By John Burtis ——Bio and Archives--August 28, 2023
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There was once a level of concerns raised about who would answer the White House phone if a crisis occurred at 3:00 am.
According to politico.com, Hillary Clinton’s most lasting and nigh on sheer genius of a contribution to historical political advertising was her famous 2008 spot that depicted children sleeping soundly in their pristine beds late at night with a orotund voice-over saying that, at that moment, “something is happening in the world.” “Your vote will decide who answers that call." Indeed it will, if our votes are counted correctly and legally and not changed by Biden's use of FirstNet!
Zbigniew Brzezinski almost woke Jimmy "Old Mr Peanut" Carter in response to a reported Soviet missile strike, but decided against it just long enough to be notified that it was a false alarm. Later Carter's OCD meddling almost insured the aircraft crash at Desert One during the aborted Iranian hostage rescue attempt, so perhaps it was better to let Jimmy snore away.
Even Henry "Hammerin' Hank" Kissinger, who had the opportunity not to awaken two different presidents, retained a moderately healthy concern about what could be accomplished in the middle of the night like, oh, alerting our defence forces or getting aircraft carriers on the way to a crisis zone faster by not wasting time. As he told a WaPo reporter, “In my experience, I cannot think, off the top of my head, of a snap decision that had to be made in the middle of the night.” Nope, it's better to have a US president wake up to a Pearl Harbor or a 9/11 than to rouse him in the night. And we all can recall the generals' fears of waking Adolf Hitler to tell him about the paratroopers landing in Normandy while Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was out of town, taking his wife with her new shoes from Paris.
Ah, Henry, but you never had to deal with a fading, blundering, falling octogenarian in dipes like Joe Biden, who isn't anywhere near the White House much of the time.
As of August 7, 2023, according to that stalwart and honest broker, msm.com, President Joe "Tio Pepe" Biden just took his 367th day of off in just 2.5 years, which sets a new record compared to any normal president in recent history--a year of vacation.
Biden has been way from the White House for roughly 40% of his time in office. He is outpacing every single one of his modern predecessors and then some. No wonder he gets lost on the White House grounds, he's not there very often.
If George Washington had disappeared this often he might be termed the "Father of Vacations" instead of the "Father of our Country." Can you imagine Abraham Lincoln vacationing this much? Of course not, he might not have found and chatted with U.S. Grant while asleep on a beach or in his log vacation cabin.
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Not even George W. Bush, who was often seen and pilloried by the left wing press for daring to throw baled hay around and chop brush while on vacation in his Texas White House instead of hiding, a la Biden. But at least Bush, for all of his real and perceived faults, wore Stetson Silver Belly Rancher cowboy hats and was a pretty tough guy when taking far less vacations. The latter includes his USAF Air Guard service as a jet fighter pilot. Biden? Not so tough, though he sports his ball cap on backwards, though it could be at an angle mimicking the thugs he protects from prosecution for looting, arson and murder.
But Joe, despite his disappearances and vacations, has accomplished what few predecessors ever have. He bailed on Afghanistan, leaving many American citizens still in the lurch. And like his one time boss, Barack Obama, who shipped a gigantic cash transfer to Iran, our sworn enemy, of $1.7 billion said to be packed on pallets and ready to fund the mullah's lifestyle and to buy guns for Hamas, et al, Joe has sent bales of dough to the Taliban.
John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction, or SIGAR, not CIGAR, told lawmakers that Uncle Sap has made available to the Afghan people more than $8 billion since the chaotic Biden ordered withdrawal of U.S. troops, while leaving everything behind except the DOD attorneys, in August 2021. And how much of this lucre has actually filtered down to the little people? Nobody anywhere, least of all Joe Biden and his clique of no-account hangers on, has a clue.
Some 40% of Uncle Joe's time is spent out of town, er, out of that poorly outfitted and mean little hovel, the White House, to which every presidential candidate tries to claw their way into. Our super cooperative Secret Service refuses to tell Congress or any of us who Auld Joe sees and who visits him in Delaware or Lake Tahoe, where Joe freeloads in a billionaire's house on the lake which made its cameo in Gottvater der Zweiter Teil, or wherever he lays his plug-covered head, perhaps they're ashamed to say that no one visits.
Or, just maybe, on the flip side, the logs spell out visits by: Hunter, Hunter, Hunter, Xi, Hunter, Jim Biden, Xi, local Girl Scout Troops, Hunter, Uncle Jim and Xi.
To learn who dropped by to see Tio Pepe, we'll have to wait until an honest man inhabits 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and answers his own phone when the world goes to hell early in the morning and not be met by that horrific recording with the staticky background of elevator music saying, "We're sorry, President Biden is on vacation, kindly leave your message at the sound of the tone. Presione el número 9 para obtener información en español."
As they often say in German, "...oder etwas," or something. And so it goes.
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John Burtis is a former Broome County, NY firefighter, a retired Santa Monica, CA, police officer. He obtained his BA in European History at Boston University and is fluent in German. He resides in NH with his wife, Betsy.