Question: What do the following have in common?

• Stupid pet tricks
• Bungee cord jumping
• Abolishing the borders that define a country
• Making oneself a human cannonball
• Commuting the duly imposed death sentences of convicted murderers and rapists
• Setting oneself on fire
• Surrendering Afghanistan to barbarians from the 11^th century
• Jumping Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered motorcycle
• Closing all the schools to prevent transmission of a disease that barely affects children.

Answer: What these have in common is that all are stunts. They are designed to attract attention, and they succeed in doing so. But that’s all they do.

If you tell me you’ve taught a poodle to mix a martini and serve it to a parakeet, I’ll probably watch. Then I’ll say, “Wow, that’s something!”

And it is indeed something, in the sense that it’s unusual. It gets attention. But it’s not consequential, other than to make a spectacle of two otherwise dignified animals.

If you tell me you plan to tie a bungee cord to your ankle and jump off a high bridge such that the bungee cord stretches almost to the breaking point as it catches you a few feet above the ground, I’ll probably watch. Then I’ll say, “Huh, that’s something you don’t see every day.”

But, as in stupid pet tricks, it’s inconsequential, other than to demonstrate a certain daredevilry. There are good reasons not to issue dares to the devil for the mere purpose of getting clicks on YouTube.

To understand Joe Biden, you have to understand a few immutable traits about the man. First, he’s not very bright. A person who finishes near the bottom of his class at a fourth-rate law school is not very bright.

Second, he knows it. A person who plagiarizes five full pages of a law review article, “borrows” the family story of another politician, invents fabulations about standing up to a bully named Cornpop, and claims he finished in the top half of that law school class where he actually finished near the bottom, is aware that his real story comes up a bit short.

Third, there’s his relationship with his boss. Barack Obama was widely worshipped by liberals. Although Joe stood next in line for the presidency upon the completion of Barack’s papacy in 2016, Barack spurned him in favor of another candidate, was ambivalent about him running in 2020, and finally pushed him to the curb altogether in 2024 – for being too old and stupid.

Ouch. “Old” doesn’t hurt so much even though this is a guy who went to the trouble of hair plugs and tooth caps, but “stupid” hits close to home.

Joe has gone through life feeling that he had a lot to prove about himself. He was right about that. What he was wrong about was the way he went about that proof.

He decided to prove he was a greater leader than his intellectual superior, Barack. But why stop there? He then set his sights on proving he was the greatest Democrat since FDR, or since, I dunno, maybe Abraham Lincoln. (Half of Democrats think Lincoln was a Democrat. No joke!)

The problem is, Joe has never really thought enough about philosophy, government, religion, or the human condition (I’ve barely scratched the surface of what Joe hasn’t thought about) to have a coherent platform from which to govern.

He had no bold policies; he had only boldness.

Much like Evel Knievel. History has largely forgotten that Evel’s rocket-powered motorcycle jump of the Snake River Canyon landed not on the other side of the canyon, but at the canyon bottom. But they do remember the stunt and the name.

Early in Joe’s term, he decided to pull out of Afghanistan. Never mind that the pullout left a strategic crossroads utterly unguarded. Never mind that we squandered a 20-year investment of time and thousands of American lives. Never mind that we left behind billions in high-tech weaponry for the barbarians. Never mind that we could have instead pulled out in an organized manner, as Joe’s generals urged.

What was important to Joe was that he make a bold statement. And he did. Just like Evel Knievel.

It was a bold “Hold my beer, and watch this!” stunt.

The world did watch Joe’s bold stunt. They were impressed with his boldness. With his common sense, not so much.

But Joe didn’t care if they thought badly of his common sense. In the world of stuntmen and carnival barkers, all publicity is good publicity.

It’s like setting oneself on fire. It might not be productive, but it’ll get you plenty of clicks on YouTube. Probably more clicks than Barack gets, at least on that particular day.

When the conflagration is over, proclaim through charred lips that it was an “extraordinary success.” That’ll get even more clicks.  

That was the pattern of Joe Biden’s presidency. He didn’t so much try to destroy America. He’s too stupid to accomplish that, and too self-centered to try.

Joe’s defiance of the Supreme Court, his commuting of the death sentences of rightly convicted murderers, his transference of college loan debts onto the backs of blue-collar Americans, his takedown of the southern border, his inflation-inducing handouts – they were all designed not so much with policy in mind. Joe’s mind is too small for policy to live there.  

No, Joe’s stunts were designed simply to draw attention to Joe. He succeeded. Joe’s stunts did draw attention to Joe.

But not in the way Joe expected. We’re now seeing his anger in learning that attention does not equal achievement, that infamy does not equal fame, that notoriety does not equal greatness.