Axios Tries to Cover for Biden's 'Weird Words,' Ends Up Making Situation Worse for Him
There’s a reason that “Oh, come on, it’s just who he is” has never, ever worked as an argument in a court of law.
And yet, that largely appears to be the line of excuse-making that Axios employed in a startling puff piece that largely tried to excuse the incumbent president’s countless gaffes as little more than an insignificant behavioral tic.
In doing so, Axios actually may have done more harm than good for Biden, as they plainly laid out: There is no explanation or excuse for Biden’s alphabet soup spelling and grammar.
The piece, simply titled “Biden’s weird words,” came out Sunday and largely appeared to be some sort of response to Biden’s inexplicable “God save the queen” remark while speaking about gun violence in Connecticut on Friday.
Axios reporter Alex Thompson characterized that nonsensical phrase away as just something that happens.
“President Biden often uses old-timey expressions that confound even his own staff,” Thompson wrote. “That happened again Friday when he ended a speech on gun violence with ‘God save the queen, man.'”
Thompson noted that Olivia Dalton, the White House’s principal deputy press secretary, couldn’t even explain why Biden used a phrase of British patriotism (for a deceased monarch, no less) while halfway across the world from England.
“Biden’s quirky aphorisms are sometimes weaponized by Republicans to insinuate the 80-year-old president is in mental decline,” Thompson noted. “But Biden has been using unique phrases for years — but even some of his aides aren’t exactly sure what he means by them.”
Again… that’s not an excuse, as the blistering comments under the accompanying Axios tweet demonstrated:
President Biden often uses old-timey expressions that confound even his own staff.
That happened again Friday when he ended a speech on gun violence with “God save the queen, man.” https://t.co/vWw9ROVvlY
— Axios (@axios) June 18, 2023
Dismissing signs of mental decline as little more than a built-in personality trait is an incredibly dangerous disservice to everyone — Americans, international allies, heck, the president himself.
There really isn’t any way to justify or write off Biden’s countless gaffes as little more than “whoopsies,” but that didn’t stop Axios from trying.
But even in its “defense” of the president, the piece did largely feel like the old adage of “damning with faint praise.”
“During this year’s State of the Union, he told Republican lawmakers, ‘Lots of luck in your senior year,'” Thompson wrote.
The best answer Axios could muster: “Some Biden allies believe that’s his way of saying, ‘Good luck with that.'”
Axios also brought up the infamous 2020 “lying, dog-faced pony soldier” incident, where he bizarrely called a female student that.
“He’s claimed in the past that line was from John Wayne, but film aficionados haven’t been able to find the movie (there is a 1952 film called ‘Pony Soldier’ but Wayne’s not in it),” Thompson wrote.
That line might be the most egregious one written by Thompson in this piece because it acknowledges that the president is either lying or making things up in his head (neither of which is a good sign) — and yet the writer dismisses it as much ado about nothing.
“Bottom line: There are legitimate questions about Biden’s age and stamina as he runs for a second term — but his off-beat proverbs are just Biden being Biden,” Thompson concluded.
Look, can this writer admit that there is just a smidgen of mean-spiritedness when some conservatives deride the incumbent president and his follies?
Of course.
But there are also a number of conservatives and Republicans who are genuinely concerned about a man who may or may not be cognitively impaired having access to the nuclear football — and they would feel the same if it were a conservative, Republican president in office showing similar decline.
Biden’s issues, however overblown they may or may not be, should not be dismissed so handily as nothing more than a conservative attack point.
Not everything in politics is rooted in partisan hackery.
Much still is, however, as this Axios article demonstrates.
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