PrintBiden in his own hand
You can read graphological studies as you read astrology in the back pages of penny-savers: you don't really believe what they say, but you're indulgent and curious, ready to snort in derision or lay the piece down with a thoughtful hmm.
But graphology is the study of the movements of your hand on a sheet of paper. The motions are dictated by your health, your education, your mental and emotional or psychological state, and many other variables. It's then unlikely that two people could have precisely the same handwriting. As true, the manifestation of character and personality are also mirrored, if one can interpret the sample with any degree of accuracy, in what one describes with a writing implement on paper.
In the past, I have parsed the script of Barack Hussein Obama, a hand that is boldly transparent of his ego and tendency to camouflage certain aspects of his life. Masterful qualities show through.
Similarly, any sample of the writing of our current President, Donald John Trump, is even more transparent: here is a person of unusual robustness and perseverance, his pen-strokes thick, his name spelled out fully, a jagged testimony to his drive, health, and determination to...win. After studying numerous hands during my whole life so far, Trump's script is frankly remarkable. It tells you all there is to know about his powerful and sovereign persona.
As for Joseph Biden, our V.P.-turned–presidential nominee, now campaigning — the story here is much less impressive than those of Presidents Obama and Trump.
Like these men or not, their handwriting and, especially, their signatures declare these men to be CEO material, men of power, willfulness, notable ego, unsurprisingly. Distinctively prime-rib givers of juicy orders.
The wavery, quivery writ of Joe Biden, however, is one that might attach to an assistant under-secretary of leafy vegetables. Perhaps imported arugula: pleasant to tongue, nutty in impact, quite tolerable in mixed salads, especially in well aerated, heady eateries in the 3- to 4-digit meal-ticket billing zone.
To be sure, as most people age, including presidents, of course, handwriting tends to soften, fade, as the writer ages, pays less attention, or his hand becomes less steady with stiffness or ailment.
Obama's handwriting, one notes, has suffered no loss as time has put him into the rearview. His potent, visceral script is still lofty and arrogant. Trump, who has a few years on the much younger ex-president now resident in the opalescent reserves of Martha's, has an almost mountainous signature he grandly displays with every legislative modification and bill initiative. As we have seen. Thick marker, jagged black up-and-down strokes.
You can almost see his signature from the moon.
Mr. Biden is no slouch, physically. We know that, as his Secret Service protective detail have noted several times his vigorous swim routine, often apparently in the nude, despite the occasional uncomfortable female Secret Service attendants. Mr. Unifier and Healer has often offered to take the present Oval Office incumbent "behind the shed" and "punch out" his lights. So Mr. Delaware is physically fit enough to make such bullying threats — without ever having to carry through on such macho primeval peaceful overtures.
No matter. We get the gist, telescoped.
Mr. Biden's signature, by contrast, shows a strong "J," a stroke that bespeaks some confidence. His initial "B" in Biden has a leaping, upward aspect, too, that indicates a man with some aspiration and confidence, a secure sense of self, especially since, like the initial "O" in Obama's signature, the letter encompasses the next letter in its enfolding embrace. Biden's "B" clambers backwards to shield the "oe" of Joe. Parental, umbrella-like. Kindly self-protective.
Yet when we look at the totality of his writing, his strokes, his pages are indecisive — the first thing that hits the eye. They wobble this way and that, indicating his variable mood, as well as clear indecisiveness. Doesn't take a practiced astrophysicist to take note of that glaring feature of the Biden advent.
The flippy/floppy, almost apologetic writ says he can be moved to change his opinion rather easily. He can be made to think differently without much effort. Is that what we need now?
Isn't that actually what our enemies would delight in confronting?
In terms of his spacing, he gives generous white space between his words, indicating cumulative, ponderous thought processes and a generosity of effort to himself. His side and top margins, however, are niggardly, not expansive, stingy. And that is what they advertise. He doesn't spend lavishly on others, is generous with himself and his own — say, his offspring.
In a like fashion, Mr. B is scrupulous in dotting his is; in fact, immediately above them, which is somewhat unusual. That can mean he is punctilious about tasks, which would be a positive. It could also, on the negative side, indicate he is uneager to explore, would rather keep to himself, won't look at the wild-eyed yonder for investments, risks. Stick close to home. (Sounds somehow familiar, doesn't it?)
Nicely, his "e" is a literary formulation, one that tells the careful observer that Mr. Biden has a literary proclivity, which could well be the case, though with tele-a-prompter materials handed to him, it is a secret chamber we have yet to see demonstrated. Good to see, we think, that he has a possibility to be creative in the literary realm. Not that the presidency requires a proficiency in Proustian lyricism or anything.
Biden's innate hesitancy, possibly a legacy of his early childhood stuttering, shows up as his writing usually leaves the plane of normal groundedness. Instead, he tends to manifest a consistent rise as his writing continues. That is interpretable as an optimistic bent. Not a bad thing at all.
There is kindliness, as well as the possibility of striking out unexpectedly, impatience, mostly masked, no doubt sequelae of two brain aneurisms, which cannot have been easy on him, as they would not be for anyone in the public eye or not.
All in all, the resume does not comport with a man who can initiate, create something from not-something. He can be led, yes. A fungible fellow, much as we have witnessed over the months. Hardly, however, a decisive chief.
Yet is all that what we seek in a chief executive, responsible for the mighty ship of state, tsunamic threats from China, Iran, the DPRK and those simmering on the back burner, staggering GDP, assailants domestic and foreign, anemic overseas alliances, managerial nimbleness in the face of the ever-unexpected -- even possible visitors from Out There -- and the needed flexibility of calm decisiveness in the face of fraught First-World complexities?
