Elon Musk, defender of free speech, says he has a “super bad feeling” about Biden’s economy. Who doesn’t? Accelerating inflation, decelerating growth, high interest rates. Biden blows him off, with “lots of luck on his trip to the moon.”
Snarky? Yes. But worse – Joe Biden’s brain is on pause. He somehow forgot Musk is how he is getting to the moon. Biden’s NASA awarded Musk the $2.9 billion contract. SpaceX’s “Starship” will take astronauts to the lunar surface.
Is Biden’s gratuitous slam of a newly minted Republican unseemly, unnecessary, and unpresidential? Of course. But it reveals more. That comment is a shaft of light into Biden’s brain.
Yes, all things political are off-center, off-putting, and increasingly petty. But Biden’s comment is bizarre. Not only is Musk, with other private sector visionaries, job creators, and entrepreneurs, helping get America back to the moon, but the contract was awarded just last year – by Biden’s NASA.
The point is not the moon, not even Musk’s incredible spirit, record, vision, will, and can-do. The point is not a president slamming the private sector and all Americans who dream, work, invest, and make our nation go.
The point is not a president so thin-skinned that he attacks a critic, or who is determined to deny the obvious – that his own anti-fossil fuel agenda and massive overspending has driven inflation to the moon.
The point is somewhat different. While venal anti-capitalist, anti-free market, and anti-Republican cheerleaders on Twitter somehow liked Biden’s snide smackdown of Musk and SpaceX, the reality is different. Something is deeply wrong.
Imagine: Reagan attacking companies behind his Strategic Defense Initiative, Bush 41 attacking creators of his stealth technology, Bill Clinton slamming those expanding Internet access, Bush 43 demeaning those rebuilding the Pentagon, Obama savaging SEALS who got Osama Bin Ladin, Trump deriding record growth, productivity, and unemployment. No, this is different.
The reveal in Biden’s comment is that his mind is not “in the trim,” as Henry V might say. His “little gray cells” are not coordinated, as Agatha Christy’s Poirot would say. His synapses are not firing properly. How else could a president, overcome by political animus, ridicule the centerpiece of his own program?
Truth is, synaptic dysfunction is not a fiction, not hard to identify, and not harmless. The presence of retreating cognitive facility is visible, and if many Americans suspect the problem with Biden, those around him must see it daily.
The idea of Biden slapping down a vocal, successful, and thoughtful Republican job-creator may seem funny, a political win for those consumed by social media, just a game for congressional Democrats cowering under bad polls, but it is more.
For a president to so misunderstand core facts and programs, to demonstrate ignorance, indifference, and inability to connect dots, not to recall that Musk and SpaceX are central to his own moon program, glibly deride them – is significant.
Some things cannot be “walked back.” On this, and other Biden stumbles, the White House is trying to shade reality. That does not mean they do not see it. They will have to address it soon. Biden’s Mental acuity is receding.
The bigger problem is that China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran are watching. They saw the recurring fumbles, no recovery, as Americans see them. It may seem forgivable, politically entertaining, or riling. But when a president begins to lose the grip, contingency planning begins. Somewhere, that must be starting. If it has not yet, after his “moon” comment it should be.