Oh, Joe? Oh, Joe? Where did you go?

We are nine weeks out from a presidential election that will doubtless be the most analyzed and argued-over election in living memory, regardless of who wins. Both major-party candidates are starting to go at each other hammer and tongs. It's just starting to get interesting now, with the traditional post-Labor Day start to the sprint-to-the-finish stage of the campaign now at hand. But while that spectacle is underway, it's easy to forget that the current president is supposedly still in charge in Washington.

Why is it so easy to forget? Because he seems to be on a permanent vacation. In my years in Uncle Sam's colors, some of the guys approaching their retirement dates went on a definite, let's say, taper-down as they got shorter and shorter. These guys were referred to as ROADies - Retired On Active Duty. I guess that makes Joe Biden a PROADie - President Retired On Active Duty, although, we have to admit, he's not very active; he seems to be stuck in that beach chair like a barnacle on a rock.

Biden just left his week-long vacation in Santa Ynez, California for Dover, Delaware, where he’ll head to Rehoboth Beach for a 9 day vacation.

Since stating he dropped out of the race, 34 days ago, he’s spent just 6 days at the White House.

WHO IS RUNNING OUR COUNTRY? pic.twitter.com/ZaOHwRKhB9

— 🇺🇸ProudArmyBrat (@leslibless) August 25, 2024

16 days. On vacation. In a row.

Who is running the country? Because it’s not Biden.

No, seriously. This is not normal.pic.twitter.com/rkMxhfpiJX

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) August 31, 2024

All this demands a question: Who is in charge in Washington? It's tempting to be a bit relieved by the notion that it's not befuddled old Joe who's attempting to make any substantive decisions, even though that's still technically his job. But tempting as that is, it's more concerning to contemplate just who may be pulling the strings.

It's fair to point out that one could have asked this question at any point in the last couple of years, at least, and reasonably expected the answer to be anyone but Joe Biden. For quite some time many of us suspected that it was Frau Doktor Professor Jill Biden who was pulling Joe's strings in the style of Edith Wilson after Woodrow's stroke. But in every recent photo that we've seen from Rehoboth, there is Jill next to napping Joe, playing a constant Annette Funicello to Joe's Frankie Avalon.

The vice president? She's on the campaign trail, cackling and word-salading up a storm while dragging her emotional support animal, "China Tim" Walz, around from stop to carefully stage-managed stop. Besides, were she making any substantive decisions about the day-to-day business of the executive branch, I think we all know that things would be a whole lot more screwed up than they already are.

See Related: Biden Takes a Break From His Neverending Vacation to Remind Us of How Weird He Is 

Biden, Harris, and Blinken Issue Statements on Murder of Hersh Goldberg-Polin

That leaves us with an unsettling notion: The executive branch of the federal government has fallen well and truly into the hands of the unelected and largely faceless Swamp. The day-to-day decisions of government may very well be being made by a cabal of interns, bureaucrats, flunkies, flappers, middle-level lackeys, and myrmidons. We don't know who these people are. They represent none of us. They were not elected and, in many cases were not even appointed with the usual approval process; they are almost certainly by and large mid-level GS drones.

And they are carrying out the duties of the President of the United States. That's not just unsettling; that's downright disconcerting.

Meanwhile, that big chair behind the Resolute Desk sits empty. Are we better off with Joe Biden in that chair - or not?

Oh, Joe, Oh, Joe? Where did you go? 

Oh, Joe? 

Oh, Joe?