Sunday 31 January 2021

In Younger Years


 It’s easy to forget when we see Joe Biden fumbling around for words, and perhaps painfully landing on the wrong ones, that this was once a very brilliant man. In the great politician’s own words from this little nugget from yesteryear: ‘Part of what a leader does to instil confidence is demonstrate that he or she knows what they’re talking about and communicates to people. ... When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on television and said “Here’s what happened.”’

Just to add a few helpful dates and facts: The Wall St Crash occurred in 1929, Herbert Hoover was President, Franklin D Roosevelt didn’t become President until 1933, whilst the first televised Presidential address was from Harry Truman in 1947.

Despite the passing of time some of the old magic still remains, and I’d just like to show the following particularly statesmanlike clip where he speaks about his hairy legs. There are good reasons after all why, as we are reliably informed, this man most undeniably gained about 17% more votes than anyone in previous US electoral history.

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It is perhaps even dangerous for an undefended human soul to be exposed to such hypnotic oratorical skills, and no wonder such unprecedented numbers found the temptation to vote for him to be irresistible. One can only tremble and hope that such a mind is always placed in the service of good rather than ever be turned to the dark side.

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