Opinion | Republicans expose Bidens worst failings: dogs and ice cream

White House spokesman Andrew Bates is a happy warrior. For years, he has spiritedly fended off whatever calumny Republicans alleged at the moment, whether about President Biden’s age or Hunter Biden’s laptop or some imaginary scheme to take away Americans’ hamburgers or, most recently, their beer.

But Bates has found that he cannot in good conscience defend the man he serves against a deeply troubling new charge that the Republican National Committee has leveled at him. “I’m just coming to grips with the fact that I work for a dog-petting monster,” he told me.

It’s true. A couple of weeks ago, when Biden was touring the devastation in Maui, Hawaii, he encountered a golden lab named Dexter who was assisting with the grim search. He noted that Dexter was wearing booties to protect his paws from the scorching earth, and — Outrageously! Unforgivably! — Biden leaned over and petted Dexter on the top of his head.

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The RNC swung into action. “Biden gets distracted by a dog: ‘That’s some hot ground, man!’” the GOP tweeted (or whatever one does now that Elon Musk has wrecked the platform) from its @RNCResearch account. It appended video of the offense.

This was not the first time the RNC caught the president in a scandalous act of canine affection. “Biden gets distracted by his dog on the balcony as he returns from Japan,” the RNC tweeted in May. The month before, @RNCResearch mocked Biden for answering “a child’s question about his dog” and for attempting to greet the Irish leader’s Bernese mountain dog (the animal barked at the president). “This dog wants nothing to do with Joe Biden,” the RNC tweeted.

Offensive though it is that Biden likes dogs, the RNC has exposed him for worse: enjoying ice cream. @RNCResearch has gone after him no fewer than 12 times for this deplorable behavior, tweeting out indefensible things Biden has said on the topic, such as “I know some really great ice cream places around here” and (parental discretion advised) “I got a whole full freezer full of Jeni’s chocolate chip ice cream.”

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The GOP’s goal, of course, is to portray Biden as doddering and feebleminded. “Was Biden dozing off in Maui?” @RNCResearch tweeted with video that did not, in fact, show Biden dozing. “Biden looks confused as he heads back to his vehicle,” it tweeted in late August. “BIDEN: *stares blankly*,” it tweeted a few days later, after he ignored questions from a Fox News reporter. “BIDEN (very confused): ‘Who am I yielding to?’ ” @RNCResearch tweeted after the president inquired about the speaking order at a news conference with foreign leaders.

It has tweeted clips of Biden, who overcame a stutter, struggling with words, saying “fourteen” instead of four, “landfill” instead of “landfall,” and “president” instead of “prime minister.” The video clips purport to show Biden as he “forgets” and “wanders.”

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Maybe this helps build the public impression that Biden is non compos mentis, but the RNC is also inadvertently fueling a rather different impression: This is the best it’s got? The account advertises itself as “exposing the lies, hypocrisy, and failed far-left policies of Joe Biden,” but, evidently coming up short on that score, the Republican National Committee instead makes catty remarks about his voice.

“BIDEN (creepily whispering),” the GOP tweeted last week. “Biden is mumbling again,” it alleged the day before. Earlier that month, the RNC had complained that Biden was “yelling again.”

Nothing is too picayune. The RNC has faulted him for saluting an audience; for using the “short stairs” to board Air Force One; for smiling as he exited Marine One; for being too deferential to the governor of Kentucky and too salty with the mayor of Fort Myers Beach, Fla.; for inviting children onto the stage for a photo; for spending too much time with the children of White House staffers; and for shaking hands after coughing into his (other) hand.

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The RNC, which has defended Donald Trump’s lies that led to a violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election, has repeatedly faulted “SERIAL LIAR” Biden for exaggerating the damage done by a fire in his home decades ago. The accuracy standard of @RNCResearch’s attacks is little higher than the former president’s. It spread false stories about an unseen White House official silencing Biden with a mute button, about a bird pooping on Biden, about Biden making an antisemitic remark and about Biden being disoriented.

“Did Joe Biden just announce he has cancer?” the RNC ridiculed one day, apparently unaware that Biden has had various non-melanoma skin cancers removed.

“Joe Biden says the length of Barack Obama’s signature is shorter than his. Obama’s is 3 letters longer,” the RNC mocked on another day, clearly unaware that Biden signs his name “Joseph R. Biden Jr.”

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Yet some in the news media fall for such nonsense. “NEW: Slacker-in-chief Biden keeps up record 40% ‘vacation’ pace despite disasters,” went an @RNCResearch attack, linking to a New York Post article that cited … the RNC.

Apparently, the RNC has decided that whenever Biden is home in Delaware or at Camp David for the weekend, he’s on “vacation.” A tally by former CBS News White House reporter Mark Knoller, the czar of presidential statistics, finds that Biden has spent all or part of 221 days in Delaware and nine at Lake Tahoe; at this same point in his presidency, Trump had spent 239 days at Mar-a-Lago and his club in Bedminster.

The RNC misdirected many more with an Aug. 14 tweet of a clip in which Biden was asked about the rising death toll in Maui and he replied, “No comment.” In fact, he had already commented on the tragedy. But the RNC’s efforts and Trump’s false claim that “Biden refuses to help or comment on the tragedy in Maui” fueled a spate of negative coverage.

Before long, Biden was hotfooting it off to Lahaina, Hawaii — and that fateful moment when he would commit an act of dog petting so egregious it would sully him for all of history as one sick puppy.

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