For years, conservative media, lawmakers and talking heads have been sounding the alarm about President Joe Biden’s cognitive free fall. And for years, left-wing media, lawmakers and their loyal mouthpieces waved it off with the same condescending dismissal — accusing us of lying, fear-mongering or worse. Some even went so far as to say they couldn’t keep up with Biden’s supposed brilliance and jam-packed schedule of what was mostly just one morning briefing and two mid-afternoon naps.
Fast-forward to the post-presidency. Now that Biden has shuffled out of office, left-wing media seems to be waking up to the glaringly obvious. The New York Times of all places — yes, the same paper that acted as Biden’s PR firm — has revealed that he relied on teleprompters during intimate fundraisers in private homes. At events where he was supposed to come across as casual and personable, he needed scripted prompts. Donors weren’t exactly brimming with confidence.
House Speaker Mike Johnson dropped a bombshell about a January 2024 meeting in which Biden was apparently stunned to learn he had signed an executive order halting liquefied natural gas exports just weeks earlier. He repeatedly denied even knowing about it. Johnson believed Biden didn’t know what he signed, leaving him with a terrifying question: ‘Who is running the country?’
Spoiler alert: It wasn’t Biden. And to answer Johnson’s question, there are at least five shadowy figures who might have been behind the wheel — or rather, letting the car roll downhill with no one on the brakes.
1. Former President Barack Obama
Remember when former President Barack Obama joked in a 2020 interview with Stephen Colbert that he’d love a third term where he could play puppet master while someone else carried out his orders? Well, guess what — he may as well have been describing the Biden presidency.
The continuity of Obama-era policies under Biden is glaring. Biden’s radical economic and climate boondoggles — like Build Back Better and The Inflation Reduction Act — weren’t just echoes of Obama’s agenda; they were carbon copies, with Biden playing the role of a less convincing understudy. Biden’s own ‘Obamacare’ albatross was just as disastrous, except this time it was painted green, cost even more, and led to an inflation nightmare.
And let’s not forget the Afghanistan withdrawal fiasco, which had Obama’s fingerprints all over it. The same architects of Obama-era failures were in charge, bungling timelines and ignoring warnings. Meanwhile, Biden seemed to be caught off guard at every turn, surprised by how the plan unfolded — because he probably wasn’t the one pulling the strings. Who were Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and CIA Director William Burns actually answering to?
Obama wasn’t exactly subtle about staying in the picture. He was offering Biden advice, headlining White House events, and reportedly holding closed-door meetings with key officials. By 2023, when Biden’s mental decline became increasingly difficult to camouflage, Politico openly wondered, ‘Is Barack Obama Ready To Reassert Himself?’ He might have been asserting himself the entire time, or at least nudging the wheel while Biden tried to figure out where the car keys were.
