That tis true is a Goddamn shame.
Whenever something terrible happens, it is human nature first to wish that it had not happened, then to believe that it should not have happened, and finally to identify and revile the culprits “responsible” for the fact that it did happen. So it is with the re-election of Donald Trump. And so it is with the less than gracious reception given to the recent publication of Jill Biden’s poorly timed memoir, View from the East Wing.
Now, I am not really a fan of Jill Biden. In the thousands of words I have ground out on this blog since the Bidens moved into the White House back in Jan. 2021, I have devoted a single paragraph to Jill, in a footnote, no less, regarding the efforts of her staff to encourage the media to refer to her as “Dr. Biden,” efforts thankfully abandoned after people actually started reading “Student Retention At The Community College: Meeting Students’ Needs”:
Jill Biden’s “dissertation” is not really a travesty, but it is trivial, and would be so even if it were done for a master’s, a sort of “practice” research paper that prepares you for doing real research, with the sort of bland policy prescriptions that can surely be heard at any and every community college conference ever held in the U.S.
So, no Jill fan am I. But I refuse to hold her responsible for not preventing her husband from running for re-election in 2024, thus “causing” Trump’s re-election. Nor do I hold the “mainstream media” responsible, nor the White House staff, nor Kamala Harris, nor even Joe himself. I hold responsible first of all Donald Trump, and his bottomless lust for power; second I hold responsible the utter cowardice of “establishment” Republicans like Mitch McConnell and John Roberts, who seek to profit from Trump’s crimes without having to take responsibility for them; and third and perhaps the most distressing of all, the corrupt spirit of perhaps 35-40% of the American people, who actively want to be ruled by an utterly unprincipled dictator, believing that only in that way can they be protected from “foreigners” and the woke folk.
So, yes, we did not need to hear from Doctor Jill. But blaming her, or anyone else who didn’t vote for Trump for his re-election is nonsense.
Afterwords
The notion that Kamala should not have been nominated in Biden’s stead strikes me as particularly ridiculous. Who was Vice President when Biden stepped down from his renomination? Kamala Harris. Who had the Democrats renominated for Vice President? Kamala Harris. Why shouldn’t she have gotten the job? Were the Democrats supposed to say, in effect, “Gee, we wish we hadn’t nominated either of them?” Does that sound like “smart politics” to you?
