Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden meets with attendees during a campaign rally at Eakins Oval in Philadelphia, Saturday, May 18, 2019. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Was Joe Biden projecting when he called Donald Trump the "divider-in-chief" in his big campaign speech in Philadelphia Saturday? The former Veep proposed -- in imitation of his one-time boss and apparent idol Barack Obama -- that he would be the man to unite our riven country.
Remember "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America—there is the United States of America" from Obama's keynote at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the speech that ignited his march to the presidency? How far did that go? Just about as far as Barack dismissing Republicans as those who cling to their guns and religion and Hillary calling Trump supporters a "basket of deplorables." Very uniting stuff, no?
But more to the point, Biden represents a political party that could not accept the 2016 election of Donald Trump on any level, before or after his victory. Their supporters taking to the streets almost immediately, they and their compliant media were talking about impeachment before Trump was even inaugurated.
Where was Biden in that extraordinarily divisive behavior? Not uttering a peep, as I recall.
As is becoming increasingly evident, the previous Democrat administration, of which Joe was a significant member, was up to its eyeballs in skullduggery, working through allies in the Department of Justice and the FBI (and the CIA and the State Department, apparently) to undermine the Trump presidency before it got started. This gave rise to the Mueller probe that tarnished Trump with outrageous accusations of non-existent Russia collusion for over two years, an act of sabotage unprecedented in our history. Again not a word from Joe.
This was divisiveness taken to the nth power. Yet Biden is advertising himself as the decent man of moderation, our new uniter-in-chief, who will cure all this. As if.
Now the entire Russia probe is starting to come apart as its corrupt predicate is under investigation from several sources. (Ever wonder why Mueller suddenly isn't testifying in front of Congress? Were you he, would you like to answer questions about when you first knew there was no collusion and why you never said anything? The problem for Mueller is that they say he wasn't charged with looking at the origins of the investigation -- the Steele dossier, FISA, etc. But how could you really make that investigation in any thorough or even decent manner without doing that?)
The bigger question is whether Joe Biden -- our new uniter -- knew in any way about these treasonous games and/or whether he was directly involved. If it's only the former, it's despicable enough and completely disqualifies him as a uniter of any kind -- or as a candidate for the presidency for that matter.
We do know that Biden is corrupt. His son Hunter's multi-million dollar deals with Ukraine and China are well known and intimately connected to his father's activities. (When Joe made a blunder last week, blithely dismissing China as a foe, the immediate thought was he was covering up for Hunter.) Indeed, Biden family values are, to put it mildly, bizarre. But that doesn't stop Joe -- one of the purest examples of the political hackus amaricanus -- from proclaiming himself in Saturday's speech the pro-family candidate.
Nevertheless, he and his strategists are clever in presenting Biden as this uniter, disingenuous as it is. It might get him through the primary season relatively unscathed. But my guess is, in the immortal words of Obama's once-favorite minister, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the "chickens will come home to roost."
Roger L. Simon — co-founder and CEO emeritus of PJ Media — is an award-winning author and an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter.
