Showtime for Biden

Where is Biden?  He had been missing and people noticed.

Lights. Camera. Action.

Meanwhile, we know where Trump is: looking like he is trying to take credit for something he didn't do. Minimizing problems. Citing cures and vaccines. Making excuses.

Joe Biden stood at a lectern this morning and planned to address the nation. Unfortunately for him, the presentation started with three minutes of a screen telling us to stand by, and then an unsure Biden looking back and forth waiting for a cue. It did not open with him in command. It opened showing a guy wondering when to start, not realizing he was live on camera.

We heard offscreen voices. We saw him wipe his nose. And then he started. Amateur hour.

"I hope today and in the days ahead, the president will give us the unvarnished truth. That's what the American people need and what they deserve."

Biden pointed out what has become a dominant theme in the story of this virus: Trump delayed with happy talk and re-assurances. He was shining us on, with fingers crossed. "For too long the warning signs were ignored. For too long the administration said the virus was quote 'under control', quote 'contained,' quote 'like the flu.' The president said that no one saw this coming. Well, that's just not accurate." 

Biden then described the early notice that Americans had and he criticizes Trump's inaction. "We need to put in motion today what we should have put in motion weeks ago. . . . Let me be clear. Donald Trump is not responsible for the coronavirus. But he does bear responsibility for our response."

Giving a cue to the offstage assistant.

Then, exactly ten minutes in, another mess-up. His teleprompter script appears to be lagging. He began fumbling for words and then made motions with his right hand, potentially below the camera view but in fact on display, directing the off-screen person to speed up or otherwise fix his script. He looked confused and abruptly ended that section of his speech.

It was worse than amateur hour. It was proof positive that Biden was not in control of the situation, had not mastered the material in his speech, and that in a talk about government competence he was displaying incompetence.  

"Management matters in a crisis," he said, immediately after the SNAFU. Yes, management matters. Yikes.

His fourth point was jobs. "We should be doing everything in our power to keep workers on payrolls. . . . Unfortunately as of last night Mitch McConnell and President Trump were offering a plan to let big corporations off the hook. They proposed a five hundred billion dollar slush fund for corporations with almost no conditions."  

It was lunch bucket Joe. Biden cited who he wanted to get the help, workers themselves and small businesses like family restaurants hoping to stay afloat and pay their workers. "Workers, the worker who have seen their wages slashed. They need to be made whole."

And then the double edged sword: "Andrew Cuomo's briefings are a lesson in leadership." Biden is right. Andrew Cuomo's briefings look like a man in charge. They are a tough comparison for Biden. Cuomo, not Biden, looks like a president. Uncle Joe looks like a Chairman Emeritus, not the CEO.

Confident. Factual. Clear.

Biden said, "In a crisis, character is revealed." Trump's character, showing him to be more concerned with re-election and therefore to have downplayed the virus to the injury of American, is revealed. Biden looks good by comparison.  But in a crisis competence is revealed as well. Republicans are going to jump on this, and say Biden looks old and past his prime.

I am reluctant to say it, but Biden does indeed look old and past his prime. He needs a good VP.