Lousy Choices

 “…If I ever live to be an old man, I’m gonna’ sail down to Martinique. I’m gonna’ buy me a sweat stained Bogart suit and an African Parakeet, and then I’ll sit him on my shoulder and open up my trusty old mind. I’m gonna’ teach him how to fuss, teach him how to cuss, and pull the cork out of a bottle of wine…” Migration. Jimmy Buffett… After Thursday night, Martinique is starting to look pretty good, I think Ann and I would make good expats. I usually don’t watch debates, they’re a little too scripted and practiced for my taste, but I did watch the Thursday night one between Biden and Trump and I’m still trying to figure out what I saw. From the moment President Joe Biden walked on the stage, the expression on his face looked like a non-swimmer who’d just been thrown into the deep end of the pool. The makeup people hadn’t done him any favors, his hair was plastered to his head, his face was shiny, almost plastic looking, kind of like a SoCal Botox queen. The Special Forces guys have a saying, “embrace the suck”, it means, sure the situation sucks, but learn to live with it. Aging sucks, but Joe Biden needs to embrace it. Don’t try to look younger, be the wise old leader, take a page out of Bernie Sanders’ book, be a curmudgeon, act like Grandpa, carve out your own space. Thursday night, President Biden was obviously nervous, eyes darting around and lips quivering. It was bad enough that one of the democrats in the backroom quipped, “…I wish Jamaal Bowman was around to pull the fire alarm…” Uncomfortable, nervous and forgetting facts and figures, he looked like the poster boy for a senior citizen moment. His handlers did him no favors by cramming his head full of facts, figures and dates during a week-long preparation. They wanted him to produce another State of the Union address, but they apparently forgot that at the SOTU he was working off a teleprompter. Thursday night, Biden mumbled, fumbled and made Trump look coherent despite his lies and rants. The Achilles Heel of any 80-year-old is instantly recalling facts, figures and dates-if you doubt it, ask anyone over 65. Joe Biden has been a politician all his adult life, he knows how to work people. Review the facts with him, prepare him on how to “counter punch” when Trump lies or distorts events, then turn him loose and let him be the crusty, old president. Trump had a good debate because he treated it like a MAGA rally-he was relaxed comfortable and having fun. Trump’s theory of life, politics and business are simple, taken from an old, tongue-in-cheek joke of the Navy SEAL teams--admit nothing, deny everything and issue counter allegations. His lies about Jan 6th, pardoning the rioters, abortion, election denial and NATO for the most part went unchallenged, because Biden was tired and flustered, but that doesn’t make Trump any more attractive to 50% of the voters. The day after the debate, Jeremy Mayer wrote in USA Today, “…there’s still a lot of anti-Trump votes, because Trump is a uniquely awful figure in American presidential history. He’s got the attention span of a fruit fly, the emotional stability of a cranky toddler, the ethics of a mobster, the narcissism of a supermodel, the honesty of North Korea’s press agency and the foreign policy knowledge of a fry cook…” Personally, my favorite part of the evening was the argument about golf, two guys who want to be president arguing about who can hit the ball the farthest off the tee. This goes way beyond ridiculous, it’s a junior high school dick contest—whip ‘em out boys, let’s see who’s got the biggest dick…and this is what I’m left with? These are going to be my voting options? The guy who’s going to run the world’s largest economy, direct the war on terror, manage foreign policy, and have the nuke codes?... FML!!!