Not that I'm counting or anything, but as I write this sentence, it is approximately 41 days, three hours, 17 minutes, and [checks watch] 52 seconds until President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th president of these United States.
Approximately. And I swear I'm not counting.
Although this proposal will give my managing editor a twitchy eyelid worthy of Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus, maybe we need to dispatch with the "elect" part of "President-elect" a little early. Say, about 41 days, three hours, 15 minutes, and seven seconds early.
(It took me a minute to look up Dreyfus's name to make sure I got the spelling correct.)
Politico got the "Where's Biden?" ball rolling on Monday with a report headlined, "Biden shrinks from view ahead of Trump’s return to Washington." No fewer than four bylined reporters noted that "within the Democratic Party, on Capitol Hill — and even within his own administration — it feels like he left the Oval Office weeks ago."
Noting that Biden has "effectively disappeared from the radar," the story quoted a former White House official accusing the not-quite-former president of being "so cavalier and selfish about how he approaches the final weeks of the job."
Well, what did they expect after senior Democrats kicked Biden to the curb in an intra-party coup?
“In conversations that I’m having, they don’t even mention the president. It’s kind of sad,” a Democrat close to senior lawmakers told Politico. “It feels like Trump is president already.”
Indeed.
Others couldn't help but notice during last weekend's reopening of Notre Dame in Paris that Trump was effectively serving as our head of state, even if he won't be our head of government for another 41 days, three hours, one minute, and 14 seconds.
The day before Politico issued their report, the U.S. Air Force "dropped roughly 140 munitions on a 'very broad' gathering of ISIS fighters." Who issued that order? President Porchlight? A cabinet officer? A staffer? We don't know, but it seems reasonable to assume that it wasn't anyone that anybody elected to make that call.
I'm all for blowing up ISIS in large numbers with whatever munitions are at hand. But it's more than a little disconcerting when such a large attack was ordered at a time when even Politico admits that POTUS is AWOL.
Off-topic but speaking of unpersons, I just had to share this video that I posted yesterday on Instapundit:
Jill and Joe Biden are refusing to even look at Kamala Harris tonight 😬 pic.twitter.com/qL6jftoLsu
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 9, 2024
Joe and Jill might be effectively out of power more than a month before his (her?) administration's end date, but they still know how to slip in a shiv. Watch that video again. Even when the Bidens turn in Harris and Emhoff's direction, they're looking at other people and not the loser Second Couple.
Ouch.
But back to the topic at hand.
Maybe the more germane question to ask isn't whether we should dispense with the "elect" for President-elect Trump, but whether Joe Biden was ever effectively president at all — and what might happen during the next 41 days, two hours, 56 minutes, and 27 seconds until we finally have a president again.
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