Narcissists want to be noticed just for the sake of it...that 15 minutes of fame thing. If an occasion for self-glory is not available, one simply contrives the opportunity. This has been the case with Vice President Biden, who has tried twice for the democrat nomination for the presidency (1988, 2008) but was rebuffed by his party twice. For months, Biden has toyed with the public concerning another run but has always indicated that he needed more time to decide, thus guaranteeing that he would remain in the public eye, the mainstream media making sure of that.
He created the opportunity, though he would probably say—or has said—that friends and supporters have “urged” him to jump in against the presumptive nominee, fellow enhanced-narcissist Hillary Clinton, who was so determined in 2008 to keep attention on her and not Obama that she concocted a lie of immense proportions, to wit, that she had to dodge sniper bullets in 1996 in Bosnia when she was first lady.
The film of that episode (greeted on the tarmac by a little girl with a bouquet) almost immediately came to light and proved that no such thing ever happened. The humongous lie she and the president concocted concerning the Benghazi Massacre provided another example of self-serving—this time of two narcissists—lest the truth prove the total failure of their Libyan policy. The emails regarding this subterfuge that were just aired during Clinton's testimony before the House (Gowdy) subcommittee were damning and irrefutable.
Narcissists often are not fazed by ugly things like truth. In the face of her deviousness, Clinton barrels on with her campaign as if she's a paragon of virtue, and her party is complicit in this insult to the public...amorality enhanced. Democrats should be ashamed to foist her off on the country, and she should be ashamed, especially remembering the lie she told to the victims' survivors.
Old Joe set a precedent. Despite never announcing his candidacy, he set up a press conference to inform the public that he was withdrawing...in no less a place than the Rose Garden, fitting since that was the place Clinton and the president hallowed with their Benghazi lie. Yep...Obama stood solemnly by Joe's side to grieve and punctuate the solemnity for the Great Unwashed of this earth-shaking decision. Say it ain't so, Joe...but it was.
So...what to do next to keep narcissism alive and well? Grab an appearance on Sixty Minutes, of course! The interview of Joe and his wife was a sort of love-fest carried out by one of the important lady-anchors from CBS (where else)...warm-huggies all around! Joe described his mourning period as at least part of the reason for delay and ultimately stepping down from what he had not stepped up to. Sadly, his son Beau, died last May, and the nation has shared his grief. The interview was touching, with Joe insisting that he would still be around.
The garden-ploy and this TV performance invited cynicism/sarcasm. Most if not all men in Biden's predicament would have simply called a press conference, if that, and made a statement...certainly no Rose Garden performance as if the world was waiting for deliverance from perdition. There's nothing wrong with mourning and people are often stymied by it for a while, but when it's made public it draws attention not so much to the object of the grief as to the self-confessed griever. At that point, especially if the mourning is used as a reason for anything, narcissism rears its ugly head, attention being drawn for no good reason to the manipulator, in this case, Biden. Biden, Clinton, Obama...narcissists leading the nation. Sad.
Ah, vanity...thy name is Biden.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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