Reflecting upon President Biden’s recent State of the Union speech (SOTU), two expressions come to mind: 1) There are no flies on him; and 2) you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Many Americans tuned in on March 7 expecting to see a frail, confused old man make a fool of himself trying to walk, shake hands, and speak for about an hour. That’s not what happened, much to his detractors’ chagrin and supporters’ exhilaration. Judging at least from that performance, there are no flies on him.
But the flies may be avoiding Biden because they much prefer honey to vinegar. And Biden’s address was quite vinegary: acerbic, acidic, and unfiltered, all-in-all leaving a bad taste in one’s mouth. He wasn’t a senile old man wondering “who am I, again?” but instead an angry one, hollering “get off of my lawn!”

Biden managed to do the unthinkable: he out-Trumped Donald Trump in terms of contemptuous and often-hostile abrasiveness. He didn’t orate, he barked. He antagonized the U.S. Supreme Court justices on hand – incidentally, that practice began with the otherwise deferential Barack Obama – and he taunted the Republicans. He adlibbed with Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was somewhat better-behaved than usual and made less of a spectacle of herself than in past years, and he told a pack of lies, perhaps the biggest whopper being that inflation is at a 50-year low.

Many Trump supporters, I would confidently speculate the overwhelming majority, don’t like it when Trump acts unpresidential. It’s a trade-off we can live with because we favor the end result more so than that of any viable alternative. With Biden, however, America was supposed to get a kinder, more dignified chief executive. A more presidential president. But Biden has become Donald Trump’s bombast with Jimmy Carter’s record.

The SOTU, no matter who’s president, is usually a victory lap about what a great country we are, what wonderful things the administration has accomplished, and a list of lofty promises for the future – like space colonies on Mars and high-speed trains that can travel from New York to California in an hour – most of which aren’t kept. It’s not a time to hold a campaign rally and call your opponent names.
That many millions of others perceive matters entirely differently isn’t lost on me. I’ve heard Biden supporters compare him to FDR and LBJ, marveling at how he had the foresight to set policies whose results we don’t see now, but will a generation from now. They hoist him onto a pedestal, rendering him a magnanimous statesman who puts country above self and is uniquely qualified due to unparalleled experience to deliver the goods. Not only are they relieved that Trump’s no longer president because we’re spared a barrage of daily tweets from the Oval Office, but they insist that America is in fantastic shape, or at least far better than if Trump had been reelected in 2020. The ones who don’t want Biden to run due to his declining cognitive skills think if he’d be exiting on top, forever to be mentioned among the near-great presidents of all time, such as James Polk, who routinely ranks in the top 15. (Tragicomically, a new presidential rankings list – The Presidential Greatness Project – soaked in partisan delusion, ranked Biden as the 14th best president of all time; not surprisingly, they ranked Trump last.)

I wonder how many Biden groupies noticed the historic lows to which he sank the SOTU in terms of vitriol. Perhaps many were too blind to notice, much like adults who recall fond childhood memories of drinking water from a fountain at their neighborhood park, but not remembering all the rust on the spigot.
The Republicans too deserve blame, for their petty behavior. It’s no wonder that Congress’ approval ratings are consistently in the toilet no matter which party’s in charge, because like trained seals, they stand and clap or sit with their arms folded, depending on which party the president belongs to.

Behind the President sat VP Kamala Harris who, like Biden, is a Democrat, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican. Predictably, Harris and all the Democrats clapped after almost every Biden sentence and stood countless times. Johnson and the Republicans hardly clapped, and stood once. And if the next SOTU features a Republican president, expect the same fawning and rejection, this time with the parties’ roles reversed. At least Johnson didn’t theatrically rip up Biden’s speech, as then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi did to Trump’s in 2020.

The election is eight months away and Biden and Trump have clinched their parties’ nominations. Eight months in politics is an eternity, but not really. By all conventional measures, one candidate represents a hopeful future, and one a disastrous one. One candidate is the best person to save us from the other. But, who’s who? It all depends on who you ask.

Biden has reinvigorated the NATO alliance and, albeit clumsily and feebly, got us out of Afghanistan, and stands with Israel and Ukraine. He’s also kept some of Trump’s policies in place (which the partisan comfort food feeding troughs that pass themselves off as media won’t tell you), and he became the president who didn’t kick the infrastructure can down the road. But thanks to his endless printing of new money resulting in Bidenflation, indifference to if not support of illegal entry and stay, and acquiescence to the insane demands of the woke, he’s created quite the uphill climb for himself in terms of reelection. And now, to top it all off, he comes across as a cranky loudmouth.