Where's Joe Biden?

After promising us he'd play pretend-president with daily briefings about the coronavirus crisis, blasting yet also plagiarizing President Trump, who's showing himself to be a stellar crisis president, Biden's now weirdly missing from any public appearances.

Which doesn't exactly sound like the captain you'd want in a storm. The latest excuse coming from his team is that it's all due to "lighting issues" which presumably might make his Hollywood smile look less bright to voters on camera.

Biden's team has leaked to reporters that their man was back home in Wilmington trying to get the lighting right for his big cavalcade of upcoming play-president events, and well, they're still working on it. He didn't have any problems with lighting before, the twitterati pointed out, and the argument has brought out tweets of his luxury digs in Delaware, highlighting that public office has made Biden a very rich man indeed. Biden's last lost-in-space speech came against a black backdrop and two flags, and was, according to some reports, in any case done at his house.

this is the excuse being provided for why biden isn't being seen during a national emergency pic.twitter.com/gmdgBFgyg5 — Current Affairs (@curaffairs) March 22, 2020

Here's Breitbart, citing a perplexed CBS network official:

Democrat presidential front runner Joe Biden has largely gone into hiding as the coronavirus crisis ballooned this week. CBS News reporter Bo Erickson estimated Biden has been seen publicly for about six minutes since last Friday’s disastrous virtual town hall meeting. “In past week, Joe Biden has only had 1 on-camera public address as COVID escalated. (He spoke for ~6 mins on Tuesday from his home.),” Erickson wrote on Twitter. “He also hosted a tele-town hall w/voters, answered Qs on press call & video chatted w/donors. Everything else has been statements ripping POTUS,” he said.

Breitbart notes that the last time Biden was seen in public was St. Patrick's Day, wearing a green tie, looking lost into space, and having to be told to get off the stage by his wife.

CNN reported that Biden held a six-minute no-appearance (he still hasn't heard of Zoom) phone call with reporters on Friday, sniping at President Trump, apparently unaware that navigating a big ship in a crisis storm is going to be hard even for an experienced captain:

Joe Biden on Friday lambasted President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, telling Trump to "stop swerving between over-promising, buck-passing, and start delivering protection to our people." "He's all over the map. In a crisis we need leadership that's straightforward, clear and reliable," the former vice president, who has been home in Wilmington, Delaware, said during a call with reporters. Biden has built a near-insurmountable lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for the Democratic 2020 nomination. Biden said Trump is "behind the curve" and "promising results he has not delivered and announcing actions that he has not even ordered," pointing to Trump's comments that don't match reality on the availability of coronavirus tests and a vaccine.

Which is pure backseat driving at a time of national crisis. He also seemed to be out of the loop with congressional Democratic leaders, who had been plotting over the weekend to derail the bipartisan economy bailout package, including $1,200 checks to Americans, apparently calling for its passage. According to CNN:

But on Friday, he urged Congress and the White House to "surge dollars into the economy" to help workers and small businesses. He said big businesses that get federal government help need to meet "their obligations to the community" and cannot be allowed to use that money for stock buy-backs or benefits for executives.

Jobless claims are through the roof now, American workers were promised money and now they get nothing and Old Joe is missing in action.

Oh, his aides did apparently try to create the appearance of an appearance, first with a political hack named Ron Klain offering up a Ross Perot-style charts-and-graphs video, noted here, and then with a non-live Instagram post supposedly from Biden, but Joe's a guy who just learned about teleconferencing. Who believes he really knows anything about Instagram?

As Dianny at Patriot Retort notes:

For crying out loud, Joe couldn’t even figure out how to stay on camera during his own livestream video. Does Symone Sanders actually think we’d believe that Joe himself logged onto his Instagram account, found this livestream video for some dude he’s probably never heard of and commented using a thumbs up emoji?

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, who's banking on a Biden flameout and therefore not dropping out of the presidential race, has been on the job, not worried about the lighting. According to the Bernie-friendly lefty site Common Dreams:

While users on social media asked Friday why Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden appears to be missing in action on the coronvirus crisis—causing the #WhereIsJoe hashtag to trend— Sen. Bernie Sanders indicated his intention to remain focused on the global pandemic by announcing a virtual roundtable event focused on the crisis. The campaigns of both remaining Democratic contenders have been dramatically curtailed by the infectious disease, but Sanders—who remains a sitting member of the U.S. Senate—has been much more active and vocal on the subject of how to manage the outbreak over the last week, even as his presidential hopes have been dashed by repeated primary losses to Biden.

Common Dreams placed this acid quote about Biden in its subheader:

"Trump is in front of the cameras every day, reassuring people, putting on the appearance of 'leadership,'" said one Democratic critic. "Where is Biden? Why isn't he dominating the airwaves?"

In any case, Bernie got around any lighting issues he might have had by holding his briefings outside:

Mr. President, get your act together. Utilize the Defense Production Act and protect our medical personnel. pic.twitter.com/ozuT72PYQN — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 21, 2020

It's a really bad look for the Democratic frontrunner to be projecting at the height of a crisis. Is he sick, or out of his mind? Why doesn't he just say so -- lots of political leaders have gotten sick these days, it's actually no shame to say so.

Instead, he disappears, offers fake and obviously dishonest excuses and leaves voters wondering. Is Biden's so hung up on the vanity priority of lighting that he can't make his statements about the crisis? He sure as heck isn't treating this as a crisis, by going AWOL on his supporters. He promises to appear. He doesn't appear. He looks lost the last time he did appear. He does placeholder appearances with aides and Instagrams, raising further questions about where he really is. He lets his rivals take the money and run. He plagiarizes his opponent, while offering only sniping to him instead of a unified front. He engages in obvious deception as to why he won't show up in public, raising questions of trust.

He's showing the broader mass of voters exactly why you wouldn't want him anywhere near the levers of power during a national crisis. This series of moves and deceptions shows that he's completely unfit for the presidency.

Image credit: Dianny, Patriot Retort, by permission