I need to ask my readers to please excuse some confusion from yesterday. I published a call for Joe Biden to go saying it is time. Unfortunately, there was a glitch in the publishing and many readers got a garbled version. Please bear with me and let me here try to give a short, but coherent version. I am a year older than Joe Biden and lived in Wilmington, Delaware from 1941 to 1963, a period that covered the period of Joe Biden’s residence in the state. He and I were in high school and college and university at the same times. We were not pals, but we experienced the same environment, politics, socio-economic standards, etc. Clyde’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Joe had a significant handicap in that the was a stutterer and did relatively poorly in school. Yet, the stuttering drove him to strive not only to overcome stuttering but also to achieve more than just normal recognition. He clearly came to want to be and be seen to be an outstanding leader of his generation and of his country. To combat the stuttering he would endlessly recite difficult literature by Shakespeare and other iconic writers and in doing so, imbibed not only their correct speech but perhaps also their ideals, talents, and elevated status. A mediocre student, Biden strove for leadership and popular positions at the private, Catholic Archmere Academy he attended for high school. Upon graduation, he entered the University of Delaware where he once claimed to have done a triple majors, but, in fact, did one. Upon graduation from Delaware, he entered Syracuse University Law school where it was claimed he won a scholarship, but in fact received a need based stipend based on his family’s relatively low income and finished not in the top of his class as sometimes claimed but in the bottom. Biden returned to Wilmington after law school and true to his imbibed ambitions managed with his quasi aggressive outgoing personality to get elected to the New Castle County Council. Then came the BIG break. Delaware in 1972 was a Republican state. J Caleb Boggs was the Senator up for reelection and no Democrat even challenged. Except one Joe Biden who at 29 years of age would only become old enough to be sworn in as Senator after celebrating his birthday after election day but before swearing in day. Joe won. Completely unexpected, it was a huge upset and put Joe on his road to the future. He was a Democrat, but a quite conservative one in keeping with Delaware attitudes at the time. He opposed busing between different school districts. (Kamala Harris mentioned this many years later). He presided over the Judiciary Committee that put Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. In 1988, he decided to run for President and began to include uncited statements in his speeches that were taken from speeches and writings of the likes of Robert Kennedy, Column McKinnock, and others. Here again was the old imitation of elevated figures in hopes of gaining identification for the lesser complex. Joe was not a bad senator, but neither was he an outstanding one. He had a major distinction as a big backer of Israel and was the all time champion for collection of campaign funding from the America Israel Political Action Committee. As a Vice President and adviser to the young President Obama, he provided, I thought, valuable experiential advice and realism. He also, of course, had the opportunity to spend eight years in the White House watching how it worked, absorbing all the intelligence reports of the years and meeting all the world’s top leaders. This is where I thought Joe gained a real geo-political edge. No one except a President, and in this case a Vice President, gets this experience and this view of the world and the world’s leaders. Joe was well ready to run and win in 2020 and was, in my mind, the best guy for the job at the time. He has done a decent job over the past four years. But he has also slipped badly physically and mentally over the past two years. He is not the Joe we elected in 2020. But there are two things even more important. One is great danger that he cannot beat Trump in his present state. The second is that Joe and his undying commitment to Israel are at odds with what is good for America, for Israel, and for the middle east. He does not understand that Prime Minister Netanyahu is running rings around him (Joe). He does not understand that Israel is not only a genocidal country but that it is making America one too. By standing steadfastly with the Zionist drive to destroy Palestine and Palestinians, he is destroying American credibility globally and driving domestic division. This is why I say now, TIME TO GO JOE. |