{"id":77308,"date":"2021-03-31T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-31T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=77308"},"modified":"2021-03-30T08:28:23","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T13:28:23","slug":"opportunity-stumbles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=77308","title":{"rendered":"Opportunity Stumbles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Dominic Greene at the <em>Spectator <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/spectator.us\/topic\/joe-biden-press-conference-twilight-years\/\">ponders the depressing spectacle of the Biden &#8220;presidency&#8221; via the lens of last week&#8217;s gawdawful &#8220;news conference&#8221;<\/a> and what it symbolizes for our democracy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Joe Biden is the face of the United States. But Joe Biden no longer looks like Joe Biden. And he no longer sounds like Joe Biden \u2014 especially in the long and excruciating silences when he forgets what he\u2019s saying or fumbles for his cue cards.<\/p><p>The United States no longer looks like itself either. The sorry theatrical display of Biden\u2019s first press conference is an accurate image of what has happened to American democracy. A carefully limited number of carefully selected journalists asked carefully vetted questions. A carefully chosen president read carefully written answers off his cue cards, and carefully avoided taking any questions from Fox or Newsmax.<\/p><p>The White House is no longer the home of democracy. It\u2019s a reality TV series in a care home. Biden mused about how the country has lost its way, about how it used to be so much better, but he seemed fatalistically feeble, as if it was all too much and all too late, and he has already given up. As if the nation is in its twilight years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Open note to Ron DeSantis, Kristi Noem, Dan Crenshaw, Nikki Haley and everyone else lining up to run against this ongoing case of elder abuse:   do lots of press ops involving clearing brush with a chainsaw, or out at the range, or just <em>being joyfully, intensely physically capable<\/em>.   America &#8211; <em>real <\/em>America &#8211; doesn&#8217;t like seeing itself as feeble, of mind or body.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that&#8217;s the vision we&#8217;re being gaslit with today. <\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dominic Greene at the Spectator ponders the depressing spectacle of the Biden &#8220;presidency&#8221; via the lens of last week&#8217;s gawdawful &#8220;news conference&#8221; and what it symbolizes for our democracy: Joe Biden is the face of the United States. But Joe Biden no longer looks like Joe Biden. And he no longer sounds like Joe Biden [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[425,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-24","category-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77309,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77308\/revisions\/77309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}