30 July—It’s time to pick on Joe Biden. For something not really worth picking on him for, truth be told, especially since he’s effectively—if not yet officially—retired from whatever he’s been doing for over five decades. Any more than it’s worth picking on Donald Trump for. But since it’s not overtly political, we’ll pick anyway.

From the top picture reproduced below that we found only yesterday, it looks like President Biden has taken to using felon Trump’s makeup artist. Finally.

Now, Donald Trump has made a cleverly strategic point of flaunting and exploiting his vanity. He’s never tried to hide it. Well, he can’t hide it. His excessive vanity is merely a function of the ineluctable narcissism and self-infatuation that he’s nurtured from his earliest days. (Not that it matters, but the very stable genius doesn’t need the admiration or approval of others because he gets all he needs from himself. We won’t speculate about what else he does to gratify himself.)

Joe Biden, on the other hand, isn’t a narcissist (any more than any other politicians, at any rate). He’s just plain vain. (So are we all, to be sure. But that’s irrelevant.) We starting seeing that about four decades ago when the young(ish) hack senator made headlines when he had hair plugs transplanted into his balding pate. Obviously he didn’t try to conceal the fact of his hair loss and at least he didn’t resort to a weave or rug. So why did he bother? Go figure.

More recently, based on photos like the ones paired below and analysis by nonpartisan plastic surgeons, Joe Biden has resorted to well into six figures worth of plastic surgery to make him look less unfit to serve a second presidential term. It’s clearly been a terrible waste of money. Let’s hope it hasn’t been taxpayers’ money. In both of those pictures he looks like he has considerably more than one foot in the grave. His skin looks thin and stretched over his skull, like it’s ready to split and fall off.

Going back to the top picture, then, Joe doesn’t look half bad in that one. That’s because he’s obviously under a thick layer of subtly masculine suntannish makeup. Either that or the picture is of a simulacrum in an Oval Office tableau in Madame Tussaud’s wax museum. There’s one in New York now. The pose and expression simply don’t look like the Joe Biden we’ve come to know and like.

On the other hand, it’s not unusual (and commonly commented on), after the artistry of a skillful necro- cosmetologist, for the honoree in the box of oblivion (when it’s opened) at a funeral or wake to look better than he did in life.

It must be noted, by the way, that nonpartisan plastic surgeons have opined that Donald Trump hasn’t gone untouched by their profession. And there’s nothing wrong with being vain. Even if you’re not a politician, actor, or other public figure. Even so-called lower animals preen themselves . . .