Mr. White: “We bow, right?… and we’re off the stage before the applause dies out.”
Jimmy: “Well, what if they want an encore?”
Mr. White: “You unplug and you run, run offstage! Smiling, smiling, of course.”
That Thing You Do (1996 Film)
"How is Joe Biden like the infamous spy balloon?
1. Full of hot air.
2. Hovering over America in unwelcome fashion.
3. Maneuvered by China.
4. Ideally subject to immediate removal – except for too-high collateral damage.
This extended simile aligns with key “issues to manage,” as communications professionals would put it, that hung over Mr. Biden like that enemy airship pre-State of the Union:
1. Impugned Integrity: Hunter and filched documents anyone?
2. Deep Disapproval: 18% strong approval versus 46% strong disapproval, per the latest Washington Post/ABC poll. And yikes! 62% believe he has accomplished “not much” or “little to nothing” while in office.
3. Flabby Foreign Policy: That sense of global drift the meandering balloon truly symbolizes: The Afghanistan abomination. The Ukraine “minor-incursion” invasion-invitation. Heaping helpings of humble pie courtesy of China.
4. Imperative Impeachment Insurance: Removal, by resignation or impeachment, is virtually demanded by serial swindling, subterfuge, and deliberate dereliction of duty on the economy, energy independence, immigration, and America’s national security. Joe’s burden cum saving grace: an insurance policy in the form of his callow, cackling veep, the subject of a nicely-timed New York Times hit piece.
And yet: Sleepy Joe woke up last week to a jobs report one stunned economist called “incredibly, surprisingly strong”: a five-decade unemployment low, 517,000 new jobs, longer hours, and wage growth.
So how to handle said situation? The crisis specialist in this commentator might suggest knocking down those “issues to manage” one by one, highlighting – briefly – unfolding solutions.
But one’s Mr. White/impresario side fairly screams: like the film’s one-hit Wonders, play the Top-Ten number – Those Jobs Americans Do! – do the heroes-in-the-gallery tour … then run, run offstage.
And Joe did squarely land an opening salvo featuring the job news: near record-low unemployment, 800,000 new manufacturing positions, and job-creating investment and projects resulting from bipartisan infrastructure and semiconductor-subsidy bills.". . .
To Counterpunch Smokin’ Joe, ‘G.O.P.’ Must Rebrand As ‘Government Of The People’ "Stipulated: Feisty Joe Biden deceived, demonized and divided his way through his State of the Union thumper. But he also adeptly defied his Republican foils – cleverly cornering catcallers in an impromptu imbroglio.
"And more important, deftly demagogued with a people-oriented pitch that may well set the stage for a surprise surge. The money line in suddenly-Smokin’ Joe’s populist appeal?
“Americans are tired of being played for suckers.”
"Dang straight. The Scrantonite and his scribes are on to something in combating “junk fees” and other indignities heaped upon the non-upper crust.
"Biden took on a Corn Poppish cornucopia of love-to-hate lowlifes: Health care hustlers. Old folk defrauders. Cable conmen. Cellphone scamps. Financial institution fleecers. Ticket tricksters. And most deliciously, airline over-chargers, whom he justifiably asserted “treat your child like a piece of baggage” in dinging families to travel in the same zip code as their toddlers.
"This swift switch to common-guy champion packs all the more punch when contrasted with Wrong-Way Republicans’ stubborn staying of the course.". . .
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