Unsure on a bicycle, unsteady on two legs, and vulnerable over his inflation record, at least Joe Biden has, we’re told, a sure touch on the world stage. But that hasn’t stopped the octogenarian US leader from stepping into a diplomatic cannibal kerfuffle in Papua New Guinea.
Biden has been thinking out loud that his aviator uncle Ambrose may have fallen prey to “cannibals” in the Pacific nation after he was shot down during World War Two.
Employing the famous Biden technique of speaking first and thinking afterwards, the US president suggested American forces were unable to recover Ambrose Finnegan’s remains after his plane crashed near Papua New Guinea “because there used to be a lot of cannibals” in the region.
You’d think he might have had some evidence. But military records from 1994 make no mention of the plane being shot down, let alone of cannibals eating the evidence.
Papua New Guinea’s premier, James Marape, dismissed Biden’s comment, made last week at a trip to a war memorial, as “loose” talk; loose talk that could have diplomatic consequences.
Papuan foreign minister Justin Tkatchenko thinks Biden’s “uninformed remarks” could hurt relations between the countries, which had deepened in recent years as Washington vies for primacy with Beijing in the strategically important Pacific region.
Like most remarks that really cause offence, Biden’s new gaffe contained the element of cultural truth needed to really rile those on the receiving end.
Papuans are a little sensitive to the “cannibal” label because until the 1960s the country’s Kore tribe practised ritual cannibalism – eating the brains of dead family members – a custom that spread the prion disease Kuru.
But that doesn’t mean they ate Uncle Ambrose. The leader of the free world should have put his, presumably Kuru-free, brain into gear before suggesting it.
Leaving aside the peeved Papuans, the row over Biden’s cannibal comment reminds us of his gaffes and garrulousness – and how in 2024 of all years, he needs to keep a lid on them.
Already this year he has twice stated, incorrectly, that he met the German leader Helmut Kohl at an event in 2021. Kohl left office in 1998 and died in 2017. Biden meant Angela Merkel. Shortly before, he’d confused the current French President, Emmanuel Macron, with a predecessor, François Mitterrand, who died in 1996.
As far back as 2009, Biden’s old boss President Barack Obama appeared to acknowledge the problem at that year’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner when host and comedian Wanda Sykes mocked Biden’s verbal diarrhoea: “God forbid that Joe Biden falls into the hands of terrorists. We’re done. Oh, they won’t even have to torture him. All they have to do is go: ‘How’s it going, Joe?”
“’What did you do, did you waterboard him?’
“‘No, I just said, ‘nice weather,’ and he’s still talking. Can’t listen to him anymore, it’s like torture.’”
Obama laughed like everyone else.
But Donald Trump laughs, too, when Biden talks nonsense, and so do many US voters. In this pivotal election year, it’s not funny.
Together with Biden’s tendency to falter and freeze mid-sentence, it will make televised debates against Trump a risky business. Seeing Biden attempt an unaided descent down the steps of Air Force 1 is scary enough.
Watching him debate Trump in a final TV showdown, on the eve of the election, with them neck and neck in the polls, will be terrifying. We could be one, big TV-gaffe away from disaster.
Trump makes gaffes too; many of them, and generally at a level of stupid that dwarfs anything Biden says, whether he’s predicting that his Democrat opponent will lead the US into World War Two or suggesting that injections of toilet cleaner might be the golden bullet for beating Covid.
Few people seem to bat an eyelid, though. Trump’s recent speeches have faded away into slurred, nonsensical streams of unconsciousness. Perhaps his spite and chutzpah disguise his declining mental faculties. It might not be fair. But it appears to be the way it is, and the Democrats need to recognise it.
People are on the lookout for Biden’s howlers, not those of his opponent.
Biden can perform well in TV debates. He showed this in the vice-presidential debates in 2008 and 2012, and in the Democratic presidential nomination performance in 2019–20. As recently as last month Biden won plaudits for a strong State of the Union address.
But the off-days, brain fogs and slips of the tongue happen more frequently now. He should probably limit TV appearances – and think hard about engaging in high-profile, high-stakes TV debates. So far, Biden appears uncertain about agreeing to them.
Appearing aloof and presidential carries its own risks. But these pale beside a nuclear gaffe a week before the election.