The Patriot Post® · World Burns While Biden Calls a Lid

Soon, but not nearly soon enough, we’ll be able to call a lid on the Biden presidency.

Today at 1 p.m., the American president will break his two-day silence on Saturday’s massive terrorist assault on Israel — an assault that has so far claimed the lives of more than 1,000 Israelis.

So much for National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s recent boast that the Middle East is “quieter today than it has been in two decades.”

Yesterday, Joe Biden’s handlers churned out a statement on his behalf, which read: “I have directed my team to work with their Israeli counterparts on every aspect of the hostage crisis, including sharing intelligence and deploying experts from across the United States government to consult with and advise Israeli counterparts on hostage recovery efforts.”

That was it. And then came “The Lid.”

Late yesterday morning, as the world was still coming to grips with the barbarity of the assault — to the reality of a murderous attack that began against defenseless revelers at a music festival and continued on with the kidnapping and slaughter of women, children, and the elderly — Biden’s handlers announced that he would have no more public availability for the day.

As the Washington Examiner reports: “The White House called a ‘lid,’ which in Washington lingo means the president won’t hold any more public appearances for the day, at 11:51 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. While the designation does not necessarily mean the president is not working behind the scenes, the decision nevertheless caused an uproar among Biden’s critics.”

The contempt in this post from Fox News’s Mark Levin is palpable: “Biden has ‘called a lid’ for the rest of the day, meaning no public or press events. This is a disgusting disgrace. And, yet again, our enemies around the world take notice.”

But it wasn’t just yesterday. On Sunday, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy made this observation: “I have watched the president do a barbecue, Tweet about things nobody cares about, and put a lid on today when the world is looking for leadership.”

As the Washington Examiner continues: “[Monday] was the second day in a row in which the White House raised eyebrows for an apparently lax attitude. On Sunday, it held a barbecue with a live band to honor administration staff. The party was not publicly announced but was confirmed by the White House when reporters could hear the band playing in the Rose Garden.”

Maybe it’s just us, but it seems that such revelry and lightheartedness ought to take a back seat to the urgency and awfulness of the moment. But no. Instead, the Biden band played on.

Apparently, Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s mishandling of classified documents — an investigation that seemingly has gone nowhere for the eight months since Hur was appointed — couldn’t wait another day or two either. “The president has been interviewed as part of the investigation being led by Special Counsel Robert Hur,” said White House legal mouthpiece Ian Sams. “The voluntary interview was conducted at the White House over two days, Sunday and Monday, and concluded Monday.”

So, while the Middle East burns, the president’s voluntary interview with the special counsel has been the most pressing matter on the agenda these past couple of days.

Looking back at how the events of this weekend unfolded, there was no 3 a.m. phone call for this president. No emergency meeting in the situation room. By his own account, Joe Biden learned of the attack at around 8 a.m. ET Saturday morning, which was some seven or eight hours after it began. We wonder: Was the entire Biden White House and its national security apparatus caught off guard, or did the president’s handlers simply make a decision to let the boss sleep?

We noted last week that it’s probably not a good sign when a nation keeps stacking one “historic” or “unprecedented” first atop another, but here we are again: When the civilized world is crying out for leadership and resolve, the American president calls it quits for the day before noon.

It dawns on us that the Biden presidency has thus introduced a new word to the American vernacular: the word lid. Think about it: Before Joe Biden took office, had we ever had the need for a term to describe the end of a president’s availability for the day?

Again, the lid to this ruinous presidency can’t come soon enough.