‘Late night clowns’

To the editor,

After President Joe Biden’s first press conference, the usual collection of latenight clowns made liberal use of their hackneyed jokes about the president’s age. Not funny, not helpful, not good. For a cheap laugh, they mocked Biden’s age, his mind, and his speech, as if they themselves will never get old. Too superficial to deal with the issues the president spoke of, which were not funny, Jimmy Fallon and James Corden riffed on Biden’s time in government and his memory. What memory do they have? Do they not recall the almighty struggle we endured to remove a wannabe American dictator from office, the surge of voters who pushed themselves in the middle of a deadly pandemic to rid us of him, the horrific riot this character incited in order to maintain his grip on power? Not funny at all. In fact, being past 70, I find that these ubiquitous jokes about Biden’s age are offensive to me personally.

Nothing was said about Biden’s competence, focus, and understanding of the vast global issues confronting the world. In fact, I was struck by his outlining of the struggle we are now seeing between autocracies and democracies. Once again, as occurred prior to both world wars, we are seeing nationalistic movements, dictatorial states, and genocides in all four corners of the globe. Appeasement is not an option, nor is premature confrontation. This situation requires careful analysis, diplomacy, and targeted actions in addition to a thorough understanding of what the peoples of the world want and need. One thing they, as we, have always wanted has been freedom from exploitation and oppression. They have traditionally sought independence. If democracies are to prevail over autocracies, it is in our best interest to support the people, not the strong ones at the top, but the weak and poor ones at the bottom. Biden thankfully understands this, and his “rescue plan” is a form of that, aimed at all the people and targeted to strengthen our democracy and the middle class after four years of a relentless and brutal assault on it.

As for the clowns, they have not much wit and not much creativity. Fallon’s ratings are dropping fast, and Corden ought to know better. We can do better than these clowns for humor.

John Sollami Stamford