The Once And Future King-The Short Happy Life Of Joseph Robinette Biden-Last Seen Panhandling On The National Mall-He Could Have Been A Contender

By Frank Jackman

[This short piece about the rise and fall of one Sleepy Joe Biden, ex-VPOTUS, over the last short period since his announcement to run for POTUS was started prior to the news that Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and a fellow POSTUS contender had gone under the laser in Nevada. This is no reflection on his candidacy nor than of the current front-runner Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts as the three main contenders of the Democratic nomination. It still remains a not so tongue-in-cheek did at Sleepy Joe’s belief that he could run a presidential campaign that did not run out of gas almost before it got started. FJ]        

No question Seth Garth and Sam Lowell two of my oldest co-workers here at this publication and going back even farther to our high school days as 1960s corner boys in front of Tonio’s Pizza Parlor in the Acre section of North Adamsville love to talk politics. No, love to spin some kind of web out of the political happenings of the day would be more like it. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely when I think about it now, in the old days, in those holding up the bricks in front of Tonio’s days they could have given a “rat’s ass” about politics, even parody. It was a guy like the late Peter Markin, always called the Scribe, and me who were incessantly talking politics to the point where the other guys, including Seth and Sam, would point daggers our way when the conversation drifted from girls, cars and girls to that subject.

Things change in life, usually out of some wake-up call event, and shift the axis another way. That happened with Seth and Sam in a very dramatic way that I am privy to so can disclose here-the Vietnam War of the 1960s, of their robbed youths. They, as was I, were dragged into that conflagration as patriotic as the next citizen, believed plenty of what the government said was going on and did what they considered their duty. Considered their duty until they got home starting crying to the high heavens about the insanity of that war, maybe all wars which meant that they had to go smack dab up against politics. Politics which for the most part they, we, have followed and acted on around specific issues like the struggle for peace, the struggle against the endless wars of the past couple of decades and the long wave on-going struggle against the bloat of the war economy on society and the individual.   

So you can see we mostly have dealt with issues rather than the hurly-burly of electoral politics, you know, getting people elected POSTUS, stuff like that. That was until this past election cycle or really the result of the last election cycle with the election to POSTUS of one Donald Trump. That opened many eyes, theirs and mine included, that we were dealing with a new kind of beast, a new “how low can you go” in that kind of politics. And that they, we, needed to do something  about it-pronto, or as pronto as the next election in 2020 would allow seeing that we were, are, essentially stuck with the bastard until then (the current noise about impeachment notwithstanding since the Republican Senate will not vote to convict and throw the bum out so “noise”).       

At the beginning of the year a number of us, Seth, Sam and me included, not just war veterans although the others were veterans of many social and political struggles all sat down and discussed who to support, if anybody for POSTUS in opposition to the monster in office (who has actually gotten more monstrous since then if you can believe that). We dickered back and forth given the growing number of Democratic candidates who had the fire in the belly necessary to even bother thinking about running came out of the woodwork. Most of us centered our choice on the valiant refugee from the 2016 election process Senator Bernard Sanders from Vermont and fresh-faced and new Jane on the block Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts. That is enough to be said about that political process because as the headline here notes this is about one Joseph Robinette Biden, former VPOTUS under Barack Obama.

And that will be the point, the main political point and the cause for much laughter and joking between Seth and Sam spilling over to me, Bart Webber, Jack Callahan, Frankie Riley, Chrissie McNamara and others in the room at the time. Joe Biden figured nowhere on anybody’s radar although there was plenty of speculation that he would be the front-runner if he ever decided to get into the race by the social media and   corporate media pundit class. Seth made everybody laugh especially at what has now turned out to be something of a prophetic pronouncement. Seth told everybody that the day Joe announced, if he did so, would be his best day, his high point and so it has turned out as he wobbles around sulking through the Trump Ukraine debacle that will come down on his head one way or another. (Strangely for once not of his own doing but Trump’s crazed notions about how to bring a domestic political opponent low via foreign powers.) 

Yeah, we all had a good laugh on that one at the time although for a while, for much of the summer actually, we could not figure out why he was still considered the front-runner since he could hardly utter a word without putting his foot in his mouth. Not the kind of person you want to send against a professional foot-in-mouther like Trump. We heard all kinds of fast talk about Sleepy Joe’s ability to beat Trump, to make him cry uncle under the weight of Joe’s brilliant career and his presidential campaign efforts. All baloney, all who gives a rat’s ass as we used to say in the old days when some yawn moment came.

So where is Sleepy Joe now, where is he staying tonight now that his over-loaded chariot has busted and he has tapped out in his $2800 packaged checks from guys like Comcast, the lovely bilking credit card companies that made Delaware, Sleepy Joe’s old constituency a safe haven for rough usurious interest rates and a billion others whom he glad-handed over the years. So things never change though a couple of months in and he is already like yesterday’s new. Except lots older and so now to make his dough he had to hang around the National Mall panhandling the millions of tourists who don’t remember that he was the VPOTUS to the second black president (by general admission around our circles Bill Clinton was the first by din of having a few black friends on and off the Vineyard  and playing some kind of mean sax was the first but that is just around our way).   

Hell, somebody said after the saw Sleepy Joe and heard his spiel about needing the dough to pay bills, buy a cup of joe, grab a hot dog, whatever line he was using at the time said he sounded better and more coherent than he ever did on the stump. Somebody said he raised around $2800 one day just working those crowds. Tough way to finish a political career but that is hard-ball politics up in the rarefied air of fire in the belly presidential politics. Enough said.