There are some surrogates for Joe Biden that really, really shouldn't be put in the public eye. Obviously, the president's own press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, is near the top of that list given her history of stumbles. When a surrogate consistently manages to make the person they are defending seem worse, that's your sign. 

Then there's Rep. Eric Swalwell, a man best known for allegedly sleeping with a Chinese spy named Fang Fang. You'll be shocked to learn that a man of such high character also doesn't make the best surrogate for the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. On Sunday, while appearing on MSNBC, Swalwell was given the opportunity to defend Biden from accusations of corruption, and his explanation managed to be both hilarious and ironic. 

SWALWELL: "One day he's Sleepy Joe, the next day he's Corrupt Joe. I know people who are sleepy. I know people who are corrupt. I don't know anyone who is both." pic.twitter.com/bGT7HtDRED

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) August 27, 2023

SWALWELL: This Congress started with threats of impeaching Secretary Mayorkas, and then it was FBI Director Christopher Wray and then Merrick Garland, and now Joe Biden. And by the way, Ayman, one day he's Sleepy Joe, the next day he's Corrupt Joe. I know people who are sleepy. I know people who are corrupt. I don't know anybody who is both. These guys just know they are reflexively anti-anything Biden is doing.

So let me make sure I've got this one straight: Because Joe Biden is a lazy president in serious mental and physical decline who goes on vacation a lot, that somehow means that he can't be also corrupt? What kind of mental jiu-jitsu is that? Talk about a false dichotomy.

I will say, though, that it's incredibly ironic that the only defense that Swalwell can muster is to suggest that the president is just too "sleepy" to be corrupt given that one of the right's primary criticisms of Biden is that he's senile. I'd welcome Swalwell to the club if he wasn't tacitly making that admission in a weak attempt to engage in some pretzeled logic whereby corruption is therefore made impossible. 

Regardless, even if one were to buy what Swalwell is selling, Biden's current mental state isn't relevant to the most serious corruption allegations being levied against him. For example, the bribery allegations linked to questionable foreign payments made to the Biden family, which are leading toward an impeachment inquiry, are from the current president's time as vice president, almost a decade ago. There is no conflict between Biden's current descent into senility and his alleged corruption between 2014-2016 in service to his son's overseas dealings. 

Leave it to Swalwell, though, to not only flub the point completely by ignoring key details but to also think he's come up with some genius rebuttal in the process. There are a lot of congressional members who think they are far smarter than they are. Swalwell is one of those helping lead the pack. There's a reason he shows up on MSNBC so often, and it's not because that channel is a bastion of well-thought-out analysis.