In 2009 Joe Biden was riding high. He had spent most of his adult life either sucking on the public teat or inflating his resume like a mylar party balloon. Perhaps Joe thought his multiple decades of lying about how smart he was, how great an athlete he was, or his made-up life as a teamster, a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker was behind him. In 2009, Joe had most of his mental faculties. Being vice president, he didn’t have to spend much effort thinking. He could spend his efforts on the family grift and talking about himself and his second wife, Jill. Jilly was a “Doctor,” you know—Dr. Jill, to you.
She said, ‘I was so sick of the mail coming to Sen. and Mrs. Biden. I wanted to get mail addressed to Dr. and Sen. Biden.’ That’s the real reason she got her doctorate”.
Jill wanted a doctorate because she dreamed of a title. The best cure for her second-class mail status is to enroll in a second-class college; a college where her husband is its most esteemed alum. So, Jill Biden enrolled at the University of Delaware, did what she needed to earn her piece of paper, pulled out the crayons, and penned a hot garbage thesis that a middle schooler would be proud of. The reviewing panel couldn’t rubber-stamp her effort fast enough.
It is not a demonstration of expertise in its specific topic or its broad field. It is a gasping, wheezing, frail little Disney Forest creature that begs you to notice the effort it makes to be the thing it is imitating while failing so pathetically that any witnesses to its ineptitude must feel compelled, out of manners alone, to drag it to the nearest podium and give it a participation trophy. Which is more or less what an Ed.D. is. It’s a degree that only deeply unimpressive people feel confers the honorific of “Doctor.” People who are actually smart understand that being in possession of a credential is no proof of intelligence.
The National Review and the Wall Street Journal’s critiques are both blistering and accurate. Forbes was more gentle – like an icepick to the cerebellum. If you wish, you can waste brain cells reading her thesis yourself. To say that it lacks academic rigor is like calling water wet. I’m not suggesting that Jill didn’t put some effort into it. I think it was her penultimate effort – but then came Trump and George Floyd and COVID. Life was about to crescendo for Jill. The doctor saw an avenue for succession to the White House and the Oval Office. Her husband was a shell of his former self. Ten years after his elevation to VP, Joe only needed to stay in the basement to get elected; Jill knew that much. The chief enabler was about to enable right into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Mrs. Biden had seen Joe at his peak and witnessed first-hand the decline. She knew that Joe had hit the downward angle toward dementia, but Jill wanted the White House more than Joe. She could taste the WH pastries.