"What if they gave a war and nobody came?"  That was an anti-Vietnam War slogan from 50–60 years ago.  That slogan could be updated and paraphrased for the dog and pony show that was the recently concluded the ninth "Summit of the Americas."

The summit was billed as a summit for all the nations of the Western Hemisphere, but at the outset, Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua were expressly not invited.  This provoked Mexico not to attend.  This was major and disabled the entire summit, because Mexico, not the United States, is the most important nation in the Western Hemisphere, at least for the stated purposes of the summit, because Mexico not only is the second or third largest country by population in the hemisphere, but is also the gateway border country that separates the Latino portion of the hemisphere from the Anglo portion.

By not attending, Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador as much as said, "¡Mi casa no es su casa!"

In addition, President Biden has managed to offend a number of other Latino countries by snubbing them for not being sufficiently "democratic" and other reasons, all of which provoked Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Bolivia also not to attend.  And reportedly, Brazilian President Bolsonaro had to be bribed to attend, securing beforehand a promise for a private meeting with Biden, who also had to promise to say nothing that might insult Brazil — for example, talk about how Brazil may be damaging the climate with its activities in the Amazon basin.

Biden launched the summit on Day 1, Wednesday, June 8, with the truest words he has ever said: "I probably should stop right here."

He shoulda stopped, and quit right there, while he was still behind.  It only got worse from that point.

Given that one of the most important topics for the Summit was democracy itself and how to advance it, Biden at the very least should have made sure he could pronounce the word itself correctly.

1:24 – ...Democacy is a hallmark ... captures our unique commitment to democacy as a region ... it affirms the right of people, throughout the Americas to democacy, and our obligation as a (singular) governments (plural), to promote and defend democacy ... in a moment when democacy is under assault, around the world and renew our commitment, that democacy is not only the defining feature ...

It wouldn't be a genuine Biden event without some new malapropisms...

 2:26 – At this Summit, we have an opportunity for us to come together [some of "us," anyway], around some bold ideas and VICIOUS actions...

On Day 2, at the morning session for various Western Hemisphere CEOs, the malapropisms continued.

0:26 – Well, it's wonderful to be with you this morning.  I really mean it.  I want to thank the Chamber of CONGRESS ...

Brandon's opposition to "Trickle-Down Economics" is well known; he works it into many of his speeches.  This time, it backfired.

3:14 – It's time to put a nail in the coffin into my view of Trickle-Down Economics.  It dudn't work.  It keeps you in a conv in a increasingly smaller smaller world ...

In other words, if now is the time to put nails into the coffin of his own views on Trickle-Down Economics, then now must be the time to support Trickle-Down Economics.  I doubt whether the other leaders knew what he was talking about, anyway.

But getting back to democracy, there was this stunningly dumb remark:

12:28 – And we have more democracies in this hemisphere, than any other, th-hemisphere ...

As if there were more than two hemispheres.  The remark is easily rebuttable.  According to this site, there are four "full democracies" and 18 "flawed democracies," including the United States itself, in the entire Western Hemisphere, and some 55 in the Eastern.

All the leaders in attendance knew this.  How must they feel when they hear Biden speak such gibberish?  And for that matter, what must they think when Biden sits down with any of them for a short, informal, televised chat, and Biden has to read from his note cards to know how to say "hello" to them?

So far, on these first two days, the only harm that Biden the clown inflicted was on himself.  But it got more serious by far on Day 3, when the subject turn to migration.

1:14 – Twenty countries, coming together to launch the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration, and Protection ...

But given the absence of Nicaragua; Guatemala; El Salvador; Honduras; and, much more importantly, Mexico, this declaration is worthles, ab initio, because these countries lie on the northern end of Latin America and are the gateway to the rest of the region.

This next Bidenism was notable as a study in sheer incoherence.

1:51 – 'Past few years, the global economic crisis, triggered by COVID-19 pandemic, has now made worse by Russia's war in Ukraine, and the political turmoil, from, auto, efinal, ah to excuse me, autoteh, au tack art (he whistles), autocracies in ah, in our region ...

And now come the lies.

3:48 – And we'll secure our borders, including through innovative, coordinated actions, with our regional partners ...

The most important of whom is Mexico, which did not participate in this farce of a summit.

Biden not only hasn't secured America's border; he doesn't need permission or agreements with any other countries to do so.

The mendacity of this next Bidenism is breathtaking and Goebbels-esque in its sheer grandeur, in its shameless willingness to tell a Big Lie that is so huge that its very size tries to intimidate people from calling it out as the Big Lie that it is.

4:20 – And that's why so many nations, again, 20, representing the entire migration route from Chile to Canada (which isn't part of the migration route), were eager to sign up to be part of this shared solution, and have stepped up, with their own major commitments ...

But it's not "the entire migration route" since, of course, the upper several hundreds of miles of that route, from the Atlantic to Pacific Oceans, are controlled by the several nations that lie at the northern end of Latin America, mentioned about, who weren't part of the summit or its declaration.

Finally, perhaps to cap it all off, in this last Bidenism, Biden claimed that the United States consists of several countries:

4:53 – And like many others, countries in the United States are stepping up with significant commitments as well.

So there you go.  A farce of a summit, indeed.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.