There is a splendid, although now largely debunked, myth that Grigory Potemkin, a former lover and official in the service of Russian Empress Catherine the Great, constructed a series of lovely fake villages (by erecting only facades) along the Dnieper River that could be moved as the monarch progressed, to impress her with this actually insubstantial evidence of her imperial glory.
Whatever the truth of this Russian ministerial chicanery, it appears that we are in the throes of what could be described as a “Potemkin presidency.” Joe Biden makes some ceremonial appearances but avoids almost all substantive encounters with the press, and when he does speak in public, he has a halting delivery, appears to struggle with inaccurate memory, and betrays confusion.
We are told by those who purportedly work with Biden that in private he is quite different and that he is, supposedly, much sharper than his aides. The notion that the private Biden is everything one could want in a president was exploded in an influential Wall Street Journal exposé, headlined “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping,” based on interviews with 45 Republicans and Democrats occurring over several months.
