President Joe Biden may have been the one doing the talking, but it was Gov. Ron Desantisā message that got through loud and clear.
Biden toured some of the destruction left behind by Hurricane Ian, accompanied by the first lady and Floridaās governor, a potential rival for the presidency, should Biden choose to run again in 2024.
But for the nonce, the two put on friendly faces and celebrated the cooperation between state and federal relief efforts. Well ā¦ mostly.
āWe are cutting through the red tape and thatās from local government, state government, all the way up to the president. We appreciate the team effort,ā DeSantis said, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
āWe have very different political philosophies ā¦ but we worked hand in glove,ā Biden said. āOn things related to dealing with this crisis, weāve been completely lockstep. Thereās been no difference.ā
Biden even went so far as to compliment the āgood jobā DeSantis had done in the wake of the storm, the Times reported.
But they clearly didnāt agree onĀ everything.
āI think the one thing this has finally ended is the discussion about whether or not thereās Climate Change and we should do something about it,ā Biden said.
Leave it to Joe Biden to try to score a decidedly partisan political point during a rare moment of public bipartisanship. āDonāt underestimate Joeās ability to f*** things up,ā former President Barack Obama reportedly said once about his then-vice president.
Things donāt appear to have changed too much since the Obama administration.
Bidenās statement, of course, was nonsense. Ian was a strong hurricane, but it was one storm. The Weather Channel has named 2005 the worst hurricane season ever (with 1995 and 2004 tied in second place). In 17 years, we havenāt had a stronger storm season, or one that was even as strong ā¦ but somehow one storm this year is evidence of a growing problem.
Even the acting director of the National Hurricane Center said that Ian could not be linked to Climate Change directly. Come on, man!
From the look on DeSantisā face when Biden spoke those words, he was aware of just how nonsensical they were, even if the governor had too much class to counter-punch during a crisis.
And Twitter users were quick to notice.
I donāt always agree that a picture is worth 1,000 words. But in this case, the picture of DeSantisā face is unquestionably worth more than the 26 words the president was speaking at the time.
Experts agree that most communication is non-verbal, that words themselves represent less than 10 percent of what weāre trying to say, with the rest gotten across through cues like tone of voice, body language ā and facial expression.
If thatās true, DeSantis obviously had something to say yesterday that, probably out of courtesy, he felt was best not put into words.
We got the message anyway. Loud and clear.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.