When you watch “The Pride of the Yankees,” an old film on Lou Gehrig, who after a great baseball career with THE team of teams, became so unsteady he could hardly pick up a shirt, you think of … today’s stumblin’ Joe? Are you kidding? This politician who’s never remotely rivaled the exploits of Larrupin’ Lou? But Biden obviously grew decrepit, too, even to Dem loyalists who long refused to acknowledge what they actually saw and heard.
In Gehrig’s case, his bout with ALS in the late ‘30s (a malady best apprehended in its ravages via the bestselling “Tuesdays with Morrie”) was pure tragedy. In Joe’s case, his decline was mostly tragic for his country and the world; but regarding such an inveterate “slinger” himself (buoyed up by others like Karine Jean-Pierre), more tragi-comic, one might say. In sum, Biden won’t go into the twilight with anything like the earned nobility of a supremely beloved Gehrig.
For Mr. B. had great opportunities, but botched far too much both in his life and career. You’d have to be deranged or downright meretricious to call his dealings with son Hunter, and resultant (lucrative) policy changes re Ukraine, China, etc. above board. “Nothing’s proven?” Not to the usual suspects in a biased swath of the media, who haven’t exactly shone on this issue. Then there’s the president’s ghastly record regarding an ultra-porous southern border. So many senseless fentanyl deaths, so much crime wrought by illegals, so much plain chaos remains entirely on him.
I did think of Gehrig when contemplating some of Biden’s gaffes or miscues, including in THE debate that made such news. But only in how contrastive the two human cases are.
Gehrig was a skilled baseball star, a line of work where no BS is possible. You could have lickspittles galore tell us such and such a guy is or was great; but if he’s batted .180 lifetime, and been a klutz in the field, too, how can that be “spun”? Politics is obviously much different.
Like many, I always admired Gehrig, both for his stellar career, when he was long overshadowed by a more colorful slugger, Babe Ruth; and in the way he then handled his dreaded disease at the end of a short life. By contrast, you can probably tell I’ve been no down-the-line fan of Mr. B. at all.
In fact, I wonder how many real fans he’s actually had during his presidential stint. Trumpophobia certainly helped prop him up and give him an identity, and he was supported, too, by those who like using political marionettes of sorts, not least, Obama alumni, and maybe even that ex-president himself. Who was never, however, big on Joe, albeit that he chose him as his VP.
Aside from Hunter and Jill, how many will truly mourn Biden’s departure from the race, and ultimately, the political arena? Whereas millions did lament the forced retirement of a truly modest Gehrig, recalling his key role with “Murderers’ Row” in ’27 and other fine Yankee clubs, including those winning pennants in the late ‘30s, and featuring an exciting young center fielder named DiMaggio.
Maybe I should have just savored the flick with Gary Cooper as Gehrig, and with the actual Babe and other old Yanks in the film, too. Why tarnish it by bringing in aspects of today’s sordid and somewhat strange political scene?
And yet I can’t resist one last comparison here: Lou Gehrig never self-advertised or propagandized. He talked with his bat and was always low-key about his great achievements on pro diamonds.
Whereas Mr. Biden has shown clearly as president why one’s personality flaws often worsen over time. Those flaws include his penchant for exaggeration, and an ability to stretch the truth about his personal resumé so often that we have to call the man an utter prevaricator.
And not least, all that baloney he and others around him slung re the “secure” southern border, which after millions of unvetted trotted into the U.S., finally became a bit tighter near to the election, conveniently so. Gehrigesque here, and in his publicized “stumbles”? Not at all…