Sir Thomas Malory’s 1485 novel Le Morte d’Arthur (The Death of Arthur) was translated into a film in 1981 called “Excalibur,” a John Boorman piece that presented what we all think of as the classical tale of Britain’s King Arthur: The sword in the stone, the Lady of the Lake, the plotting, magic-wielding Morgana, the evil son Mordred, the mystical Merlin and the best friend/betrayer Lancelot. The lesson of that story is that might does not make right, but that might may serve right.
There is, however, a scene in that film that strikes home today. Arthur goes looking for his wife, Guenevere, and finds her in the forest, asleep in the arms of her lover, Arthur’s best friend Lancelot. In his anger, Arthur draws the sword Excalibur – and throws it to the ground. When Lancelot awakes, he finds that sword of legend, realizes what has happened, and laments: “A king without a sword – a land without a king!”
Now, we’re Americans. We don’t do kings. Our ancestors fought a bloody revolution to toss that whole notion of royals and nobles by birth out of our country. But that doesn’t mean we do without leadership, and the person we have recognized as the nation’s leader since George Washington, the person that under our Constitution holds the dual roles of head of government and head of state, is the president.
But for the past four years, that role, that position, the position that is arguably the most powerful political position on the planet, has been vacant. We have, since January of 2021, been a land without a leader. Joe Biden was only marginally capable when he took office; now, he is utterly incapable. And Kamala Harris never was anything more than a mediocrity. And look at some of the more visible administration officials: A press secretary who storms out of the room in a snit when pressed with hard questions, a secretary of defense who pops out of the office for prostate cancer surgery without informing anyone, and a vice president who stumbles so badly when trying to handle a cheap photo-op in the wake of a natural disaster that killed hundreds that the governor of one of those states has to call her out publicly over it.
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Now a second hurricane is bearing down on Florida, and where is Joe Biden? Where is Kamala Harris?
Whatever they are doing, they don’t seem to be communicating, as befuddled old Joe Biden still manages to step all over his vice president’s efforts to win the big chair.
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Look, optics matter in government. Maybe they shouldn’t, or at least not to the degree that they do, but optics do matter and that’s a fact. Lounging on a beach chair while hundreds of Americans are dead and the rest of the storm-affected area is still digging out is an unacceptable lapse. This administration is not only blind to the very concept of optics, but they are also blind to the concept of leadership. Joe Biden – or any other president, for that matter – doesn’t need to be involved in every hour-to-hour decision. He needs only to assemble his Cabinet and tell them, “I want this addressed now, go do your jobs, and report back to me daily with a ten-minute briefing on what you’re doing.” But there’s little evidence Joe Biden has done this or really, much of anything else.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris is running for the top job, and she is an utter train wreck. She cannot even manage a scripted interview with a friendly host who lobs at her the softest softballs that ever softballed.
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Four weeks from today, we have a choice to make. Depending on where you live, you may be making it already. If anyone is reading this who hasn’t yet decided, I can only say this: Never has the choice been more stark. We have, since 1776, been a land without a king, and we do very well without one, thank you very much. But since 2021, we have been a land without any leadership at all, and that cannot continue. I don’t care what you think of Donald Trump or JD Vance; they are the alternatives to this vacuum of leadership, this utter lack of basic competence, this blindness to what a presidential administration should be doing. That’s the choice. It’s Donald Trump or Kamala Harris; one of them will be sitting down at the Resolute Desk in January, and if we expect any level of competence, leadership, or even self-awareness, that person cannot – must not – be Kamala Harris.
