Joe Biden’s Woke War–How The President Struggled To Include Vladimir Putin And Respect His Diversity

“Don’t worry so much”, Jill Biden said to her husband as Vladimir Putin amassed his troops on the Ukrainian border. “Right will always prevail”.

The First Lady rubbed Joe’s back with a special organic cream she had gotten from a Montana cousin sent to her Delaware address and routed via the valet’s entrance of the White House to the Organdy Room.

 “That feels good”, the President said as his wife with the knowing fingers of a long, loving relationship, rubbed gently along his spine, between his shoulder blades, and up the knobs and tight tendons of his neck.

“It should feel good”, said Jill.  “It is made from mesquite”, she said, “blended with jasmine, Texas sage, and Idaho ginseng.  It worked wonders on your poor ankles, remember?”

The President adjusted his pillow, stretched out his legs, and sighed.  Only Jill could give him comfort, warm his feet, and  keep him toasty and snug on the coldest mornings.  She was indeed a find, and a marvelous First Lady.  

His mind wandered to his Vice President, and he shuddered.  He could never imagine her any closer than a handshake and wondered what she was like undressing in her powder room.  No man could possibly want that harridan.  Of course she was exactly what the country needed in high office, a black woman ready to take the helm and preside over a diverse nation; but God knows, there were more than enough of these angry women to go around, and he was glad she was at arms length in her own rooms and no closer.

“Over here”, the President said, gesturing to the curve of his lower back.  “Over here”.

“Now, Joe”, his wife answered.  This is not one of those backrubs.”

She was referring to their tumbles in the hay decades ago when backrubs were code for sex, back in the day when politics had not squeezed the juice out of her man, when he was sated and happy representing the people of Delaware and not the whole, clambering, hysterical nation.

The President rolled over, gave her a kiss, and turned out the light. He had to be up bright and early for a staff meeting in the War Room.  The Russians meant business.

Nothing in Wilmington or the cloak rooms or the floor of the Senate had ever prepared him for this – Russian belligerency, a return to Cold War politics, nuclear missiles deployed, spy satellites repositioned, and a bugger of a bully in the Kremlin.  He had read about Nixon and Khrushchev, Reagan and ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall’, Stalin and the gulags, and Marx and Engels, but he never thought that he would have to go toe to toe with them.  He was the president of  black people, transgender women, the queer nation, and the forgotten, so what was he doing tooth by jowl with the world’s biggest bully, the guy in Moscow?  He had not been prepared for this. 

“Joe, think of what Martin Luther King would do”.

The President’s thoughts flickered and focused on the March on Washington, King’s ‘I had a dream’ speech, and his walk across the Pettis bridge in Alabama; but there were no Russians in the picture.  The Great Man had never had to stand up and shout while nations were watching.  Black people were one thing, but the goddamned world was another.

“I don’t quite get it”, the President said to his wife.  “More over here, dear”, he said wincing and touching his left side.

The President slept well – an untroubled sleep was his long suit, and he found himself a slugabed more and more often these days.  No matter what ‘that woman’ or his inner circle brought into the Oval Office, he was able to put it all aside when ten o’clock rolled around.  No point in bringing the office to the bedroom was his motto.  A good night’s sleep cures all.

Next morning the Presidential valet knocked softly at the door of the Presidential bedroom with bed tea – a pot of fragrant, luscious, Assam first blush tea that he looked forward to every morning.  “Wouldn’t you like some of our Darjeeling, Kenyan, Sir Lankan or Turkish Black Sea tea, Sir”, suggested Robert, the valet.

“No, Robert, thank you. I’ll stick to this”, he said.  Bed tea set the standard for the day – a firm hand on the tiller, eyes to the horizon, shoulders back, trimmed sails, and decks cleared for running – and better not alter the routine.  Jill knew quite well when he went off trail and got tangled up in that ‘Bridey O'Shannon thing’, something that never should have happened and kept quiet, thanks to her, but a clear warning that her man had some loose bearings that needed watching.

“Be firm, Mr. President”, said his Vice President after he got settled in the presidential chair.  “Never give in to that….”; and here Kamala stumbled, looking for the right presidential words while her whole persona shook with ambitious energy. “…Never give in to that proto-Communist, renascent imperialist KGB thug!”.  There, she said it, got her true feelings off her chest, and smiled.

Yet a war, a shooting war with American soldiers, brave black men, put in harm's way was unconscionable.  How could he ever face his black brothers if he sent people of color into battle?  He was elected to create a kinder, gentler nation, one of inclusive, diverse values; not a bellicose one. 

“Apples and oranges”, suggested one of the President’s inner circle.  “Black people here, soldiers there.” But Joe was not convinced.  He remembered his predecessor LBJ who insisted that war would not derail his civil rights initiatives, that guns and butter could indeed be on the same menu; but who was as wrong as could be.  Vietnam brought him and his legacy down.

“Of course, I don’t have a legacy yet”, Joe considered.  “ I’ll be eighty next year, better hurry up”; but he was shaken from his reveries by his National Security Advisor and Secretary of Defense whom he had chosen for their progressive visions of world peace and international cooperation but who, once sniffing at the hems of power, quickly become sabre-rattling hawks.  “

Fight him”, Mr. President, the National Security Advisor said. “Throw everything we’ve got at him.  Not one Russian left standing.”

So, although his heart was not in it, he mobilized American troops and aimed every possible nuclear missile at Moscow.

“Isn’t there a diplomatic solution?”, the President asked.

“No, sir, there isn’t”, said the Joint Chiefs’ chief. “That Macron is a pansy…excuse my language, Madame Vice President… who will do anything to cover his French ass.” 

War became a more distinct possibility and the images of garlands, wreaths, and honors presented by Eammon Rogers Plunkett, professor of black history, dean emeritus of the Black Lives Matter movement for racial justice; and Poetry R Macon, street leader and popular radical icon began to fade.  Nor would he even be considered for the Bobbie Landon Fielding prize for transgender rights.

“Can’t we somehow include him?”, said Biden referring to Vladimir Putin, trying to parse ‘inclusivity’ for international meaning .

“Not on your life”, was the resounding response from the Joint Chiefs, NSA, and the Vice President. “Stick it to him, Mr. President”.

At his writing (2/11/22) the war in Ukraine has not yet started and may not.  The canny little rascal in the Kremlin will more than likely have his bullying ways.  The West will give in to keep the gas flowing; and the President will give a big sigh of relief and return to what really matters.  

“Oh, sure”, Trumpists said, snidely laughing at Biden's conflation of Black Lives Matter with the likes of the Communist autocrat in Moscow; but who is to judge how a President makes critical decisions?  If this one is a function of his organic backrubs, the harridan in the next office, memories of Rehoboth, and the Reverend Al Sharpton, who cares?  It is a democracy, after all, and anything goes,