Joe Biden, Secret Agent
To me, the greatest secret agent in the world of fiction is not the glamorous James Bond, but the low-key George Smiley. He's the portly, elderly, unassuming spymaster in John le Carre's novels who toiled behind closed doors to defeat the KGB and defend democracy.
Real life never copies fiction, not exactly. Still, right now, there's an 81-year-old American, derided for stumbling and stuttering, whose achievements to defend democracy and to enhance the lives of his fellow citizens have largely gone unrecognized. I'm talking about President Joe Biden.
Donald Trump's presidential campaign has run an ad showing Biden tripping as he climbs up the steps of Air Force One. In his speeches, Trump says his adversary stutters through entire speeches using phrases like “a threat to d-d-democracy.” On Truth Social, Trump has questioned whether Biden is “mentally up for the job of president.”
Yet at the same time he accuses him of physical and mental unfitness for the presidency, Trump thunders that Biden has wielded unchecked power to “weaponize … law enforcement to interfere in our elections.” Echoing these charges, Steve Scalise, now House majority leader, wrote that special prosecutor Jack Smith's indictments of Trump last year showed Biden was “weaponizing his Department of Justice against his own political rival.”
The indictments of Trump for acting to overturn legal elections and steal top-secret documents are what Trump and Scalise are referring to. In truth, any strings supposedly pulled by Biden to prosecute Trump are nonexistent or magical. No one has found any evidence of an email, conversation, phone call or telepathic message indicating Biden has contacted the Department of Justice team about Trump's alleged crimes.
At least the Justice Department is part of the executive branch of the federal government, which Biden does head as president. It was a state jury that awarded writer E. Jean Carroll $85 million in her defamation lawsuit against Trump. Trump denounced the verdict as a result of a “Biden-directed witch hunt.” I doubt even George Smiley could have figured out how to fix a jury in New York City whose identities were kept secret.
Trump supporters are even beginning to believe megastar Taylor Swift is under Biden's sway. Last month, Fox News host Jesse Watters speculated the Biden administration was using Taylor Swift as a “psyop,” an asset to be used for psychological operations. Part of the plot according to Mike Crispi, a pro-Trump podcaster, might well be a Biden endorsement by Swift at the Super Bowl's halftime show. An unnamed source told Rolling Stone that the Trump team would answer a Swift endorsement of Biden with a “holy war.”
How can Trump and other Republicans belittle Biden's mental acuity but simultaneously award him superhuman powers to control prosecutors, juries and pop stars? Is Biden a Keystone Kops klutz or a George Smiley mastermind? An NBC poll released this month seems to say the American people believe the former. Seventy-six percent of voters are worried about Biden's age and fitness. That's 15% more than the number concerned about the 91 criminal indictments brought against Trump.
Maybe Biden is using his senior status, stutter and stumbling to cover up what he's up to. Maybe he is a secret agent. Maybe, like Smiley, his role can be invisible even while his actions are not.
Since President Biden took office three years ago, the stock market has hit record highs, and the economy has added more jobs than in any other first presidential term. During that first term, record numbers of uninsured Americans have signed up for Obamacare, and clean renewable power has passed coal as the second biggest source of the nation's electricity. Former President Trump never managed to get an infrastructure bill passed. Under Biden, the $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the $1.85 trillion Build Back Better Act were passed to rebuild roads and bridges and invest in airports, public transportation, high-speed internet and clean water.
Over 800 defendants have pleaded guilty or been found guilty at trial for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol, which was intended to stop the duly elected president from taking office. On the foreign stage, too, the Biden administration has taken a firm pro-democracy stand, especially with material and diplomatic support for Ukraine.
Voters, though, are focusing not on what Biden does to defend democracy on the domestic or world stage but on him tripping over a sandbag on a stage at the Air Force Academy.
For better or worse, Biden accomplishes his aims not with James Bond bravado but with George Smiley discreetness. Underestimate him at your peril.
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