The entire Joe-Biden-still-doesn’t-know- how-to-talk-yet-about-illegal- immigration episode that followed last week’s State of the Union address is a microcosm of what ails him politically, and explains how and why he’s trailing in the polls. His contempt for the vast majority of American voters – people who care about the rule of law, and who care about the ill effects of illegal immigration – was on full display as he tried, and tried, and tried yet again to please the hard left wing of his party, which is wildly out of touch with the vast majority of the American public.
AdvertisementLet’s go back to Biden’s address last week. About 43 minutes into his remarks, as he spoke of the crisis at the border – a crisis brought on by the policies he ordered and directed at the beginning of his administration three years ago, which have allowed more than 7.5 million illegal aliens to enter our country – he was challenged from the floor of the chamber. In responding, he spoke of “Lincoln Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed, by an illegal. That’s right. But how many thousands of people are being killed by legals? To her parents, I say, my heart goes out to you, having lost children myself. I understand.”
Back at the White House (and, no doubt, the Biden campaign headquarters), the communications and political staffs were tearing their hair out. Not only had Biden fallen for the bait, choosing to respond to a heckle from the floor of the chamber by responding to it, and then not responding well, he had committed the grievous sin of using the wrong noun to describe a man who – according to the thinking of the man the communications and political staffs were hired to assist, after all – never should have been here in the first place. (Of course, the use of the word “illegal” to describe a man who entered the nation in violation of the law is wrong only to those most dedicated to the proposition that there should be no laws regulating immigration into the United States.)
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Consequently, a revised and updated manner of locution was prepared, and Biden was sent out to speak with selected reporters before boarding Marine One for a campaign trip the next day. Asked a softball question – “Do you regret using the word ‘illegal’ to describe immigrants last night, sir?” – he responded, “Well, I probably – I don’t re- – technically not supposed to be here.”
More hair was left lying on the floors of the communications and political offices at the White House. First, “illegal.” Then, trying to clean up, a sotto voce acknowledgement that the alien’s presence in the United States was a violation of law, “technical” though it may have been.
Consequently, the following day yet another attempt was made. This one would rise to the level of a formal sit-down interview........