I’ve got a very slight disagreement with Jim Geraghty. He writes:
Biden’s perception of his own accomplishments is so wildly exaggerated that I wonder how accurately he’s being briefed, or if he accurately remembers what he is briefed. “George. I’m the guy that put NATO together, the future. No one thought I could expand it. I’m the guy that shut Putin down. No one thought could happen.” “I also was the guy who put together a peace plan for the Middle East that may be comin’ to fruition.” “I was also the guy that grew the economy. Di-you-just just see today, just announced 200,000 new jobs. We’re movin’ in the direction that no one’s ever taken on.” “I took on big pharma. I beat them. No one said I could beat them.”
That Biden has declined is, I think, not really up to debate. But these quotes aren’t evidence of it: He has always been prone to this kind of wild exaggeration, especially when it puts him in a favorable light. The Biden who “shut Putin down” is the same Biden who got arrested trying to see Nelson Mandela in South Africa, who won a full academic scholarship to law school, and “used to drive an 18-wheeler.” It’s an imaginary Biden, in other words, but one who has been around for a very long time.