With 46 days until the election, the two major party candidates are focusing on real bread-and-butter issues that will likely impact voters’ decision. Or at least one of the two candidates is. Donald Trump spent the bulk of yesterday’s White House press briefing talking about the timeline of getting a coronavirus vaccine out to the general public. And Joe Biden, after sharing his pledge to put a freeze on the deportation of illegal aliens during his first hundred days, went into a trance or something that impelled him to spout gibberish about a quartermaster running the ladies’ wear department in a department store.
Joe Biden: "Cause if you could take care, if you were a quartermaster, you can sure in hell take care runnin' a, you know, a department store uh, thing, you know, where, in the second floor of the ladies department or whatever, you know what I mean?" pic.twitter.com/tAAK2XbhrE
— Ella Mizrahi (@EllaMizrahi12) September 15, 2020
I can’t find a video or article online that provides the larger context for the remarks, though if I had to guess I suspect it would be part of a plan to shrink the military by finding career service members jobs in the private sector. But even if that were the explanation, the idea is out of left field. A quartermaster is a military officer responsible for providing quarters, rations, clothing, and other supplies. As my combat in arms J.E. Dyer observes in a tweet:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
I can actually tell what he’s talking about; he’s just wrong.
Any quartermaster who had to run the ladies’s wear department would run back immediately to see if he could get back in the military.
— J.E. Dyer (@OptimisticCon) September 16, 2020
Even if the comment is explainable, that doesn’t mean that Biden hasn’t taken the occasional foray into the realm of blather. When asked by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper back in March to name “the most important quality of a President in times of crisis,” Biden replied:
I was literally on the phone at least three to four hours a day with my team talking about the detailed implemencation [sic]: How do we get the money? Where do we do? [sic]
And who can forget his charming narratives about his days as a lifeguard and how young children at the community pool where he worked liked to rub his hairy legs?
