Let me tell you about “Conchee,” a guy from my old Avenue U neighborhood in Brooklyn.
I never knew his real name, but everyone called him Conchee.
He was a nice guy but a total degenerate gambler in a neighborhood where there was no shortage of degenerate gamblers.
Conchee never won.
He would sit in our local candy store with his nose buried in the racing form. He would announce he was betting on a horse that was a “sure thing.” The sure thing would come in last.
When Conchee bet a favorite, a long shot would come in.
When he bet a long shot, a favorite would win.
Conchee was a loser.
The bookies and the shys (shylocks) loved Conchee.
He was like money in the bank. Their bank.
One day a group of us ran into Albee, the fearsome neighborhood bookie. He was carrying a thermos full of hot soup. He was on his way to Conchee’s house.
“Conchee, the poor bastard, has pneumonia. My mother made some soup for him,” said Albee with a chuckle.
The neighborhood definition of a loser is when a heartless bookie brings soup to keep you alive so that you can keep losing and owe him even more money than you do right now.
Conchee and Joe Biden are separated at birth.
The difference? Conchee only hurt himself when he lost.
The brilliant former defense secretary Robert Gates put Joe Biden in Conchee territory when, in his 2014 memoir, he wrote that then-Vice President Biden “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Need more proof?
Barack Obama wrote in his book that of all his advisers, the night he contemplated the mission against Osama bin Laden only one person advised against the raid. Joe Biden said, “Don’t go.”
Biden counseled caution and said the president should defer any decision until the intelligence community was more certain that bin Laden was in the compound.
If only the Biden of 2011 was around to teach the Biden of 2021 about caution before he jumped the gun and abandoned Afghanistan overnight.
There were only about 2,500 American troops in the country before Joe Biden began pulling out and not a single American combat death in the past 15 months.
If Biden did nothing, absolutely nothing but leave the status quo for a few more months, we would have had time to plan and would have avoided this total nightmare.
This is not to question leaving Afghanistan. This is to question our failure to first evacuate our allies.
This is about the failure to plan our departure with those countries that have been working side by side with us in Afghanistan for 20 years.
Why should they trust us again?
Why should anyone trust us again?
His disastrous decision and bungled retreat leaves millions of Afghans in the hands of the vicious leaders of the Taliban.
Joe Biden had the world see desperate Afghans who were loyal to us die trying to hold on to the wheels of a departing plane rather than face death at the hands of the Taliban.
With his insane rush to get out, Biden left Afghan women, who were just tasting education and freedom, to be raped and beaten by Taliban monsters.
Biden tried to talk his way out of failure. He blamed Donald Trump. No one believed him. Thus Joe Biden became the first and only person in our nation’s history to blame Trump for anything bad and have people not believe him.
Prediction: Joe Biden will not survive this debacle.
China, Iran, Russia will use him as a punching bag.
No one will trust him and, in the next three years, who do we have to look forward to after Joe Biden? Kamala Harris. That’s who we have to look forward to…God help us, Kamala Harris.
Biden is on his way to the bottom of the list of our worst presidents.
He will join Jimmy Carter, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson and, of course, the one and only Donald Trump.
I CAN’T END THIS COLUMN THIS WAY
It’s too depressing.
Summer is almost over.
Covid is still trying to kill us.
De Blasio is still mayor.
The inflation they tell us is not going to happen is happening.
The Mets have folded.
The football Giants don’t have an offensive line so they are going to be awful.
I know, it’s time for a joke to put everyone in a good mood:
During a church service, the pastor asked if anyone in the congregation would like to express praise for answered prayers.
Suzie stood and walked to the podium. She said, “Two months ago, my husband, Phil, had a terrible bicycle accident and his scrotum was crushed.”
There was a muffled gasp from the men in the congregation.
“Phil was unable to hold me or the children,” she went on, “and every move caused him terrible pain. We prayed as the doctors performed a delicate operation, and they were able to reconstruct the crushed remnants of Phil’s scrotum, using wire to reinforce and shape it.”
The men in the congregation cringed and squirmed uncomfortably.
“Now,” she announced in a quivering voice, “thank the Lord, Phil is out of the hospital and the doctors say that with time, his scrotum should recover completely.”
All the men sighed with relief.
The pastor rose and asked if anyone else had something to say.
A man stood up and walked slowly to the podium. He said, “I’m Phil.”
The entire congregation held its breath.
“I just want to tell my wife the word is sternum.”
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