Joe's Permanent Dilemma

Nobody's mentioned this so far, but given the disclosures in recent weeks -- the 5,000 e-mails sent to alias accounts, the 1,000 e-mails sent from Joe's vice presidential office directly to Rosemont Seneca Partners, and the trips on Air Force Two with Hunter, on some of which his presence was concealed -- Joe can no longer hold a traditional presidential news conference. But from the start of his presidency, he's groomed us to get used to it anyhow. The Washington Post editorialized this past May:

President Biden hasn’t dropped the microphone; he appears to have lost it. Mr. Biden is turning into a news media evader, and it’s harmful to his presidency and the nation. In the past 100 years, only Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan averaged fewer news conferences than Mr. Biden. (A news conference involves the president taking questions from multiple reporters; a one-on-one interview with a handpicked journalist doesn’t count.)

So far in 2023, Mr. Biden has done zero solo news conferences. He did conduct two “joint news conferences” in which the president and a visiting foreign leader faced the media together. . . . Presidents also typically interact informally with the media, answering a few questions on the way to an event. Mr. Biden doesn’t do many of those exchanges either, according to the American Presidency Project tracker.

It's generally acknowledged that Joe is inarticulate, he slurs his speech, stumbles over words, and utters gaffes. His handlers do all they can to shelter him from opportunities to do this. On the other hand, communication skills have always been thought necessary for political success, but up to now, Joe had been able to rely on backroom deals in the tight Delaware political enviornment or demographic convenience in his selection as Obama's vice president to rise.

In 2020, he was able to rely on the manufactured COVID crisis to avoid too much public exposure, while his allies in the Deep State could run interference over potential scandals like Hunter's laptop or the firing of Viktor Shokin by calling them Russian disinformation. While there have been initial efforts to restart a COVID panic or deny Trump access to state ballots, it looks as though there will be changes to the 2024 electoral landscape that will give Biden fewer such advantages.

Joe's strategy so far in response to the growing scandals has been simply to utter one-or-two-word dismissals to shouted questions from the press, as he did on Thursday:

President Biden tried to laugh off a question Thursday about whether he will comply with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s request for his bank records ahead of a possible impeachment inquiry into his role in first son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.

“Hee-hee-hee,” the 80-year-old president chuckled during a gaggle with reporters at FEMA headquarters in Washington after discussing the impact of Tropical Storm Idalia on Florida and nearby states.

“Let’s talk about why I’m here,” Biden deflected.

For the time being, he can dodge such questions because he's Caesar, and he'll push that as far as he can. But it's plain at this point that even a legacy-media Serious Journalist like Lester Holt would be expected to pursue questions about Hunter's trips on Air Force Two, the 5,000 alias e-mails, and the 1,000 Rosemont Seneca e-mails in any one-on-one interview, with the additional problem for Joe that any dishonest answer would be quickly found out and would be worse for him than a straightforward answer that acknolwedged some responsibility.

Indications are starting to arise, though, that Joe is preoccupied and losing interest in the day-to-day political job of president. On Thursday, as he dodged questions from the press, he also avoided meeting with New York Gov Hochul over the immigrant crisis:

President Biden didn’t meet with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul when she visited the White House on Wednesday to discuss the Empire State’s flood of migrants because there was “a lot going on” and he “has a lot on his plate.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday justified Biden blowing off Hochul, who last week demanded that he do more to address New York’s migrant “humanitarian crisis” — though the 80-year-old commander in chief had a seemingly non-time-sensitive meeting Wednesday afternoon with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

I'm inclined to agree with the analysis of Newsmax's Greg Kelly as reported by Newsweek:

During the segment in which he teased the release [of a potential smokling-gun tape], Kelly claimed that Biden knows "his time is up" because he has recently been engaging in leisurely activities, like going to the beach and biking.

"It's all about himself now. It's all about survival and planning his life after the presidency and trying to protect himself as much as possible," he said. "The country? We are not on Joe Biden's mind."

It's certainly been observed that Joe's 2024 campaign is off to an iffy start, with Trump doing much better in the polls than he did in 2020. Whether Joe is losing interest because he knows his number is up, as Greg Kelly thinks, or Joe simply feels he doesn't have to work that hard because he's Caesar, or he's just tired, doesn't make much practical difference. There's the same set of visuals with a few possible explanations, none of which so far augurs well for Joe.