Dead man walking

Hugh Gallagher explored what he called FDR’s Splendid Deception in his 1985 book of that title. In the title Gallagher was referring to FDR’s concealment of the polio-related paralysis that struck him in 1921. Gallagher was also a polio victim who understood the pain underlying Roosevelt’s efforts.

Researching the book, Gallagher found that among the 35,000 photographs of Roosevelt at his presidential library, only two featured him in his wheelchair. Media of the day cooperated by ignoring his polio. Roosevelt himself went to extraordinary lengths to convey the impression that he could walk.

“[T]he overwhelming fact about [FDR] is that he was horribly crippled, and yet through sheer persistence and will, rose above his lower body” — so wrote my teacher Jeffrey Hart in his memoiristic history of America in 1940, From This Moment On. Hart added: “In rising above his crippled body and seeming to walk again…Roosevelt told everyone that America rise again and walk too.” Put to one side that we had to rise again in 1940 by overcoming Roosevelt’s domestic policies.

Accepting the premise that Roosevelt’s deception may have served a higher purpose, I would contrast it with the ludicrous stage management of the Biden puppet masters. Yesterday Axios reported: “President Biden has introduced a change to his White House departure and return routine: Instead of walking across the South Lawn to and from Marine One by himself, he’s now often surrounded by aides…With aides usually walking between Biden and the press’ camera position outside the White House, the visual effect is to draw less attention to the 81-year-old’s halting and stiff gait[.]”

According to reporters Hans Nichols and Alex Thompson, “Some Biden advisers have told Axios they’re concerned that videos of Biden walking and shuffling alone — especially across the grass — have highlighted his age.” Axios suggests that the stage management emanated from the windmills of Biden’s mind — the reporters attribute the idea to Biden himself. If so, he must be firing on both of his remaining cylinders. Has he got any ideas for covering up the identity of his designated successor in case of his death during a second term?

Biden’s pitty-pat steps manifest his infirmity and serve as a metaphor of his age-related mental decline. What we have here is the Weekend At Bernie’s presidency, dead man walking variation. At RedState Nick Arama looks to the ocular proof supporting the Axios story in “CONFIRMED: Watch the Cover-Up by Handlers in Real Time as Joe Biden Shuffles From Marine One.”

It seems to me a tad late to cover up the visible manifestations of Biden’s decline and debility. Everyone has seen them. They remind us of the idiotic policies for which he has fronted since the first day of his presidency: open the borders, roll out the welcome mat for illegal aliens, suppress domestic energy production, make life easy for the genocidal maniacs running Iran, require that men who say they’re women must be treated as such, give me that old-time DEI religion. Biden shouldn’t be able to squeeze the toothpaste back into the tube by surrounding himself with physically capable aides, although the mainstream press will play its part to accommodate his and their laughably squalid deception.