The Biden variant

President Biden gave two sets of remarks yesterday. First he appeared at the crack of noon to deliver “Remarks by President Biden Providing an Update on the Omicron Variant.” Then he appeared two hours later to deliver “Remarks by President Biden During Meeting with CEOs of Companies to Discuss the Holiday Shopping Season and His Administration’s Work to Move Goods to Shelves.” Good title!

I take it that the minders in the daycare operation at the White House think it’s a good move to maximize our exposure to Biden. This despite the fact that he looks feeble and speaks accordingly. Perhaps this is the White House response to pleas that the administration use the bully pulpit on its own behalf. If so, some rethinking may be in order.

Such rethinking is especially in order when the heart of your message is an attack on your predecessor. I think this is about as tiresome as President Trump’s persistent gaze in the rearview mirror. Here is a passage from Biden’s first set of remarks yesterday:

And we’ll fight this variant with scientific and knowledgeable actions, and speed — not chaos and confusion. And we have more tools today to fight the variant than we’ve ever had before — from vaccines to boosters, to vaccines for children five years and older, and much more.

A year ago, America was floundering against the first variant of COVID. We beat that variant significantly, and then we got hit by a far more powerful threat: the Delta variant. But we took action, and now we’re seeing deaths from Delta come down. We’ll fight the –- you know, and –- look, we’re going to fight and beat this new variant as well.

Biden’s persistent boosterism for boosters while unsubtly trashing his predecessor is almost unbelievably ungracious. The expedited development and approval of the vaccines stand out among the many accomplishments for which Trump can legitimately claim credit even while Biden and Harris did nothing but run them down at the time. This particular theme of Biden’s remarks should come with the warning that it may induce nausea.

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