This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

With apologies to T.S. Eliot, his poem "The Hollow Men" perfectly describes the end of President Joe Biden's career. Biden is one of those political figures whose only distinguishing characteristic is his longevity rather than any signature accomplishments. He failed upward his entire career, finally arriving in the White House essentially by default at an age when he was unable to take advantage of it or even enjoy it.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was elected a councilor in New Castle County, Delaware, in 1970, spending an unremarkable two years opposing new highway construction. He won election to the U.S. Senate two years later at the age of 30 in a campaign that contrasted his own youth to the incumbent's advanced age – Cale Boggs was 63 at the time.

Biden occupied one of Delaware's two Senate seats for the next 36 years, rising to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995. It was here that he earned national infamy for the way he treated Supreme Court nominees Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. Biden worked with Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts to torpedo Bork's nomination, accusing him of being an unrepentant racist. In 1991, Biden oversaw what Thomas himself called "a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves."

In 1987, Biden launched his first presidential campaign. Despite being heralded as the front-runner early on, he was ultimately derailed when Maureen Dowd of The New York Times exposed his plagiarism of a speech by British Labour leader Neil Kinnock. It turned out that Biden was doing a lot of plagiarism, not only of Kinnock but of Robert F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, and Hubert Humphrey as well.

Biden apologized for the plagiarism but never stopped lying. He claimed to have been arrested trying to visit Nelson Mandela in prison, said he walked with civil rights marchers, and boasted about graduating in the top half of his law school class. None of it was true.

Despite having to exit the 1988 presidential campaign in disgrace, the people of Delaware saw fit to send Biden back to the Senate for another 20 years. He resurfaced in 2008 with another short-lived campaign before accepting Barack Obama's invitation to serve as his vice president. During that campaign, he told black Americans that Republican candidate Mitt Romney would put them all back in chains.

Biden's most famous moment as vice president might have been boasting about getting the Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Burisma, a gas company on whose board Hunter Biden sat, fired.

Biden declined to run in 2016 but returned in 2020, launching his campaign based on the debunked lie that President Trump had praised neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville. Despite the 2020 Democratic primary being initially led by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the party establishment circled the wagons. Biden won the South Carolina primary after having lost in Iowa and New Hampshire, and most of the remaining candidates dropped out and endorsed him leading into Super Tuesday. Biden promised to put a woman of color on the ticket as vice president, and accordingly picked Sen. Kamala Harris of California, despite her having previously accused him of being a racist.

Biden remained in his basement for much of the 2020 campaign, counting on the media to carry his water and nationwide mail-in ballots to do the rest. His term as president has been a series of carefully choreographed media appearances in between long vacations, making it increasingly clear that Biden was merely a figurehead for the deep state bureaucracy. The way in which his career is ending is yet more confirmation that America has not really had a president for the past four years.

As of this writing, Biden's last appearance was on Wednesday, July 17, shortly after announcing he had tested positive for COVID-19. He arrived at a Delaware airport and got into his motorcade, presumably bound for home where he would rest and recuperate. On Sunday, July 21, Biden's Twitter account announced that he had decided not to accept nomination for a second term, despite weeks of defiantly stating that he was definitely running.

Even though there was no proof that Joe Biden was even aware of this statement, the media and political machines fired up. Journalists posted paeans to Biden's supposed courage for being willing to relinquish power, while Democratic politicians lined up behind Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden's voice was heard on Monday afternoon calling Harris' campaign headquarters by phone, but that did not quell speculation about the president's true condition.

So ends the career of one of the most undistinguished political figures in recent memory. Rather than retiring at the end of his career and spending time with his grandchildren (including the one he refuses to acknowledge), Biden's last days are full of speculation about his physical and mental capacity as he vainly holds on to a veneer of power.

What a sad end.

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.