New York Post, February 11, 2024

How Joe Biden can save his old-man image

After Thursday’s special-counsel report tagged the president as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” Joe Biden needs all the help he can get. The Post came to his rescue Saturday with a celebrity stylist’s tips on how he “can freshen up his look.”

But my experience says those makeover tips aren’t silver bullets and ignore Biden’s real problems.

To make his face look less antiquated, beauty consultant Sara Alviti encourages Biden to use CBD oil. Actually, this fix could help Biden with young voters even more than his endless illegal schemes to cancel federal student debt. The next time Biden wanders around aimlessly on stage or talks gibberish, his advisers can wink into the television camera and claim the prez overdosed on cannabis extract.

Biden needs a “cooler haircut — shorter, sexier,” Alviti says. People should never take hairdo advice from bald dudes, so I’ll punt on that issue.

Alviti urges Biden to start wearing “stylish sneakers” that cost up to $1,390. But Biden’s image was severely bruised by the $23 bicycle toe clips that helped cause his tumble during a 2022 bike ride at Rehoboth Beach, Del.  Toe clips are a Pandora’s box for bicyclists who need to shift their feet to stop quickly and easily — such as for a photo opportunity. Alas, the White House failed to consult me — a long-term urban cyclist — on this equipment issue before Biden’s crash.

Peptide creams are recommended to “reduce sun damage” on Biden’s face. But there are no creams to cure idiocy. Biden was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma last year, a skin cancer tied to excessive sun exposure. Yet Biden returned last month from a St. Croix vacation with his face looking like he was auditioning for a lobster ad. (He blamed 1950s Delaware oil slicks for his skin problems.)

Alviti advises Biden to “get a much, much, MUCH hipper leather jacket.” But Biden doesn’t need to spend lavishly on this score because he’s already locked up the Martha’s Vineyard and Beverly Hills votes. Besides, you don’t have to bust a budget for a nice coat. I snared a leather jacket for $110 on a Buenos Aires back street a few decades ago. It still looks sharp enough that cops who see me wearing it check for recent reports of stolen apparel.

Biden could boost his popularity with “Brunello Cucinelli baseball caps that fetch for $950,” according to Alviti. With all due respect, the stylist has no understanding of southern swing voters. Railroad-engineer caps have been iconic for a century — since singer Jimmie Rodgers’ heyday — south of the Mason-Dixon line. (Admittedly, Bostonians scowl at me for wearing that hat.)

Biden has long relied on fabricated anecdotes about his time on Amtrak, and slapping on a blue-and-white-striped hat might throw the fact checkers off his trail and double his chances of nailing North Carolina’s electoral votes.

Recommending the president strut with $950 baseball caps is on par with the advice that led John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, to show off windsurfing — widely perceived as an elite hobby. Kerry never recovered from ridicule of his swim trunks as “silly little bicycle pants.” Similarly, Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore took a wallop when Americans learned in 1999 that his campaign was paying a feminist $15,000 a month to advise him to wear earth tones to bolster his alpha-male image.

Wearing swanky apparel also risks spurring a NASCAR-style ad.  Each overpriced item the president wore could be pegged to the multimillion-dollar payoffs the Biden family received from Ukraine, China, Romania and Kazakhstan.

Based on my experience playing with Nikon cameras, Biden’s best hope is to radically change the lighting for his public events. Biden has already likened Donald Trump, his likely opponent, to Adolf Hitler, vivifying the somber choice voters will face in November.

For the rest of his presidential campaign, Biden should speak only in darkened rooms lit by candles carried by women dressed in red-and-white handmaid costumes (inspired by the Margaret Atwood novel).

That would fix the optics, but Biden would remain at risk of people hearing his catastrophic verbal pratfalls. To preclude that peril, the handmaids should softly moan whenever Biden approaches the microphone, exuding their anguish over the prospect of another Trump presidency. To attract the leftist voters who support Marianne Williamson instead of Biden, a few wolf howls can be added to spice up the moaning.

If Biden truly wants to rescue his re-election campaign, there may be no alternative to him going out and spending time honestly listening to the concerns of average American voters. But if Team Biden tried that tack, it is only a question of time until the president again denounces anyone who doubts him as a “lying dog-faced pony soldier.”

The real problem is encouraging Biden to simply “Be yourself” would guarantee he’d lose practically every state, even California.

James Bovard’s latest book is “Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty.”