SCHRÖDINGER’S PRESIDENT: “Biden Passes the Torch as a Voice on a Speakerphone,” Jim Geraghty writes.
This is how the Biden presidency reaches its denouement — a voice on a speakerphone cheering on Kamala Harris, an unseen presence like Charlie from Charlie’s Angels.
Biden is here, but not here; the leader of his party, but not the leader of his party; the commander in chief, but not really in command anymore. He’s Schrödinger’s president
For what it’s worth, when Biden called in to his old campaign headquarters to offer words of support for Harris yesterday, he didn’t sound that bad, or at least not all that different than he has in his last few public appearances. And the latest update from Biden’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, reports that he’s almost back to normal amid his bout with Covid:
His symptoms have almost resolved completely. His pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature remain absolutely normal. His oxygen saturation continues to be excellent on room air. His lungs remain clear. The President continues to perform all of his presidential duties.
If Biden’s symptoms have almost resolved completely and his vitals are absolutely normal, why is this guy harder to see than J. D. Salinger? I am not exaggerating when I say there have been more Bigfoot sightings than Biden sightings in the past week.
Last night, Sarah linked to Jordan Schachtel’s Substack, headlined, “Exclusive: President Biden suffered an undisclosed medical emergency during his time in Las Vegas, police sources say,” which itself expanded upon a tweet yesterday from Charlie Kirk:
You can also find people on Twitter last night wildly speculating that Biden’s voice on his phone call to Kamala, which sounded unusually hoarse and sibilant, was the result of either a stroke or AI generated. Oliver Wiseman asks at the Free Press, “Where the hell is the president?”
Last Wednesday, Biden flew from Las Vegas, where he had been campaigning, to his beach house in Rehoboth, Delaware. It was there that he isolated and stewed, alongside only his immediate family and closest advisers, and reportedly came to the decision to step down. According to the White House daily schedule, the president will reemerge this afternoon and return to Washington.
Assuming that happens, the president’s disappearing act will be over, but it will have been a strange stretch in which Biden vanished at the most crucial moment.
Into the void left by the amazing disappearing president appeared all manner of theories about what is going on. Some wilder than others. Was the president faking his Covid? Did Biden even sign his own announcement? Is he much sicker than his aides and doctors are letting on? Is he even. . . alive?
Until then, it all feels very Soviet, when an administration that came into office promising to “bring transparency and truth back to government,” and ends with a nation of amateur Kremlinologists just wandering what’s going on, and who’s running the show. Or as Steve wrote this morning: When ‘The Death of Stalin’ Comes to Life.
UPDATE: Perhaps I should have said that half the nation are amateur Kremlinologists right now:
