Late Night Gives Up The Biden Ghost

It only took three-plus years for late-night comedians to do their jobs – i.e. mock President Joe Biden.

Satirists looked the other way while the elderly leader racked up enough viral video gaffes to fuel a dozen YouTube channels.

Now, finally, late-night is addressing the elephant in the electoral room. Call it the ultimate heel pivot.

All it took was an unedited, 90-minute forum where Biden couldn’t fall back on notes, a teleprompter or a subservient reporter.

Biden is suffering from an undisclosed medical matter that’s left him quiet, frail and unable to complete his thoughts.

Or, as Bill Maher recently quipped, the president “famously loves trains but apparently not of thought.”

In Maher’s defense, he hasn’t been as overtly captured as his late-night peers. If Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon and Jon Stewart aren’t reading DNC press releases to the letter, there’s a solid plagiarism case afoot.

Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images

“The Tonight Show’s” Jimmy Fallon is the least political animal of the lot, but even he has treated Biden’s obvious condition with a cheeky, “Nothing to see here, folks” attitude.

No more.

He still played up Biden’s age over comments about his mental failings in his first appearances since the June 27 debate. A typical Fallon barb? He said Democrats plan to ape a 2009 Pixar film.

“Tie a bunch of balloons to the White House and hope he flies away like the old guy from ‘Up.’”

A day later, he doubled down on the flailing leader when discussing President Donald Trump’s search for the best Vice-Presidential candidate.

“Trump needs someone who can help him win, so right now the front-runner is Joe Biden.”

Colbert, who pulled as many punches as a WWE wrestler during Biden’s White House days, let loose with a fury that must have caught his audience off guard.

David Livingston/Getty Images

Did the ghost of the late Rush Limbaugh visit CBS’s writers’ room?

“I don’t know what’s going on in Joe Biden’s mind, something I apparently have in common with Joe Biden.“

“Biden debated as well as Abe Lincoln … if you dug him up right now.”

The satirical kill shot? Colbert summoned Trump’s favorite nickname for the current Commander in Chief.

“I guess you could say he’s … Sleepy Joe,” he added, wincing for his audience’s consideration.

“Late Night with Seth Meyers” channeled more fury than anything else in its first original show since the debate. Meyers, nastier than his old “Saturday Night Live” persona, couldn’t deny what Biden’s debate performance revealed.

Lloyd Bishop/NBC via Getty Images

Nor could he make anything comical from those revelations, including plans to shrink Biden’s work day akin to a cranky toddler’s schedule.

“Your plan to calm fears about his age is an earlier bedtime? Are you hoping we’ll forget he’s 81 if you treat him like he’s 5½?”

The host wasn’t angry that the media covered up Biden’s frail state. Nor did he complain that Team Biden did the same so effectively. Instead, he raged against Biden’s interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.

“This isn’t about how you feel. This is about how voters feel. If you truly believe that American democracy is at stake – and it is – then you have to act like it.”

Jon Stewart, the old/semi-regular “Daily Show” host, added his own sense of outrage to the Democrats’ plight.

“He’d been home for almost two weeks. He was jet-lagged? How big is that f***ing jet? The point is, for a campaign based on honesty and decency, the spin about the debate appears to be blatant bulls***. And the redemption tour hasn’t gotten that much better.”

He doubled down via his “Weekly Show” podcast.

“Joe Biden has run on this idea of honesty and decency, but they have not been honest about the condition and the difficulties that he has been facing .. And so it undercuts one of the foundational arguments that they even have made.”

Freed from his Comedy Central perch, he dug further in, speaking for Americans who bought the media’s lies fed to them by Biden, Inc. 

“I have been stunned and disappointed and angered by what I saw, and how I’ve been talked to that I didn’t see what I saw.”

Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

If Stewart had perused The Daily Wire over the past three years he’d have learned Biden’s decline is old news.

Let’s be clear about late-night’s sudden about face. The comic hosts want to defeat Trump in November. They realize a diminished Biden has little chance of retaining the White House.

Now, it’s time to usher the aging leader off the stage.

It’s why they, along with the press corps, suddenly started doing their jobs again after a three-year nap.

Not everyone has abdicated their duties as politically astute comics. Kyle Dunnigan of “Mr. Birchum” fame has been skewering President Biden for some time now. His withering sketches, alternately goofy and cutting, reveal a Biden that’s familiar to those who didn’t buy the media’s “cheap fake” narratives.

Joe Rogan’s Spotify podcast has roasted Biden’s mental decline, one of many reasons the show’s popularity remains sky high.

Even Dana Carvey, whose political impressions aren’t mean spirited, mocked Biden via his “Fly on the Wall” podcast.

It’s called “speaking truth to power,” a late-night host’s number-one duty. Sadly, once Democrats determine an election year plan, they’ll forget it all over again.

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Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at @HollywoodInToto.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.