Is Joe Biden in big trouble? It looks that way — and he's got nobody else to blame

Joe Biden appears to be in big trouble. 

House Speaker Joe McCarthy — sorry, Kevin McCarthy — announced this week he will sign off on an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. Based on what? He has no idea. McCarthy claimed in a social media post that he'll go wherever the evidence leads. 

But as many as a dozen Republican members of Congress say they've seen no evidence to launch such an inquiry, with Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, a hardcore conservative, saying, "I'm not convinced that that evidence exists."

McCarthy might agree. But he's got a problem, and it boils down to people like Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who has promised to taunt McCarthy every week with threats to remove him from the speakership unless McCarthy allows himself to be led around by the leash Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has around his neck. So saddle up for a pointless impeachment inquiry, or Greene and her rabid bunch of radicals will try to oust McCarthy and threaten a government shutdown until they get their way. It's the same game Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama is playing with the military by holding up appointments.

If you've ever seen a toddler threaten to hold their nose until they turn blue, you'll understand the political game these members of the Republican Party are playing. Some observers, like MSNBC pundit Kurt Bardella, believe that such games will actually help Biden and the Democrats, energizing their base and ensuring a large voter turnout next year.

Of course that is not how Gaetz and Greene, two of the most extreme members of the GOP, see it. They see it as pure revenge and are themselves at the end of a leash held by Donald Trump, who wants to drag Biden through the mud all the way through November of next year.

The "polls" (and I use that term loosely) show Biden and Trump mired in a slugfest as most pundits, voters and dipsomaniacs are convinced the two will face each other in a knock-down, drag-out fight rivaling "Rocky II" that "will determine the future of our great country," according to folks on both sides of the political aisle.

Biden supporters wring their hands and gnash their teeth. They issue talking points outlining the president's accomplishments and scratch their heads as Trump appears to gain popularity each time he gets indicted.

They never consider the phrase "post hoc ergo propter hoc." For those of you who skipped Latin, or logic, that's "correlation is not causation," or the principle that just because one thing follows another doesn't mean the first caused the second. Donald Trump isn't getting more popular as he collects indictments like a kid collecting baseball cards. It's just that very few of the also-rans in the Republican Party who are running against him appeal to anyone outside their immediate family. In Vivek Ramaswamy's case, even that is questionable. To echo Trump's oft-stated point, everyone else in the GOP seems to be on an undercard, auditioning for a role in the next Trump administration.

Meanwhile, Trump supporters are eager for him to swoop back into office on his demon wings, happily burn all the books, shoot or bomb "illegal immigrants," and make racism, fascism and misogyny the first three amendments in a new Bill of Rights, "once our favorite president is restored to the office he didn't lose in the first place."

Biden can't get a break. He traveled to the Far East last week to attend the G20, shore up relations with Vietnam and try to blunt the influence of China and Russia in the region. It was a complicated game of chess that scored points in Asia, but few PR points back home. 

Even Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy acknowledged that Biden's travels last week included a great deal of work.

"He has been basically working all through the night, the equivalent of an all-nighter, Eastern time," Doocy reported from Vietnam on Sunday, while awaiting a press conference from Biden, who landed in Hanoi after attending the G20 summit in New Delhi. "So he's probably pretty tired. Pretty jet-lagged. But he should take at least a handful of questions." 

That moment went viral on social media, and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre promptly thanked Doocy — giving Biden the last laugh on that issue.

Biden's press conference was problematic, at least according to those reports that focused on how it ended. Jean-Pierre declared loudly that the press conference was over while Biden was trying to answer a question, in effect using the hook to yank the president off stage.

The usual suspects went nuts, saying that Biden was addled and ready for a nap. Reporters who were actually in the room said he seemed as sane and cogent as he does on any other given day, but the propagandists remained unconvinced. More to the point, they had tangible visuals, supplied by the White House itself, to support their narrative.

All of this underscores the fact that Biden has still had only two full-fledged press conferences in two and a half years at the White House and that, as Doocy reported, he only took a handful of questions (five, to be precise) on his overseas trip.

Donald Trump took more than five questions in his "chopper talk" sessions every time he left the White House on Marine One. Granted, his answers were either combative, stupid, rancorous or nonexistent, but he did take questions. Then there is the matter of how Biden addresses the press during his infrequent interactions with us.

He has, in the past, appeared to have his staff pre-select the questions to be asked, as well as the reporters chosen to ask them. In April, both Biden and the Los Angeles Times denied there was any collusion when a photograph surfaced of the president holding a card that identified both a reporter from that newspaper and the question that she in fact later asked him.  

"I've never seen an instance where the president is being given a question from a reporter that covers the president at a pre-announced White House press conference," John Decker, a longtime White House reporter for Gray Television, told VOA reporter Steve Herman. "It really reflects poorly on the White House press corps, and it reflects poorly on the White House for allowing that to happen. It seems like there's collusion, and for the public that has distrust, skepticism and even disdain for the media, it doesn't put us in a good light."

Biden does himself no favors when he attempts to deflect additional questions. He usually limits himself to a handful and begs off others by saying, as he did in Vietnam last week, "I'm just following my orders here."

He said that to us at a press briefing in the East Room when I was present. I reminded him, "You're the president, you can do whatever you want." He smiled, but didn't veer from the script.

Who is ordering the president to do things? If someone is doing that, then put them behind the podium. Every time Biden uses this phrase, which he's done at least three times in the last few months, he makes himself look weak and ineffective. Appearance becomes reality. The Republicans have their talking points and that drives an ever-larger wedge between Biden and potential voters. And this also helps explain why Biden and Trump are currently locked in a stalemate.

Love him or hate him, with Donald Trump you understand that no one controls him — not even himself. That's a big part of the reason why Biden's accomplishments have been ignored: He sabotages his own work with obsequious rants that make him seem feeble or out of touch.

But impeachment inquiries and poll numbers are not the big story.

If you look at the recent polls, the real issue is that "a historic number of Americans," as The Hill reported in June, do not want to see a rematch between Biden and Trump. They think both of them are too old. Trump uses that argument against Biden, but he's only three years younger. They're both deep into senior-citizen status. 

Only one Republican candidate seems to get the message. "The majority of Americans know we need a new generational leader, that we need to leave the negativity of the past behind us," 51-year-old Nikki Haley said in reaction to a new CNN poll that showed her as the only GOP contender with a clear lead over Biden in a hypothetical general election matchup. The poll, released a week ago, showed Haley leading Biden 49 percent to 43 percent.

In announcing this week that he wouldn't run for another term, Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah said much the same thing about the need for generational change. Romney was the Republican nominee in 2012, four election cycles in the past — and he's younger than either Trump or Biden.

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Our political leaders on both sides of the aisle act like Chairman Mao, or the pope. They want to die holding onto the reins of power. Sen. Dianne Feinstein's mental state is questionable — but the Democrats need her vote, so she's not going anywhere. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell freezes like a sprite in fright, but is the architect of the conservative Supreme Court. He won't go anywhere. 

But it's not just those in power. It's also the bench. Both major parties face uncertain futures because of those who would rise to replace current leadership. The GOP has a big problem here, with underlings who look like cast rejects from "The Walking Dead." Even if McConnell is put on pause for 30 minutes a day, he's far better than some younger, marginally sentient members of his party.

The problem is exacerbated because there isn't exactly an abundance of people of true intellect and moral fiber in national politics. Who the hell wants to run for office when you can get a better job almost anywhere else? Those who are in it for public service are few and far between. I can point to a handful of Democrats and Republicans who actually believe in that, so we're left with aging leaders unable to abandon the stage and unable to mentor those who should follow them, and a country suffering from its own inadequacies.

There was a time when we thought Ronald Reagan was too old to run for office. He was 69 when first elected in 1980. Rumors about his dementia were rampant during his second term, especially after a poor debate performance in Louisville against Walter Mondale during the 1984 campaign. As The Hill summarized in a 2016 article, "Mondale benefited by seven points in the polls, but it stirred up an independent question of Reagan's age and fitness for a second term." The Wall Street Journal headline blared, "New Question in Race: Is Oldest President Now Showing his Age?"

Of the three announced candidates on the Democratic side, none will be younger than 71 on inauguration day in 2025.

The Republicans do better, at least when it comes to age. Trump clocks in at 77, while former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson is 72, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is a spry 67 and former Vice President Mike Pence is 64. The rest are younger, all the way down to Ramaswamy at 38.

The real fear you hear from a lot of people is that they'll have to hold their nose and vote for Joe Biden. No one holds their nose and pulls the lever for Trump. If you vote for him, you'll do so reveling in his rancid stench. But if we're left with those choices, many frustrated voters may simply stay home.

That doesn't have to happen. Only Trump benefits from the current narrative that he is destined to face Biden (who is either "Sleepy Joe" or a sinister crime lord) in a cage match next November. That is Trump's fantasy, bolstered by the questionable polls that show them in a dead heat.  

Perhaps Biden, who has reportedly told some of his closest advisers that he's "feeling his years," won't feel compelled to run if Trump isn't in the mix. It's clear that a large majority of the American people don't want this struggle between two aging leaders. 

The question, of course, is who would replace Biden? That fear of the unknown is driving everything we see on today's political scene. I know what the obvious answers are, but I look for an outlier, maybe a successful Democratic governor from a red state who could appeal to both sides of the aisle.

That would be tough for the Republicans to handle.