Illusion is the art of deception that intellectually misleads perception and causes someone to question his or her discernment. David Copperfield and the late great Harry Houdini have been hailed as the greatest illusionists of all time, but perhaps that honor should go to our commander-in-chief, Joe Biden.
How so?
The president has cultivated an image in conflict with his character, and only now is the left beginning to question its erroneous assumptions. Though he was labeled "sweet, compassionate Joe," circumstances have coalesced to reveal he is none of those things. Throughout his political career – which essentially has been his entire life – Mr. Biden worked diligently to nurture the persona of a kind and caring man. He even goes so far as to repeatedly tell the public, "I'm not a wise guy."
Buttressing this imaginary character is the leftist legacy media, which has cultivated this grand illusion and written extensively on the subject. As the situation in Afghanistan unraveled in living color, however, the sheet was ripped off this deception to reveal someone very different.
The president's comments to ABC's George Stephanopoulos exposed his true nature – that of a cold, calculating opportunist. When the friendly ABC host queried him about a video of desperate Afghans falling off an airplane to a gruesome death, the president unsuccessfully deflected, "That was four days ago, five days ago." Forget for a moment that Mr. Biden was factually incorrect – it was the callous nature of his response that caught many of his staunch supporters unaware.
Indeed, it took a humanitarian crisis of this magnitude to unmask Mr. Biden's phony compassion. On one of the most left-leaning news programs in America, Morning Joe, Washington newspaperman David Ignatius – whose leftist credentials are legend – spat out the following:
"You could see it with President Biden. His defensiveness – almost brittleness – he's trying to talk tough … the buck stops here, you know, ‘chaos was baked in,’ sort of firm presidential lines of leadership that even within the White House, I think, there are people who wish he was being more compassionate … speaking more to the human suffering that he's seeing around him than to the toughness and resoluteness of his own decision making."
Joe Biden
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
For years now the Fourth Estate has been duplicitous in creating this image of Joe Biden as an empathetic loveable senior by feeding the American public a steady diet of this falsehood that the president is a compassionate man. Headlines from Pulitzer Prize-winning papers and their sycophant broadcast media allies proclaim loud and proud how grand it is to have someone with such a big heart occupying the Oval Office. Biden, they posit, is a caring and empathetic man who understands the suffering of others. Above all, this kinder, gentler president is compassionate – someone who feels your pain, or so the legend goes.
Naturally, they could not help themselves from the odious art of comparison. In the run-up to the 2020 campaign, an article in PoliticusUSA inflated the myth of Biden-the-nice-guy by comparing him to President Donald Trump. The title told the story: "Joe Biden Just Showed More Compassion In 50 Seconds Than Trump Has In His Entire Life.”
In February, a CNN headline blared: "Biden brings compassion, centrism, and a big-time vaccine promise at CNN town hall." The lead paragraph reads: "As he gently told a traumatized 8-year-old girl, ‘Don't be scared, honey. Don't be scared,’ Joe Biden showed that the days of presidential pandemic denial and indifference to America's suffering are over."
In Forbes Magazine last year, contributor John Baldoni joined the amen chorus in an article titled, "How Empathy Defines Joe Biden." He dug deep into this characterization of the president by quoting Elizabeth Kubler-Ross:
"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen."
Then Baldoni whips the wrapping off his gift to the president, "Dr. Kubler-Ross could have been describing former vice president Joe Biden."
No More Mr. Nice Guy
Those on the right have never been taken in by all this. They've seen through the trickery and recognized Mr. Biden’s organic nastiness when challenged by a voter or reporter and witnessed inexplicable flares of temper at inappropriate times. They’ve noted the chasm that lies between the president’s words and actions. Some have wondered in print how long the real Joe Biden could stay hidden beneath the klieg lights of the presidency.
It has been said that difficulties in life often reveal one's true character. Thus, it is no wonder the wretched humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan has removed Biden's façade and exposed him as a poseur. One wonders how much more kindness from our empathetic president the American people or the world writ large can bear, or whether his pals from the Fourth Estate will continue to propagate the illusion of sweet old Joe Biden even when it flies in the face of reality.
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Read more from Leesa K. Donner.
