Biden's decline has me "basket of kittens" level of concern

Editor's note: This column was written before President Biden stepped down from the election, but the author says she loved it so much she wanted it published anyway. Whatever Celia wants, we comply.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve simply crouched in a dark corner, forcing myself to think only of fluffy kittens playing in a wicker basket filled with colorful balls of yarn.

 Ahhhh. Kittens. Yarn.

But even as the kittens romped through my tortured noggin, I could hear the mantra of Miss Clavel in the “Madeleine” stories I read to my toddler many moons ago.

“Something is not right.”

Damn skippy, Miss Clavel.

So, yeah. We’ve got problems. As “Liberal Redneck” comedian Trae Crowder puts it: Joe Biden has Stage 4 Papaw.

To which I respond in the language of Crowder’s people (and mine): So now what we gone do?

It’s almost worse that “the others” have suspended hateful emails and rants as though they FEEL SORRY FOR US.

No! We will not accept your pity. Most of us would, in the words of Bill Maher, vote for Joe Biden’s brain in a jar before we’d vote for your guy. Just no.

Something is not right.

And it hasn’t been right since, ohhhh, about 14 seconds into The Debate That Probably Ended Democracy or If Not That, No, It Really Is That.

The days since the debate have passed with a testy “I’m not stupid; you’re stupid” kind of battle between Biden and (where are those kittens!!!) basically everybody that’s not a member of his immediate family.

Pundits punditted and haven’t stopped. Even the ones who still support Biden do so with the same enthusiasm they might demonstrate for a scheduled hemorrhoidectomy.

In the meantime, the other guy is, and I am not making this up, selling actual pieces of the suit he wore when he had his mug shot taken. Because why not? I don’t want to say anyone who would pay $99 for a few threads from that “historic” garment surely has had their frontal lobe removed with a tetanus-soaked hatchet. I don’t want to say it, but I must. The kittens made me.

Perhaps one of the dumbest defenses of Biden’s unfortunate debate outing was “He had a cold.” Oh, sure. Everyone knows the main symptoms of the common cold include stuffy nose, chills, watery eyes, sore throat and persistent inability to distinguish between “billion” and “million” while wrongheadedly claiming to have beaten Medicare.

It’s right there on the Nyquil bottle. Duh.

 Still others said he was “exhausted” having recently returned from an overseas trip. OK, sure. It took me a couple of days to rebound from a trip to Italy but that’s because I was repeatedly kidney-punched by a toddler back in steerage. Biden’s on Air Force One! With a bedroom! And, I imagine, silk pajamas with the presidential seal!

Something is not right.

The reason this is all so dispiriting to so many of us is we respect Joe Biden. He’s done a good, at times, great job since he was elected in 2020. He’s never going to sell suit parts to raise cash to pay his legal bills like he’s a TV evangelist peddling anointed prayer cloths to the puddin’ headed.

So what must we do? As I emerge from the kitten cave into the bright sunlight, eyes blinking furiously to adjust to the light, I only know one thing: We have to win in November. I’m not sure what that looks like. Biden/Harris? Harris/Shapiro? About 90 percent of y’all just asked who’s Shapiro and therein lies the problem. Why is our bench so shallow? The greatest nation in the world and all we could come up with is a convicted felon/sex offender who can’t stop lying and grifting and a  career public servant who appears to be faltering before our very eyes.

Something is not right. For all our sakes, let’s figure out how to fix it. And soon

Celia Rivenbark is a humor columnist and NYT-bestselling author. Write to her at celiarivenbark@gmail.com.