Who are Joe Biden's shadowy handlers?

For years, people have been assuring me that after a half century in Washington, decrepit old Joe Biden is just a puppet being manipulated by his “handlers.”

“Well, that’s interesting,” I’d reply. “Who are these handlers? What are their names?”

The one name often suggested was Barack Obama, who was assumed to be running things from his island redoubt in the Atlantic. When I’d say, “Really? Obama didn’t seem all that excited about running things when he was in the White House. Didn’t he play golf 333 times as President?”

Beyond Obama, they seldom seemed to have any suggestions. When I was disappointed, they tended to respond that their not knowing the precise names of who is pulling Biden’s strings just proved the nefariousness of these mysterious puppetmasters.

On the other hand, the topic of who was advising Joe Biden seemed too boring for me to look into, so I didn’t bother. Now, though, there’s a convenient New York Times article:

The Insiders: The 3 Men at the Core of Biden’s Brain Trust

President Biden has a diverse group of advisers, but few have the influence of three men in his inner circle during his final campaign.

By Katie Rogers and Michael D. Shear

Reporting from Washington

June 22, 2024

Now it could be that this article is just an elaborate psy-op to cover up, for who knows what purpose, who really is telling the President what he ought to do, but Occam’s Razor suggests … nah.

Biden’s three-man Inner Circle turns out to be as dull as I’d expected: Chief campaign strategist Michael Donilon (who has been working for Biden on and off since 1981), former White House chief of staff Ron Klain (who was Al Gore’s chief of staff in the 1990s), and Biden’s best friend Ted Kaufman, who worked on Joe’s 1972 US Senate campaign.

Klain is the youngest at 62, Donilon is 65, and Kaufman is 85.

Donilon is Catholic, Klain is Jewish, and Kaufman’s dad was Jewish and his mom Catholic.

Other aides and advisors mentioned in the article include current chief of staff Jeff Zientz (47, Jewish), campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon (47, Catholic), the First Lady’s former spokesman Michael LaRosa (40, Catholic), personal attorney Bob Bauer (72, Jewish), ambassador to the EU Mark Gitenstein (77, Jewish, he was Democratic counsel to the Senate Judiciary committee back in the 1980s), senior adviser Anita Dunn (66, Jewish, her husband is Bauer), longtime Biden campaign manager and First Sister Val Biden Owens (78, Catholic), Steve Richetti (67, probably Catholic judging by surname), Idaho environmentalist Bruce Reed (64, probably Protestant), Andrew Bates (36, probably Protestant), Kate Bedingfield (42, married in Episcopalian church), and former liberal Republican governor of Ohio John Kasich (72, Catholic).

Jeff Zients, Michael Donilon, Ron Klain, and Anita Dunn

In general, Biden’s inner circle seems disproportionately weighted toward Jews and Catholics, but the shortfall of Protestants would seem less striking from Joe’s Eastern Seaboard point of view.

All the aides and advisors mentioned in the article are white. This probably helps explain the continued presence of chief White House comic relief spokester Karine Jean-Pierre, who may not be any good at her (admittedly challenging) job, but has lots of diversity Pokemon points.

Of course, in all likelihood, the most influential Biden insider of all is Dr. Jill (73, her father was Italian, her mother WASP, she was confirmed Presbyterian as a teen).

So, what it seems to me is that rather than Biden, in his 54th year in Washington, having slipped under the control of an enigmatic coterie, it’s more likely that Old Joe is a willful, stubborn, conceited elderly man who has surrounded himself with old friends and underlings.