On October 2, 1919, then-President Woodrow Wilson suffered a massive stroke. He was essentially incapacitated.
For the remaining 17 months of presidency (in those days the office changed hands on March 4, not January 20), most presidential duties were performed by his wife, Edith.
In other words, we had no functioning elected President during that time. And we were damn lucky that during this period, immediately after World War I, there were no great crises his wife had to deal with.
That should never ever happen again.
But it is happening right now.
Who is the President of the United States? Who has been making decisions as president in recent months? Who will be making them for the remaining 4 months of Joe Biden’s elected term?
From all appearances, we now have Joe Biden’s wife, Jill – unelected and constitutionally nonexistent – running at least some parts of this presidency…while Vice President Harris travels around the country mouthing platitudes and lies in her effort to succeed Jill’s husband.
Miranda Devine has written a (typically) excellent commentary on this godawful state of affairs for the New York Post, titled “Who exactly is running the country? Certainly appears to be Jill Biden — and not Joe”.
Here are a few excerpts:
It’s easy to forget because he’s usually invisible, but we still have Joe Biden as president for four months.
The fate of the free world should not be left in the hands of a man who can’t remember where he is or what he’s meant to be doing at any given moment.
On Saturday, for instance, he made the prime ministers of India, Japan and Australia shlep to Wilmington, Del., for the annual meeting of the Quad, a partnership designed to keep an increasingly aggressive China in check.
In public remarks livestreamed by the White House, the president forgot that he was supposed to introduce Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Who am I introducing next?” Biden asked the crowd.
After an awkward silence, he started shouting “Who’s next?” before Modi raced on stage all smiles and saved the day.
What a joke.
But not as much of a joke as what happened Friday, at Joe’s first cabinet meeting in 11 months. He brought in Jill to sit at the head of the table as if she were running the show. She delivered a little speech on one of her pet topics while Joe stared vacantly into space and cabinet members had to politely clap.
Whether it’s Jill or someone else running the country, the bottom line is that we don’t have a functional president.
This is a constitutional crisis.
If most of our mainstream media were interested in anything more than protecting Democrats and electing Kamala Harris over Donald Trump, this would have been reported as a major topic of concern for months.
But most of our mainstream media are not, so it isn’t – just as these same mainstream media apparently do not consider it important to advise the public of Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz’s self-professed socialism/equation of socialism with “neighborliness”, and his infatuation with communist China – 30+ trips there, including he and his wife’s honeymoon.
Would it be fair to say that the public might be interested in why Tim Walz – who would be a heartbeat from the presidency if Kamala Harris wins – defends/extols socialism and why he is so taken with Communist China?
Well, our media aren’t, and apparently won’t be, going into that…any more than they are going into why Jill Biden seems more in charge of the day-to-day affairs of the Presidency than her increasingly senile husband; you know, the guy we elected,.
It would be hard to overstate the mess this country is in.
