They say time heals all wounds. How quickly — well, that depends.
If one is to judge by body language, however, we can make a safe assumption: Five months isn’t enough durational convalescence to properly heal throwing a president off his own party’s ticket without a single primary vote and then losing the election.
Sunday night was the 47th edition of the Kennedy Center Honors, with host Queen Latifah. Honorees included filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, rock artist Bonnie Raitt, jazz artist Arturo Sandoval, and the living members of the Grateful Dead (RIP Phil Lesh), among others.
Naturally, the guests of honor at the Kennedy Center Honors typically include the president and his wife (although they might be one and the same at this point; who knows?) and the vice president and her plus-one.
The story, however, wasn’t exactly the fact that the man behind “The Godfather” trilogy and the band that could make 36-minute versions of “China Cat Sunflower/I Know You Rider” eminently listenable were being feted.
Rather, it’s the fact that things within the executive branch seem awfully, um, chilly.
Check out the entrance of President Joe Biden and “Dr.” Jill. They were seated right next to Vice President Kamala Harris and first gentleman Doug Emhoff. Both couples are standing.
Grand total of seconds of eye contact or even acknowledging the other couple existed: Zero, more or less, although there was an awkward split-second when they kinda sorta looked at each other. (Or maybe Joe was just wondering who the heck that woman was.)
Jill and Joe Biden are refusing to even look at Kamala Harris tonight pic.twitter.com/qL6jftoLsu
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 9, 2024
You’ll be able to watch the iciness in full when it airs on CBS Dec. 22. Or not, if you have literally anything better to do three days before Christmas.
Now, it’s hardly any secret that the Biden side and the Harris side of the Democratic Party aren’t on the best of terms right now. Biden’s people blame Harris and her surrogates — particularly those in the orbit of former President Barack Obama — for forcing him out of the race in July after a June 27 debate revealed how mentally infirm he really was when not reading off a teleprompter on six Red Bulls and an Adderall.
Needless to say, the drugs didn’t work. pic.twitter.com/3lYHnU476w
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) June 28, 2024
Harris’ corner, meanwhile, has blamed Biden for not getting out of the race earlier, noting he polled about as well as sepsis and that a July-to-November sprint made things more difficult for the candidate.
Of course, both are right and wrong. Biden probably shouldn’t have been pushed aside, but he probably shouldn’t have run in 2024, either — and arguably shouldn’t have run in 2020 when he was spitting out legendary soundbites like these attesting to his mental decline already in progress:
Here’s that moment Joe Biden was talking about playing record players for kids pic.twitter.com/7t5CIoEKpq
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) September 13, 2019
Joe Biden has a message for Black Americans who don’t do what he says: “you ain’t Black!”https://t.co/blYLyRuLvX pic.twitter.com/Ax6MHTkkdC
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) May 26, 2020
Joe Biden: “We have to take care of the cure. That will make the problem worse no matter what — no matter what.”
WHAT??????????????????? pic.twitter.com/ao2IGDr6x9
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) March 24, 2020
Kamala’s message, however, was basically just that she was Joe Biden without the Joe Biden-y moments — which, given a complete election cycle, still wouldn’t have flown. (Indeed, she had a chance at a full election cycle — in 2020. She mismanaged both money and momentum so badly that she was forced to drop out before a primary was even held.) Her message changed so often and was so content-free — remember “kamala IS brat,” anyone? — that George Washington probably couldn’t have gotten himself elected on the platform.
Furthermore, she predictably lost the voters that Biden had managed to keep in the Democratic fold in 2020 without actually bringing in new support, crucially among younger voters.
So both think that they should be president and both think they would have won were it not for the other. When the wound will heal is when they realize they’re both wrong.
How long will that take? These are Democrats, and they don’t admit they’re wrong, so expect this one to suppurate for a while, from the looks — or non-looks, as the case may be — of things.
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