Eh, it means something. At the bare minimum it means that Joe Biden has pretty lousy impulse control when it comes to nervous habits like checking a watch. I am quite sure he has handlers watching his schedule, and they probably also told him not to check his watch.
But then again, impulse control in spontaneous situations with the public has never been one of Joe Biden’s strong suits. It’s not really surprising at all that he would struggle with something like that. It goes along with his gaffing, getting into verbal spats with people when common sense would say not to, etc. It’s just part of who he is.
Do I wish he wouldn’t do it? Sure. Do I really care that much? Not really.
I would be really personally pissed off at him if I was one of the gold star families.
But I’m not, so I just think it was disrespectful of him to act that way (remember he embodies our nation as head of state in the ceremony). Then I move on with my life. It’s not like he was wearing a tan suit too.
Max, there are times when I suspect you of having a sense of humor.
(My bolding in the quote).
But on the entire ‘watch checking’ question: it’s useful to employ some perspective. We might well look at the context of “Presidents and their interactions with military families.”
The watch-checking as compared with the list of DJT’s conduct? Instructive.
This compilation doesn’t cover anything after October 2019; a sampling:
Also:
And on and on.
Does this mean it’s wrong to criticize Biden for looking at his watch? Not in my view. It’s a reasonable point to make. But it’s a point that is most fairly and fully expressed when the context–in this case the actions and inactions of an immediate predecessor–is included in the discussion.
On the subjects of “who or what do we have left in Afghanistan” and 'follow the money," I found this article interesting:
I suspect we have a lot more people representing the interests of PMCs (Private Military Contractors) still in Afghanistan than most of us would suspect.
The Lesson: When making an appearance, NEVER wear your wristwatch. Stick it in your pocket, or better still, leave it with your handlers. They’re the ones watching your schedule anyway.
Bad advice! If you’re used to wearing a watch, you may compulsively check your bare wrist once or twice, which makes you look like a total douche who’s only pretending to check the time to show how bored he is. (Or senile, which of course plays right into a prevailing GOP narrative.)
I generally put ephemera like “he looked at his watch” down to say more about the people saying it than the man doing it. It’s like the Trump glass of water stuff. These are things that have no real meaning, but are just ways for extreme partisan hacks to attack politicians.
I actually wore a wrist watch for most of my adult life and never even understood the claim that “checking your watch means you have somewhere else you’d rather be”, when I checked my watch in my private life it meant “I want to know what time it is”, my reason for wanting to know the time doesn’t necessarily mean I have somewhere else I want to be. It could mean I just want to know the time. It could also mean I have somewhere else I don’t want to be, but might have to be–for example approaching last call at a bar, I may not want to go home, but I don’t have a choice, so I’d like to remember to get my last drink order in.
Anyway I remember thinking the critique of Bush being “too busy to debate Clinton” during an economic downturn, exemplified by checking his wash, to have been a manifestly unfair attack on the man at the time, and I still do. But I can’t say it was ineffective. For that reason alone I’ve often questioned why every political handler worth their salt hasn’t long-since purged wristwatches from the wrists of any President or Presidential candidate out there. These people have tightly managed schedules, meaning someone tells them where to be and when to be there, they don’t actually need their own timepiece.
I don’t see it the same way. (Surprise!) Trump bent any ear that would bend about how he was in awesome physical condition. He even had a doctor doctor up a health report. Then, to see him struggle that way with a glass of water was something.
If Biden had been bragging about how he always knows what time it is, has a capacity for telling time the likes of which you’ve never seen!, then looked at a wristwatch I’d see some kind of equivalence.
But it was still a bad time, optics-wise, for him to do that.
I mean how a man drinks a glass of water is little evidence of any physical problem, I’ll note there is still no evidence Trump had any medical issues. That suggests he just drinks water weirdly.
I’ll drop the tangent after this, but it also suggests that he may have a physical issue that prevents him from drinking it one handed like it was no big deal. Again, Trump bragged about his physical well being.
I agree with the general thrust of your comment about the unimportance of “ephemera” as you call it.
However, when one boasts, one makes oneself vulnerable to sneering when one falls short, and justifiably so. Trump’s endless self-praise put a great big target on his own back. Cry me a river when people shot at it.
This complaint is particularly galling when leveled against a sitting President. No matter what he’s doing at any given moment, there’s almost always something else he could or should be doing at any given moment. Normal Presidents, as opposed to the Trumpster Fire, have their schedule laid out in excruciating detail, and even then, it’s all contingent on a more important crisis not rearing its head at any given moment.
I’m a compulsive time-checker. If my brain decides it wants to know what time it is, I’m just not right until I know. If I can’t check it, that’s particularly distressing.
My office is set up so that no matter which way I’m looking from my chair I always have a clock in my field of vision, so if I’m meeting with someone I can check the time discreetly.
It’s a meaningless little anxiety, on the order of people who don’t like their food to touch. It’s also a very easy one to satisfy, except for the perception that checking one’s watch is rude. I really don’t mean anything by it–I just want to know what time it is.
I don’t know if Joe Biden shares this tic with me, but I do wish the whole idea would go away.
Your desire to check the time indicates that you are not focused on the event, that your mind is wandering to other subjects (‘what time is it’ / ‘I can’t wait until this is over’ are only two possible thoughts out of many). That is why it is rude.
I laughed out loud.