony for soldiers killed during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 — contradicting news photos and firsthand accounts of Gold Star families.
Why it matters: In TV ads and social media posts, Donald Trump and his allies repeatedly have used images of Biden checking his watch during the ceremony to try to undermine the president’s brand as an empathetic leader. . . .

Now, everybody is reacting to the main subject of this story — i.e., that Jen Psaki is lying about what happened at Dover Air Force Base when the bodies of service members killed during Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal were returned. Grant that this is important, but what caught my eye was the assertion about “the president’s brand as an empathetic leader.” Really? Do Democrats (or anyone else) actually think Biden is somehow widely admired because of how “empathetic” he is?

To borrow a phrase, what a load of malarkey!

Throughout his career, Joe Biden certainly has tried to seem “empathetic,” but what kind of fools were deceived by this charade? The kind of fools who vote for Democrats, I suppose, but any intelligent person who’s actually paid attention to Biden over the years knows that he has always been a complete phony, the kind of politician who poor-mouths his own family to make it seem like he’s “blue collar.”

Here, let me quote Wikipedia:

Biden’s father had been wealthy and the family purchased a home in the affluent Long Island suburb of Garden City in the fall of 1946, but he suffered business setbacks around the time Biden was seven years old, and for several years the family lived with Biden’s maternal grandparents in Scranton. Scranton fell into economic decline during the 1950s and Biden’s father could not find steady work. Beginning in 1953 when Biden was ten, the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, before moving to a house in nearby Mayfield. Biden Sr. later became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle.

At no point was Biden’s father ever a “blue-collar” worker; he wasn’t a union-card employee, but a businessman who, for a few years (circa 1949-53) struggled because of “setbacks.” Biden has repeatedly claimed his ancestors were coal miners, but good luck trying to verify that claim. Instead, what can actually be verified is this:

His maternal great-grandfather, Edward Francis Blewitt, was a Pennsylvania state senator. His maternal grandfather was a graduate of Santa Clara University in California . . . before returning to Scranton to work for local oil and gas companies, then as a newspaper librarian for the remainder of his career.
Biden’s father led an affluent lifestyle as a young adult, “sailing yachts off the New England coast, riding to the hounds, driving fast cars, flying airplanes” while working as an executive for, and experiencing the largess of, the Sheen Company. The Sheen Company was founded and owned by Bill Sheen, Biden’s paternal great-uncle.

Yachts and “riding to the hounds”? A state senator for a great-grandfather? Where are the grubby coal-miners amid all these fancy affluent ancestors? Has anyone ever found so much as one AFL-CIO member in Biden’s allegedly “blue-collar” background?

Excuse my outrage over this, but my father was a member of the machinists union (IAM) during his 37 years working at the Lockheed plant in Marietta, and while none of my ancestors were coal miners, they weren’t sailing yachts or “riding to the hounds.” In terms of authentic blue-collar credentials, you see, I’ve got Joe Biden beat all to hell, and his phony “empathetic” act never fooled me. But apparently, members of our national media are under the impression that this is a valuable aspect of Biden’s “brand,” and expect us to believe this, too.

Do they really think we’re that stupid?

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)



 

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Category: Joe Biden, Media Bias

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