Joe Biden, the 47th vice president of the United States, was the featured guest for the Tom Johnson Lectureship at the LBJ Presidential Library on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2017.
10/03/2017 LBJ Library photo by Jay Godwin
Many pundits are chastising Donald Trump for his boorish, rude behavior on Debate night. Debate that or not, at least Trump answered, albeit often in circuitous fashion, questions on the economy, foreign policy, and environment.
Something welcome has came out of the first Trump vs. Biden brawl: A change is coming. The Commission on Presidential Debates promises to revise the next two debate structures “to ensure that additional tools to maintain order are in place for the remaining debates.”
Joe Biden did not have a lot to say on any of the issues. By answering the question on would Biden pack the Supreme Court, a simple “no” would have sufficed. By rejecting the idea of a radical transformation of our government, Biden would have taken this idea of destroying SCOTUS off the table and removed most doubts.
What Would A Biden Presidency Look Like?
Election Day is 33 days away, and serious questions still are unanswered. Americans “deserve honest answers from Joe Biden about his views on such matters as the Green New Deal and packing the Supreme Court,” writes Isaac Schorr in NRO.
Biden had his own unbecoming moments — “shut up, man!” — but his greatest crime was that he spent the evening hiding his agenda from the American people. It’s obvious why: Trump is unlikable enough to many voters that Biden is hoping to coast into office on the strength of a personality gap between the two. Why get bogged down in policy discussions that could alienate one wing of his party or another?
Still, it was galling of a major party nominee to say aloud that he was “not going to answer” whether he would support an effort to pack the court as president. And while that comment may have been the most explicit dodge, it typified his overall performance, which was much less substantive than Trump’s.
