A large American city is reeling from a tragedy, so of course President Joe Biden found an opportunity within hours of it to make the situation at least partially about himself.
The Francis Key Scott Bridge in Baltimore collapsed in the early morning hours on Tuesday — leaving rescuers searching for missing people who are now presumed dead.
Before the families of the men who were on the bridge when it came down could even grasp that their lives had been forever changed, Biden recalled how he used to commute to work on the structure.
The problem with Biden’s story is that the bridge in question was not a rail bridge, and everyone knows the now-president made his way to work in Washington every week on trains from Delaware during his decades in the U.S. Senate.
The bridge came down after the Singapore-registered container ship MV Dali appeared to lose power a number of times and then drifted into a pier.
The result was that a structure that took years to design and build came crashing down into the outskirts of the Port of Baltimore across the Patapsco River.
Here’s a longer and higher quality video of the Baltimore bridge collapse. Crash and collapse happens at 2:34 pic.twitter.com/Vyp3rQLLHl
— BNO News Live (@BNODesk) March 26, 2024
Images from the scene are truly shocking:
Close up photos of the Key bridge collapse, taken by Baltimore City Fire Rescue 1 as search and rescue operations continue. pic.twitter.com/JkFvaFrYGc
— Omar Jimenez (@OmarJimenez) March 26, 2024
CNN reported six men remained missing as of Wednesday morning — presumed to have been killed when the massive structure came down.
When vowing to offer solutions for employees of a closed port and for families who had almost certainly lost people they called sons, brothers, or husbands, Biden found a way to draw himself intimately close to the tragedy.
“About 1.30 a.m., a container ship struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which I have been over many many times, commuting from the state of Delaware by train or by car,” Biden said Tuesday while addressing the disaster.
Biden claims to have commuted over the Baltimore bridge by train many times. No trains run over the bridge. pic.twitter.com/GHwNPGjq9R
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 26, 2024
As The Daily Caller noted, there were not, nor had there ever been, rail lines on the bridge.
Biden was probably being truthful when he said he was familiar with the area of Tuesday’s bridge collapse.
He might very well have traveled across that bridge in a car more times than could be counted, given Baltimore’s proximity to Washington and Wilmington.
As a man who has spent virtually his entire adult life in politics, Biden has probably entered the Beltway from every direction more times than he could count.
But people in the area who are devastated by the loss of life and the coming economic impacts did not need Biden’s folksy attempt to relate to them on Tuesday.
They needed a qualified leader surrounded by qualified people to get to work to find answers for families and to get one of America’s busiest ports back open.
Is Biden fit for office?
Instead, they received a visit from inept Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and were spun a tall tale by a president who has a pattern of making the grief of others about himself.
Without a way to make the catastrophe about his late son Beau Biden, the president opted to recall his decades of travel to Washington from Delaware almost as if to tell those affected that he, like them, had been personally affected.
Biden must be devastated.
At least he did not compare the issues the Dali appeared to experience prior to taking out the Key Bridge to the small kitchen fire he once experienced at his home two decades ago.
Biden invoked that exaggerated tale last year in Hawaii where thousands of people had just lost everything during deadly wildfires across Maui.
The Baltimore disaster is still fresh, so there is ample time for Biden to find another angle in which to express to everyone affected just how much pain he is also experiencing during their nightmare.
