Biden’s Big Smile—a variation on the Big Lie

For those who missed the debate, this RNC ad captures the core of Biden’s remarkable performance. As I said last night, Biden’s demeanor was not just unprecedentedly rude and disrespectful. Rather, it cannily expressed what true-believing Democrats actually think about Republicans—that everything Republicans say is a ridiculous lie—and so was aimed at appealing to and solidifying the Democratic base.

This Democratic view of Republicans is of course projection, because, while the Republicans tell their share of lies, the Democrats are Criminal Big Liars and the Republicans don’t come within light-years of them in this department. As the most recent example of the Democrats’ Big-Lying, criminal nature, consider the statement by an Obama campaign official that Republican partisanship is the “entire reason” that the Benghazi attack has become a political issue. In other words, no matter how irresponsibly, dishonestly, and disastrously the Administration conducts the nation’s affairs,—e.g., Benghazi, Fast and Furious, Solyndra—they didn’t do anything bad because any criticism of them is nothing but cynical Republican partisanship. With the cooperation of the mainstream media, this strategy prevents any negative fact about Democrats and liberalism from being recognized and acknowledged by U.S. public opinion. No rational, good-faith, anti-liberal assertion exists or can exist. Liberalism is the only truth. Thus Biden’s constant guffawing while Ryan was speaking—conveying the message, “I can’t believe Ryan is telling such a howler of a partisan lie, I just can’t believe it!”—epitomizes the liberal domination of U.S. politics.

And, as I’ve said so often, the Republicans lack the wit, the steel, and, most importantly, the non-liberal principles to identify this totalitarian-style manipulation for what it is and put the Democrats on the defensive over it. To challenge it, would be to challenge America’s ruler—liberalism—and that is what the Republicans will never do.

- end of initial entry -

October 13

LA writes:

See follow-up to this entry: “What Ryan should have said about Biden’s behavior during the debate.”

Nile McCoy writes:

I don’t know if Ryan could have had a Reaganesque statement (“I’m paying for this microphone”) in his debate with Biden. Ryan did what he is best at: having a steady, charming demeanor and command of the facts. It is notable that the more serious Ryan was, Biden was offering an equally unserious counterpoint.

LA replies:

Yes, he was steady. But I felt his constant little smile made him look weak. Instead of smiling when Biden was attacking him, he should have looked serious and sober.

I don’t think Ryan has any steel in him. He feels like a young, unformed man.

KO writes:

If Biden’s role was to “energize the base,” he may have taken his cue from arguably one of the Democrats’ most popular platforms—Comedy Central. Both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report attributed Romney’s success to: bullying the moderator, staying animated on the split-screen and, most importantly, “lying.”

Biden, I felt, harassed Raddatz (e.g. over the allocation of time, though Biden reportedly spoke longer), played the Cheshire Cat on the split-screen [LA replies: Yes, his smile does seem as though it were an entity unto itself, not attached to a body], and according to Drudge falsely stated that he voted against the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

The last is an egregious “mis-statement,” on a par with his self-contradiction on abortion. I would have thought that the decision to go to war would be burnt on a person’s memory. [LA this is one of numerous examples where Ryan needed to expose Biden’s statements and failed to do so.]

All in all, he struck me as someone who wants to cling to power, where Romney had struck me as wanting to fix America’s economy.

Dave T. writes:

I don’t know if it’s psychological projection so much as a typical Democratic inversion of reality, designed to confuse the public. It’s all so nauseating, I don’t know how you can find the strength to write about this stuff on a regular basis.

LA replies:

It’s my calling.:-)

Robert P. writes:

Now I have never seen a full episode of the show, but to me Biden looked like a sniggling goofball à la Beevis and Butthead.

Ryan wasn’t much better though. He had a different kind of smugness about him.

Stewart W. writes:

I expect that you will now see this type of over-the-top performance widely displayed among the true believers on the left. Not only does Biden’s behavior reflect their deepest beliefs that no rational, good faith non-liberal assertion exists, but he has now given them the template and the permission to stray even further from traditional rules of decorum and closer to their core character. He’s shown that mockery and disdain works, and it frees them just a little more from their false bourgeois mask, to allow them to be true to themselves.

The contempt, the sneering, the hatred, the insanity, and the evil, will come closer and closer to the surface, as nobody can keep their true natures bottled up forever.

The battle lines will continue to form up. This will not end well.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 12, 2012 12:08 PM | Send