Joe Biden, time, and making decisions
I think that this is telling:
“But we’ve all seen the pictures,” Stephanopoulos said. “We’ve seen those hundreds of people packed into a C-17. We’ve seen Afghans falling…”
Biden interrupts, livid. “That was four days ago, five days ago!”
That was two and half days ago, but yes, Joe, it still matters, you can’t skate past it. But this is his attempt to do an Obama: Ignore scandal for several days, then say it’s “old news, move on.” It doesn’t go over well.
A lot of pundits are concentrating on the fact that Joe got the number of days wrong. It’s true that he did, and it’s true that it’s symptomatic of his cognitive difficulties with numbers and his lack of attention to detail. But the deeper problem is that I believe Biden truly believes that something that happened days ago is of no particular importance. Obama would not have implied that something was “old news” after just a few days (whether it be two days or five days), nor would he have believed it even had he tried to sell the idea to the American public.
I think Biden is giving us a glimpse into his actual thought process, which increasingly lives in the moment and lives on impulse. I think one of many reasons for his calamitous decisions on this is that he was operating like a child wanting a cookie and wanting it now. He had decided to get out of Afghanistan and he was too impatient to wait for the proper safeguards to be put in place. And unlike the child and the cookie, he was in charge and he got to order other people around. It must have been heady, after all those years of having to work with other senators, and of being Obama’s vice president and having to abide by Obama’s decisions whether he believed they were correct or not.
As for any counsel the military offered to him that explained the bad consequences of his decision, he was demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger effect:
In 2011, Dunning wrote about his observations that people with substantial, measurable deficits in their knowledge or expertise lack the ability to recognize those deficits and, therefore, despite potentially making error after error, tend to think they are performing competently when they are not: “In short, those who are incompetent, for lack of a better term, should have little insight into their incompetence—an assertion that has come to be known as the Dunning–Kruger effect”. In 2014, Dunning and Helzer described how the Dunning–Kruger effect “suggests that poor performers are not in a position to recognize the shortcomings in their performance.”
Biden is especially unlikely to have ever recognized his own shortcomings, because the world has rewarded and promoted him to the highest office in the land. So why would he not value his own judgment above that of others?
[NOTE: And yes, as I’ve explained elsewhere, I assume that this decision actually was Joe’s. There may have been other people facilitating it and encouraging it, and certainly there were many others who were willing to carry it out. But the decision is very much in line with Biden’s history regarding Vietnam and Iraq, as I wrote in this post.]
The Bug-Out has convinced me that Biden is making some of the decisions.
Though I suppose that may change now.
It’s not hard to see how people who are widely successful in politics might imagine themselves to be very competent, even the smartest person in any room they walk into. Of course this would be exacerbated if they already have a tendency towards narcissism anyway. Add cognitive impairment due to early stage dementia to that mix. And then add being surrounded by sycophants who would never dream of openly questioning you, and a media that essentially doesn’t hold you accountable ever and it’s not difficult to see how decisions that seem obviously horrible to others may paradoxically seem like excellent choices to someone like Joe Biden.
Nonapod:
Exactly.
Yes, but we’ve all been saying other people were pulling his strings. Why would those people suddenly stop and let him have control over such a potentially dangerous situation? Really odd time to let him off the leash.
Today Newt said he expected Biden to waver between arrogance and senility, but not this bad.
physicsguy:
Either they had their own nefarious reasons for wanting this outcome, or they had no idea it was a bad decision, or he felt so strongly about this decision being correct that he defied them.
Letting Joe make decisions is a clear and present danger, and demands implementation of the 25th Amendment. Especially so when the very top military brass in the nation lack the courage to thwart his reckless decisions.
We must do that now. I greatly dislike Kamala Harris, but we* will be safer choosing incompetence over deranged thinking.
*And probably the rest of the world.
Having read the transcript, I think he was trying to say that US Army controls the airport now, so stop blaming him for stuff that happened a few days ago. Still a stupid answer but not the way everyone is making it sound.
If the interviewer was serious he would have pressed Joe more on how he ended up in this mess in the first place. Joe mostly got away with saying it was inevitable and no one could have predicted it.
physicsguy: I think it most likely they agreed with him. Like Joe, they also didn’t understand why it was such a bad decision. Unlike Joe, they don’t have the experience to have foreseen that it was a seriously flawed “plan”.
Biden reminds me of The Monkees when they rebelled against their creators and wanted more control over their music. What strikes me about the Stephanopoulous interview is how angry Biden seems. I think part of that is his personality, he always seems to have had a chip on his shoulder and was resentful of the elite who went to the fancy schools. I think his mental decline has exacerbated this part of his personality, as he gets angry at anyone who makes even the slightest challenge to his opinions.
When he said “I am the President of the Unites States” in his speech this seemed directed to his advisors, who have been telling him what to do, as much as the general public. If he decides to just defy his handlers, what are they supposed to do? He must know that they don’t really dare try to get rid of him and replace him with Harris. Things could get very interesting with a free-range Biden.
baltimoron:
Controlling the airport is somewhat irrelevant unless they also control the roads. And how firm is their “control” of the airport, anyhow? And what of the Afghans who helped us? It wasn’t Americans who fell from the planes or died in the landing gear area. Biden doesn’t give a rat’s ass about any of it, and it’s obvious
Disease and disaster at the southern border. Utter humiliation in Kabul.
The doddering demented one is now resting comfortably in Delaware. His rubber ducky floats along side the commander-in-chief while both splash merrily in a great big bathtub.
neo,
Stephanopolous commented on the shit show at the airport and Biden said there was no more shit show at the airport. Its not my fault he didn’t press Biden on the shit show outside the airport.
baltimoron:
Of course it’s not your fault.
My point is merely how inadequate Biden’s answers were.
A lot of criticisms have been made of how the United States elects its Presidents and there’s a lot of validity to them. But the process is so long and arduous and intense that it at least guaranteed the person who emerged at the end of it was:
1. Tough-minded.
2. Someone of real talent or ability.
It surely didn’t guarantee we would get good Presidents but that even the ones who did the job poorly could at least do the job. I’m no fan of George W. Bush but I would acknowledge that he was at least capable (outside The Pet Goat incident) of fulfilling his responsibilities.
But Joe Biden was largely hidden from the American public and shielded from any of the traditional pressures and demands of a Presidential campaign. For pete’s sake, he was well on his way to dropping out of the race when Obama and the Democratic establishment catapulted him back into being the front runner.
And of course, installing as Vice President someone who was a Grade A disaster in the Democratic primaries doesn’t help anything.
Mike
“Either they had their own nefarious reasons for wanting this outcome, or they had no idea it was a bad decision, or he felt so strongly about this decision being correct that he defied them.”
Lara Logan , in an interview with Tucker Carlson, said that she believes this was the result the Biden handlers wanted.
The interview is here.
Draw your own conclusions. I think it is part of the “radical transformation ” of America. They wanted this humiliation.
Gregory Harper:
The Monkees did a whole lot better than Biden, that’s for sure. And they did better than most people think. See this for general information on what sort of musicians they were, and this for their career when they took more control over their music.
Lest we forget The Monkees vs. The Archies:
___________________________
The fictional band [The Archies] was inspired by the success of the 1966 TV series The Monkees; in particular, Don Kirshner, who had managed the initially-fictional band, wanted a musical act that he could fully control: as The Monkees were fictional but still used the real musicians’ names, the musicians themselves became increasingly irritated at being micromanaged, leading to a dispute that culminated in Kirshner being fired. To avoid a repeat of the Monkees fiasco while still allowing himself full control, Kirshner commissioned a band based on cartoon characters—if the session musicians tried to rebel or leave, they could be replaced seamlessly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Archies
neo,
But my point was that his answers were adequate. I know you want someone to force Biden to answer the hard questions, but that isn’t the interview we got.
The only time Stephanopoulos really got serious was when he asked if the military would stay in Afghanistan past the end of the month to evacuate US citizens. That was actually a very easy thing for Joe to say yes to and I assume he only tried to dodge the question because he hadn’t thought that far ahead.
81 million votes! Most popular president ever!
That IS, after all, the crux of the issue here. Either the fraud is corrected, or day by day we eat the unsavory fruits that fall from the fraud tree. Impeachment is not a solution to election fraud.
In ref. to the comments of M.Bunge at 4:46;
The actions of the massive propaganda machine that now engage in thought control , biased reporting, lying and deceit here in the USA determine to a very great extent who will become president (subsequent to the selection of each party’s candidates during the primaries).
This machine can make anybody appear to be a Hitler, and they do so without hesitation when it suits them.
If this means that the media’s preferred candidate is senile, a crook, incompetent, a moron, etc., so what. The media will frame their stories to make him/her appear to be the exact opposite.
Though I firmly believe the last election was stolen, there is no getting around the fact that Bidet got about 50% of the vote.
How many of these voters (like several of my friends for whom the NY Times and TV not-Fox news are de rigueur) voted for Bidet and the moron Harris, because they firmly believed the propaganda spewed out by the modern American version of Stalin era Izvestia and Pravda?
I would venture to guess the majority of them.
There is no perfect way to select a president or leader; parliamentary system or via majority winner in an election.
It is up to the voters to make wise , informed decisions, and when they do not you wind up with a Hugo Chavez or a lying, senile SOB like Joe Bidet.
Biden was allowed to make the decision. This debacle is intended to credibly force Biden out. Thousands of American hostages will ensure Biden’s departure. CNN, MSNBC, ABC are all strongly criticizing Biden. That’s not accidental.
The Taliban have given our people till 9/11 to get out. Present estimates are that 10-15k Americans are in country. In a press conference, Austin just admitted that we have no capability to go get those Americans. No way are we going to be able to get out more than a few thousand out, if that.
Once Biden’s out, the media will ignore the American hostages, just as they’re doing with the Jan 6th political prisoners.
“His rubber ducky floats along side the commander-in-chief while both splash merrily in a great big bathtub.”
Nah, he’s swimming naked in his pool with female Secret Service agents ordered to watch.
as The Monkees were fictional but still used the real musicians’ names, the musicians themselves became increasingly irritated at being micromanaged,
Unlike Milli Vanilli, they could actually sing and play instruments.
There never ever is push back by the Democrats Propaganda Ministry, any lie or flat wrong decision is passed over without a eye blink.
I certainly have been one saying I don’t believe Sundowner has any decision making but this is such a screw up, its incompetence or a malicious and had to be someone calling it.
Maybe a purposely to let Sundowner run the show for once and knowing it was going to be a train wreck.
What’s remarkable is that even some in the media are expressing frustration with the remarkable incompetence on display here. It isn’t everyone, and it won’t last, but it’s a sign of just how horrific this is.
This is via The Conservative Treehouse:
“Based on current political alignment, alliances, and the ideology behind who is in charge of specific U.S. government agencies, it can reasonably be assumed someone (insert Obama here) wants Pakistan and Iran to have advanced military technology via the stolen weapons we leave behind in Afghanistan. Why? Because those same people already made money selling advanced military tech to Iran, and this ‘crisis’ provides cover when it shows up later in their arsenal.”
A lot of criticisms have been made of how the United States elects its Presidents and there’s a lot of validity to them. But the process is so long and arduous and intense that it at least guaranteed the person who emerged at the end of it was:
Disagree. It guaranteed that the person who emerged at the end of it was talented at running publicity and fundraising campaigns (or at least fronting for people like David Plouffe to run them). It also guaranteed someone with the stamina and drive to run the horrid distance. This system emerged in its mature form in 1980. What’s changed since then are the media conduits to the voter. From 1952 to 1976, you had elements of the old regime and the new regime side by side, with the 1972 and 1976 campaigns proximate to the final form. The pre-1952 system valued public prominence and a talent for building relationships with people who could deliver blocs of delegates or bring those brokers on board.
The old regime generated men who were more respectable (in their public presentation) and better prepared for the office, but that may have just been the culture and not the system. Hard to disentangle the effects of one versus the other.
Additionally at CTH:
“So let me just summarize this…. The Chairman of the BlackRock Investment Institute, the guy who tells the $8.7 trillion investment firm BlackRock where to put their money, has a brother who is the Senior Advisor to Joe Biden; has a wife who is the White House Personnel Director; and has a daughter who is now on the National Security Council.
Put another way… Tom Donilon’s literal job description for BlackRock is to: “leverage the firm’s expertise and generate proprietary research to provide insights on the global economy, markets, geopolitics and long-term asset allocation,” and his wife is in charge of White House personnel, his brother is Senior Advisor to the President, and his daughter is on the National Security Council.”
It is up to the voters to make wise , informed decisions,
It’s up to voters to make passable decisions rather than be completely feckless and / or silly ones. An older, smarter, and more public-spirited generation dies off. They’re replaced by the young of today. Sigh.
Put another way… Tom Donilon’s literal job description for BlackRock is to: “leverage the firm’s expertise and generate proprietary research to provide insights on the global economy, markets, geopolitics and long-term asset allocation,” and his wife is in charge of White House personnel, his brother is Senior Advisor to the President, and his daughter is on the National Security Council.”
Well, we have a short list of names of who to try for treason.
Maybe a purposely to let Sundowner run the show for once and knowing it was going to be a train wreck.
It may have been that the hands controlling the marionette strings were fighting each other, and this was a result of a decision by default. Psaki absents herself for a week. That’s a riddle right there.
This from House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA).
The Pentagon might have been blowing smoke, but I doubt it. We need follow these quotes before Google algorithms or White House lawyers delete them. So perhaps, we have Joe Biden, Antony Blinkered, Wendy Sherman, and Brian McKeon to thank for this.
I just noticed the phrase, “the initial answers that we got from the Pentagon were,” as being suggestive. OK, what were the later answers? No clue given.
Art Deco:
I think there are many reasons for the change, but one is the switch from “smoke-filled rooms” to a near-universal primary (or to a lesser extent caucus) system of selecting each party’s candidate.
Geoffrey Britain:
I initially thought it was a coordinated plan to force him out. But one thing that gives me pause is the fact that although there is much more criticism of Biden in the MSM than usual, it is by no means universal. Usually they unite and speak as one in their preplanned messages.
baltimoron:
I think you misunderstand me.
Of course I want someone to ask Biden the hard questions. But I have zero expectations that anyone in the MSM by whom he’d consent to be interviewed would do so. In fact, I’m surprised that a single one of the questions Stephanopoulos asked in that interview were at all challenging, even marginally.
Biden’s answers were utterly inadequate. Not to the media, not to his sycophants, not to people who are not paying attention. But his answers are objectively inadequate, and there is a certain number of people – probably small, but maybe not tiny – who supported him before but who find his answers inadequate now.
Neo: I shouldn’t have been so hard on the Monkees. You are absolutely correct that they were a lot better than Biden. I loved them when I was a kid and still have most of their albums. Even if they didn’t play on most of their records, they did sing and had talent. If only the powers that be in the Democrat party were as good at picking a President as the producers of The Monkees were at picking Davy, Michael, Peter, and Micky.
Lacunae and hand-waving casualness about what’s over being over where personal responsibility for unpleasant past events is concerned are markers of pathological narcissism, too.
No doubt that Biden has serious age-related cognitive issues. But as I once uncharacteristically uncharitably said re ex colleague with mild case of well-managed Schizophrenia, “Even without that affliction, he’d still be an asshole.”
Didn’t take long for the vast knowlegde of the US to emerge.
Notice the contempt for the nation all you Z fans? Prefers the PRC and the CCP, because they don’t hate him if he self censors; his words. Shill for XI.
Carry on.
Above note to Z was in regard to a comment made in the Roundup post for today. My bad, smart phone, dumb user, wrong comment thread.
Neo also noted that Z was off leash (again); lynching US citizens for the crime of … well, Z crimes.
It’s a feature.
I get the vibe that Biden is relying on his recollection that Nixon and Kissinger “got away” with ending he Vietnam war. Also, from the Obama years he remembers how they just lied and waited out the Benghazi affair. (Another screwup similar to this – just not as big.) He figures that the MSM, well-crafted lies, and time will bail him out. That has been SOP for the Democrats.
I think Biden is wrong about this. The magnitude of the mistakes made and the world-wide blowback that’s coming are not something that can be finessed through messaging and waiting for the news cycle to move on.
The possibility of American citizen hostages, the loss of advanced weaponry secrets to Iran/China/Russia, the betrayal of Afghani interpreters, the loss of trust by our allies, the loss of stature resulting from being humiliated by fundamentalist Muslim barbarians, and blowback effects not yet imagined are all things that will bedevil he U.S. and our foreign policy for many years to come.
Unless the Democrats can figure out some way to convince Biden to mount a rescue effort that succeeds, they are in deep doo doo. And the effect will last
I have been thinking a lot about this catastrophe. I’m angry, disgusted, and depressed. But it has occurred to me that maybe this is an event that might have such far reaching effects as to put the Democrats’ policies and election prospects in a ditch they will not be able to climb out of for some years. Time will tell.
@ Zaphod
Everybody may have some of these characteristic behaviors some of the time, but narcissists have all of them all of the time.
Narcissism vs Narcissistic Personality Disorder: How to Spot the Differences
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEfS-_a21kk
“We don’t get to diagnose people for being a jerk.”
“Narcissism is the “second hand smoke” of our time. You stand close enough to it, you’re going to get sick.”
(list of DSM factors at 11:20)
How does someone with NPD act in relationships compared to someone with narcissistic traits? How does someone’s narcissistic personality disorder affect their own mental health compared to that of a narcissist?
When does “normal” self confidence cross the line into grandiosity? What are the other mental health disorders that co-occur with narcissistic personality disorder? What are some examples of narcissism vs narcissistic personality disorder?
(subtypes resulting from different combinations of the major factors; you can probably name someone in media or government that fits each of them)?
What is a grandiose narcissist? What is a malignant narcissist? What is a covert narcissist? What is a communal narcissist? What is a benign narcissist?
* * *
8 Questions A Narcissist Simply Cannot Answer
?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7qsxeQrKhg
1. 2:08 – What are some of your deepest hurts?
2. 3:20 – Why is it so difficult to the point of impossible to admit flaws or mistakes?
3. 4:20 – Why do you feel the need to impress strangers?
4. 5:31 – Why do my differences threaten you so much?
5. 6:20 – Do you honestly believe that your opinions cancel out the validity of others opinions?
6. 7:16 – In what ways do you need to grow and change? (Living w/hidden shame)
7. 8:12 – If I make you feel so frustrated, why do you keep coming back?
8. 9:05 – Why do you go silent?
There were lots of good comments on this one, mostly along the lines of “I always thought it was my fault and I’m so glad I’m not dealing with that person anymore.”?
The consensus on both posts was that the Narcissist is the only one in the relationship who doesn’t admit the problem and won’t see a therapist.
“Narcissists rarely if ever seek help because, in their minds, there is nothing wrong with them.”
@AesopFan:
It’s a fascinating subject, with the caveat that YouTube NPD videos have comment threads full of people predominantly of a certain gender and exhibiting a great variety of distress signs experiencing sudden revelations that their Husband is a Narcissist and it All Makes Sense Now. Which I’m sure it does, in maybe half the cases.
Following Ronin Man’s videos prompted the YouTube algo to introduce me to Sam Vaknin <— very interesting life trajectory indeed! Guy is a genius, but wouldn’t want him living next door. He reckons that the new Social Media Environment (a) makes Narcissists of us all and (b) actively selects (as in allocates ‘success’) to the worst of the worst. He’s not an optimist.
anosognosia:
1. The inability of a person to recognize his or her own illness or handicap.
2. (pathology) Failure to be aware of a defect or deficit resulting from disability, due to brain injury (e.g. Anton-Babinski syndrome).
—-
“There’s nothing wrong with my brain!” said my dad, fifteen seconds after telling me he didn’t like the dementia-care home we’d visited because of the giant rotating tilting dance floor in the living room.
I don’t think Biden’s close to there yet, but clearly he has no concept that he’s “missed a step or two” as the journalistically-acceptable code goes these days.
That loud buzzing sound you hear is my processor cooling fan while I go into an endless loop recursing on today’s new vocabulary.
The magnitude of the mistakes made and the world-wide blowback that’s coming are not something that can be finessed through messaging and waiting for the news cycle to move on.
J.J.:
Yes, the Afghan Bug-Out Failure has exceeded the usual Mistakes Were Made/Let’s Move On maneuver.
Over at Nate Silver’s 538 site, word is the Bug-Out doesn’t matter because Americans wanted to leave Afghanistan and anyway Americans don’t care about foreign countries.
Both are largely true but Americans do care about seeing their country and president become a helpless laughingstock on the news, while watching videos of dot-like Afghanis falling to their deaths from American transport wheel wells.
And it could get much worse. Imagine the Taliban accidentally on purpose kill a few thousand stranded Americans. What does President Ice Cream Cone do then? Nothing? World War 3? Another cone?
Even as we type, there may be more than the usual wrong with Biden. He’s headed home to Delaware. He has little on his schedule. We can call his presidency, “The Big Lid.”
_________________________________________
Hey man … I think he broke the President.
–Firesign Theatre, “I Think We’re All Bozos on this Bus” @ 26:16
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmWFrMq3qNY
I am starting to think that for every hair plug put into Biden’s scalp a little bit of brain matter would seep out.
“On the genius decision”
When you have a politician who some time ago did have his wits about him, albeit was already an idiot, who then later becomes senile and president, and thus even more detached from reality, you get decisions and policies like the “genius decision.”
All is not lost however; the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, can arrange a sit down with the head of the Afghan Taliban and apologize to him for all those things that the USA did wrong and for FORCING the Taliban to impose sharia law (with its associated executions, etc) upon the people of that nation.
Blinken will surely call upon that other foreign policy genius, Susan Rice to sit in, subsequent to which, she can go on all the TV “news” shows and explain it was all Trump’s fault.
What is sickening about all of this is how the media (the propaganda organ of the demonkrat party) and top demokrat party movers and shakers arranged to put Bidet (and Harris !!!!) into the WH, knowing full well that atop Bidets stupidity, he was also senile.
Just demonstrates that top demonkrats and their supporters care only about attaining power and really could not care less about the harm they cause the USA.