Is Joe Biden back in a cone?

His handlers said they wanted as much the other day and following his play-president speech, where he was last seen awkwardly gazing in the distance, and had to be told to get off the stage by his wife, there's now his curious absence from his own campaign ads, leaving voters to wonder "Where's Joe?"

Everyone knows that we're facing a real crisis from the coronavirus. But do you know how we got here and what we need to do next? Ron Klain, former White House Ebola Response Coordinator, breaks it down for us: pic.twitter.com/XRkIw2EzM4 — Joe Biden (Text Join to 30330) (@JoeBiden) March 21, 2020

It once again raises questions as to whether he's all there.

At first, I was a little skeptical of the claim - the ad after all, has Biden's name at the top of the tweet, and presumably could include the testimony of an expert as this purports.

But look closely at how strange it is:

Everyone knows that we're facing a real crisis from the coronavirus. But do you know how we got here and what we need to do next? Ron Klain, former White House Ebola Response Coordinator, breaks it down for us: pic.twitter.com/XRkIw2EzM4 — Joe Biden (Text Join to 30330) (@JoeBiden) March 21, 2020

Number one, Klain is being presented as a medical expert - the Obama-Biden Ebola Response Coordinator.

In reality, he's a political hack. Here's what his Wikipedia page has to say about who is -- opening with a description of Klain as a "political operative and lawyer" along with deets of that weeks-long ebola stint. Emphasis mine:

In 2011, amid concerns about whether the now-defunct solar-panel company Solyndra was viable, Klain approved an Obama visit, stating, "The reality is that if POTUS visited 10 such places over the next 10 months, probably a few will be belly-up by election day 2012."[16] On October 17, 2014, Klain was appointed the "Ebola response coordinator" or, less officially, Ebola "czar."[17][18][19] His appointment was criticized because Klain, according to Julie Hirschfeld Davis writing in The New York Times, had "no record or expertise in Ebola specifically or public health in general".[18] Klain's term as Ebola response coordinator ended in February 2015. Since leaving the Obama Administration, Klain has worked as an external adviser to the Skoll Foundation Global Threats Fund[20] and is Executive Vice President and General Counsel at the investment firm Revolution LLC.

He was involved with Solyndra it seems, lackadaisical about the corruption of that one, and involved in Al Gore's vote recount - count and recount until you get the result you want fiasco. That's a textbook all-purpose political hack. Zero knowledge of medical anything. But there he is, being put out there as Joe Biden's expert on medical matters, giving a speech on President Trump's supposed incompetence, and missing the mark on every point. You'd have to be some kind of political whore to make these remarks, by the way -- no real medical person concerned about reputation would likely do it, as leftwing as some doctors are. He stands in front of is teacher's whiteboard, pointing from item to item, all drawn out very nicely by hand and claims that Trump ignored the coronavirus response, despite shutting down travel from China on Jan. 31, and then lfalsely claims that Trump downplayed it - using a tape of Trump saying the crisis would eventually be over, something that's rather indisputable. He makes the fake claim that Trump shut down the emergency response team, apparently going for the old repeat-a-lie-often-enough tactic to make it "true," and then really stepped on the lie accelerator, claiming that Trump was against tests and prevented their manufacture, and worse still, was busy silencing critics, taking a page from the charges about China, where the real silencing went on. He cited a bureaucrat who didn't appear in a press conference and claimed it sent a chilling message to all the bureaucrats out there, which given the past three years of bureaucratic leaks and deep state machinations, doesn't hold a drop of water.

Klain then blames Trump for the school and restaurant closings, while sneakily attempting a claim to objectivity by saying Trump was "not responsible" for the virus, and then moving to say that Trump didn't act fast enough.

Then he got surreal - saying "so let's talk about solutions" - naming all the things that President Trump has already done, and claiming they were Joe's ideas.

Only a political hack could give as phony a presentation as that one with a straight face - pretend credentials, pretend facts, pretend plan of action. It's Biden all over - and yet, there is no Joe Biden anywhere in the presentation.

The Washington Examiner had these observations about the strange specter:

Biden has been criticized by some for failing to appear during the past few days as the coronavirus pandemic reaches American shores. A top staff member of the Republican Party shared the Biden-less video, asking simply: "Where is Joe?" Biden has spent much of this last week speaking with health officials by phone, and his campaign staff is wearing gloves and face masks around the septuagenarian candidate to keep him from possibly being infected. Biden's last appearance on video ended awkwardly, with Biden being told to leave the podium by his wife Jill after his speech ended.

He looked lost. He had to be told to get off the stage. Here is a link to that sad performance. It sounds like his handlers are keeping him out of the spotlight, even as they grumble to the press about Biden getting sidelined from it based on Trump's hold on the press with his appearances on the crisis. If it were really true, why are his handlers shielding him fro the public even in his own Twitter ads? Why couldn't Joe make the pitch for his own plagiarized program -- he just had the ignorant hack do it for him instead.

Something sounds like Biden has been put back into a cone by his handlers. If so, it's pathetic.

Image credit: Monica Showalter, with use of public domain sources