From WSJopinion: A crisis reveals a president with little introspection and even less penetration into the world’s problems, writes Joseph Epstein
Journal Editorial Report: The president's political support collapses. Image: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty ImagesJoe Biden is the 46th U.S. president, the military’s commander in chief, leader of the free world. So why can’t I take him seriously? When he steps out to make a speech or give a rare press conference, he looks as if he is setting out to do a commercial to sell me gutters or roofing shingles. Mr.
The Borax Man was a familiar type when I was growing up. So familiar that I dropped such a character, whom I named Sy Bourget, into a short story of mine called “Kaplan’s Big Deal.” In that story I wrote: “Bourget—he didn’t pronounce the t in his name—was so good, it used to be said, that he could sell aluminum siding to people who lived in high-rise buildings.” A main chancer, he studied human motives “toward the end of manipulating others to say yes.
The problem Mr. Biden presents is that it is difficult to believe anything he says. The reason is that it is hard to believe that he himself really believes in much of anything, except getting ahead. As the American president—thanks to his good luck in having Donald Trump for an opponent—he has now surely accomplished thisYet Mr. Biden lacks the convincing solemnity of manner, the gravitas that all world leaders, the fate of millions riding on their decisions, require.
Belief on the part of a leader is of course conditional on the nature of the belief itself. George W. Bush, tutored by Dick Cheney, seems to have believed in nation building, which, as the example of Iraq has shown, wasn’t feasible. What does Joe Biden believe? He is a rosary-carrying Catholic who is all right with abortion, allowing politics to swamp theology. Having run for president as the centrist candidate, he straightaway proposed a slate of wildly progressive programs.
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