Joe Biden gave a speech at the United Nations this morning to the General Assembly, and one has to wonder what alternate reality he lives in.

After listening to this speech by Biden, I can only conclude that it was written two months ago in order to give Grandpa Joe the time to practice the speech for the world stage. There were a couple of throwaway lines added in to reference Afghanistan, but in whole, the speech feels like a throwback to what the Biden administration thought about themselves just a couple of months ago. The entire speech can be watched here, but I’m going to warn you, it was a scripted snoozefest by a president who sounds like he simply hasn’t paid attention to what he has done in the last month, or even the last week.

And yes, Biden flipped between Disappointed Grandpa mode, Stern Grandpa mode, and Shouty Grandpa mode as the speech went on. He seems to believe that Shouty Grandpa mode is somehow commanding and charismatic. The reality is that it’s more like an old man yelling at the sky, and the response from the General Assembly is telling. There were precisely zero applause lines or breaks. And at the end of the speech, there was applause, but there was no enthusiasm in it.

In short, Biden delivered the speech that he wanted to deliver, not the one that reflects the reality of the current diplomatic moment around the world.

In his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly since taking office, Biden called the next 10 years a “decisive decade for our world” that will determine the global community’s future. The President said the world stands at an “inflection point in history,” arguing that the way the global community responds to pressing challenges like the climate crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic will “reverberate for generations yet to come.”

But, he said those challenges must be tackled with technological innovation and global cooperation, not war.”

“We’ve ended 20 years of conflict in Afghanistan, and as we close this period of relentless war, we’re opening a new era of relentless diplomacy, of using the power of our development aid to invest in new ways of lifting people up around the world, of renewing and defending democracy, of proving that no matter how challenging or how complex the problem we’re going to face, government by and for the people is still the best way to deliver for all of our people,” Biden said.”

His three big themes were COVID-19 (but no questions asked about how the virus began or spread), climate change, and human rights. Biden tried a humblebrag by saying “Over the last eight months, I prioritized rebuilding our alliances” which left my jaw on the floor, and was the real clue that this speech was written either a couple of months ago, or in the alternate universe that Team Biden allows Grandpa Joe to live in. “Rebuilding alliances”? Our allies all over the world watched the withdrawl debacle in Afghanistan, and the continued abandonment of American citizens and greencard holders to the Taliban, with no political will to actually get people out. France is mightily pissed off at the United States at the moment, and Biden still has yet to call French President Macron to start fixing that problem. Biden’s actions have strained our allies’ belief in our reliability, and somehow he still believes that he is some kind of foreign policy genius.

Nothing in Biden’s speech was policy changing or earth-shattering. He paid lip service to human rights and women’s rights, without going into any specifics at all (that was “Stern Grandpa mode” time). He really wanted applause for “ending” the war in Afghanistan, but that wasn’t happening. He talked about “relentless diplomacy” as his new goal, but then proclaimed that “we will work with anyone” to acheive what Biden wants, even if that means working with bad guys. This is the signal that he is not only going to beg Iran to get back into the Iran Deal (which he did say), but it indicates that Biden would actually recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government if he thinks it will help him politically. While Biden made mention of the 13 American servicemembers who were killed in Kabul, and once again tried to sound tough on terror, those felt like throwaway lines that got inserted later in order to make the speech sound current.

In Joe Biden World, nothing that has gone sideways lately is actually his fault, so why should he bring it up?

The President just addressed the UN— not one mention of the crisis at the border where roughly 15,000 people surged into the US (mostly Haitians) from Mexico.

More than 9,000 remain here in Del Rio waiting to be processed by @CBP pic.twitter.com/oPDWpqQKjU

— Ali Bradley (@AliBradleyTV) September 21, 2021

Nope, that’s not actually happening in Joe Biden World. Border crisis? He told Kamala to deal with it. Afghanistan drone strike disaster? No comment, and General McKenzie said he took responsibility. France? The administration is probably trying to figure out how they can possibly blame Donald Trump for the diplomatic rift with France right now.

After all, Joe Biden is president of the United States, which means everything is automatically better for the world, because he isn’t the Bad Orange Man. That’s what he believes, that’s what his handlers believe, and that’s what the press believes.

Given the reaction of the UN General Assembly, it would be a huge stretch to say that the world believes that everything is better now with Biden at that podium.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click