No, Joe Biden is not a nice, confused old man.

He’s an intemperate, narcissistic, confused old man who seems only concentrated on himself and certainly not on what is in the best interests of the country. If we didn’t know it before, we saw it, live, as he whined about people criticizing him during the Afghanistan debacle. That was more important than actually evacuating people. Some Americans and thousands of SIVs are still stuck there behind enemy lines because of him.

Today, he didn’t feel like answering a question about the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia. Maybe because he couldn’t. So he used a novel new excuse.

Joe Biden says he won’t answer a foreign policy question because it would “confuse the American people" pic.twitter.com/8HP5fqDcwH

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 4, 2021

“I’m gonna answer one. I’m not gonna answer Ethiopia, let’s stick on the debt so we don’t confuse the American people,” Biden told the reporter.

Oh, so now he’s not going to answer questions because they might confuse us? How would we be confused if he deigned to actually answer the question? Now, granted what he has to say is sometimes a bit confusing because of the incoherence. But I’m thinking it’s more that he was the one who was confused and he didn’t want to step in it yet again. And if the possibility that someone might get confused is a reason to not give answers, he could get away with never answering a question.

You know if he’s defaulting to talking about the debt — a topic that he’s in trouble on now with this massive spending spree agenda — that his response on Ethiopia likely wouldn’t have been good.

Biden wants to lift the debt limit but he’s trying to blame the Republicans for what he wants to do. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has told him he’s going to have to do it on his own — that the Republicans wouldn’t sign aboard so that he can blow through the limit. Biden was trying to blame Trump spending for having to raise the limit. But his argument is actually an argument against himself. If he thinks that Trump spent too much, then why is he proposing to go completely hog wild with his own spending spree? And if he thinks we have already added, wrongly, to the debt, then shouldn’t that militate against adding still more under him? He just did himself in. Maybe he should have moved on to the Ethiopia question.

But, of course, his problem is bigger than just the one question. It’s been a constant pattern of avoidance. We’ve seen how many times now his people have gone about shouting and running reporters out of the room. He avoids questions as a regular course of action. Indeed, he did avoid more questions today, as he headed off for Michigan to try to pitch his legislative agenda after it was so soundly dumped because of Democratic infighting.

POTUS not taking any questions as he heads off to Michigan pic.twitter.com/WAaTwIRTul

— Emily Goodin (@Emilylgoodin) October 5, 2021

But don’t look. You might get confused.