Dementia Joe Biden can never get a name or a title right.
Just ask “President Harris.” Or Nancy Pelosi’s husband “Bobby.” Or his cabinet secretaries like “Marcia Fudd” and “Walshmarty,” not to mention Antony Blinken, his “foreign minister,” and Lloyd Austin, “the secretary of the uh, um, uh, of the, uh military.”
Or his Supreme Court justice — “Kejan Kejan Ketanji Drown Jackson.”
But generally Biden only screws up a name once or twice per appearance. On Thursday, however, Brandon achieved a new personal best, or worst, when he misidentified a Democrat Congressman five times.
This was in Springfield, Va., at a union hall. Brandon was telling a pointless story (is there any other kind with him?) that included the audience reacting to an earlier gaffe of his by saying:
“That Biden really is stupid. He doesn’t know…”
All dialogue guaranteed verbatim by the way. At this point, Dementia Joe apparently realized, however dimly, that his story was, like his presidency, going downhill fast. He abruptly changed the subject.
“Where’s Doug? The Congressman. He’s around here somewhere.”
He was referring to Don Beyer, a local 72-year-old hack. Again, his name is Don, not Doug. Someone yelled back, “Right here!” and Brandon gave him a shout out:
“Oh, there you are! Doug, thanks for the passport into town.”
There was a smattering of bewildered applause before Biden continued.
“Doug and I have something in common. We both married way above our station.”
A few seconds later, he was back on the subject.
“Doug knows — Don.” Doug knows Don? Who’s Don? Sometimes it appears that Biden has an earpiece, and some poor aide has the thankless task of trying to correct his errors, which is totally impossible given how rapidly he spews them out.
On the official White House transcripts are multiple lines through copy, where the Big Guy misspoke. At the union hall, he said billionaires pay only three percent of their income in taxes. So it was corrected to eight percent, which is still absurd, but less so than Brandon’s number.
He said, “We funded 700,000 major construction projects — 700,000 all across America.
Actually, Dementia Joe, it was 7,000.
One of those 700,000, er, 7,000, was the “Brent Smith Bridge,” as he put it. Actually it was the Brent Spence Bridge. He talked about his “Investment in America” cabinet. He was supposed to read it as “Invest.”
He mentioned a “Korean country.” He meant to say “South Korean company.”
As he stumbled along, he again caught what’s-his-name’s eye.
“Doug, I think you might have been with me when I invited…”
You can understand Brandon’s Doug-Don confusion. He’s a big movie fan, and one of his all-time favorites is The Godfather, with Marlon Brandon in the unforgettable role of Doug Corleone. Biden also remembers the real-life Mafia boss of New York, John Gotti – the Teflon Doug.
He sometimes reminisces about his Secret Service agent from Boston who was a big Red Sox fan. That guy has undoubtedly regaled Biden with stories of the colorful Red Sox skipper back in the 1970s, Doug Zimmer.
The official White House transcription doesn’t catch everything — how could it? Plus, they’re trying to cover his sorry, senile rear end.
He says “precription drub tests” and it comes out as “prescription drug tests.” He talks about “prodection lines,” and it’s helpfully corrected to “production.” He says “intellivents” and somebody types in “intelligence.” He says “poor pokes” when he’s supposed to read “poor folks.”
In Virginia, he again talked about the “infrastructure pan.” It was corrected to “plan.”
Still, the White House transcripts are a helpful guide. On Thursday, for example, he said “Not a joke!” or a variation thereof, nine times. Nine times! I lost count listening, but on the transcript, I could get the exact number — nine. Not a joke!
For real! My word as a Biden! (He said those things too. He always does.)
“Too many people left behind have been left behind in the past.”
He said that, too. Again, not a joke. Here are a couple more. They’re on the video feed, and the official transcript let ‘em ride, verbatim.
“Plenty of Wall Street alasty were analysts were saying….”
And, “A job is about a lot more than a cha — a paycheck.”
In this roundup of Bidenisms, we should also mention some of his other recent greatest hits. He referred to a certain so-called insurrection, with a slightly different date than Democrats usually beat their breasts about.
“The impact of what happened on July the 6th had international repercussions beyond what any of you I think can fully understand.”
He’s correct. Who can truly comprehend the impact of what happened on… July 6?
Speaking about what he called “the Ukraine,” he mentioned the donation of “French viting vehicles.” (Do you think they’d have preferred fighting vehicles?) He said “Russia’s sovereignty” when he meant Ukraine’s.
He said the NATO military assistance was “all to help counter Ukraine’s brutal aggression that’s happening because of Russia.”
May we quote you on that, Mr. President?
Some of these appearances that Brandon makes amount to nothing less than elderly abuse. It’s almost PTSD, which he calls “PSD.” It becomes a problem, which by the way he reads as “promise.”
Anyway, speaking at a mayors’ conference, Biden was called upon to recognize a guy named Joe Meyer, who happened to be a… mayor.
“I uh I’m delighted to see uh the mayor mayor Covington and uh the mayor of Covington I should say he is Covington I think uh Joe… Joe Meyer?”
Mayor Meyer? Biden couldn’t have understood that concept on his best day, which was in 1975.
“Every time we’ve gone, we’ve gotten better. They were wrong.”
Gone where? Who was wrong? And what exactly is your definition of “better,” Mr. President?
One last sound bite from Springfield on Thursday. Once again, he’s screwing up numbers, claiming that “the last guy who was president” added 40 percent to the deficit. That was a howler, of course, and it appears someone told him to correct it.
But the message in his ear just confused Brandon even more.
“No president,” he continued babbling, “added more to the debt in four years than my president.”
His president? For those of you keeping score at home, he was talking about his predecessor, who just happens to have the same first name as the Congressman he was with that day.
I refer, of course, to President Douglas J. Trump.