Gropin’ Fer Gravitas

… CNN’s sudden about-face on Joe Biden’s performance in Afghanistan … wasn’t half-hearted stuff. The Trump-hating news site ran a devastating analysis pinning the blame for the Afghanistan fiasco squarely on Joe Biden.  …

– Monica Showalter, Et tu, Atlantic? Mainstream media pitch Biden over the side in American Thinker, 19 Aug 21

Now it’s The Atlantic‘s turn. … they ran three bam, bam, bam commentaries that also pinned the blame for the fiasco squarely where it belonged—not on President Trump, but on wretched Joe Biden.

It was so bad that you almost [but not quite] [okay, not at all] felt sorry for Gropin’ Joe. But then the scutter comes out sounding all boastful – we’re monitoring them closely, they know we’re watching, the full might of the United States, on and on like that in stentorian tones – all so disconnected from what actually did happen that it took a few minutes to credit that Joe was actually mouthing such stuff.

That was bad enough, but then the scene shifted to the Pentagon where mouthpiece John Kirby and 2-star Marine Hank Taylor took turns playing deer-in-the-headlights, running to and from a single, shared podium as reporters fired pointed question after pointed question. Kirby vaguely resembles Howdy Doody, such that you tend to watch his jaw and lose track of what he’s saying. Taylor’s furrowed unibrow makes him look stern until, without warning, his eyebrows shoot up and reveal a completely different face. You lose track of what he was saying in wondering where General Taylor went.

That’s nothing compared to SecDef Lloyd Austin. A 4-star general in another life, Lloyd looks like a Waffle House cook filling in while the real guy takes a smoke break. Then there’s Chief of the Joint Chiefs, Markey Milley. He conjures up visions of what Corporal Klinger would look like in today’s Army. Add a little lipstick there, gen gen.

A few years ago Geo Will dropped a new word on us: gravitas. It gained instant traction. Everyone worked it in to speeches, essays, talk show appearances, graduation ceremonies, talks with sons, etc. That word is a custom reverse fit for Joe Biden and his team. ALL lack gravitas, from scared-rabbit-looking National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and faculty-lounge janitor SecState Antony Blinken to Vice President Giggles Harris. They don’t just look lost and uneasy, they sound like it, too.

No wonder the Taliban doesn’t take America seriously. And those guys don’t even watch cartoons.

Photo by Sohaib Ghyasi on Unsplash

An earlier version of this article was first published appeared in American Thinker.