JOE BIDEN has followed in the misplaced footsteps of Gerald Ford by becoming the latest US President to suffer a fall on the steps leading to Air Force One.
It's important to note that Ford’s fall famously came as he descended the staircase and was significantly more dramatic, whereas Biden’s slip up was as he ascended the steps up to the aircraft.
It may not have been as painful either but the President’s pride will have been wounded after he fell not once, not twice, but thrice in calamity of errors his critics were quick to leap on.
The incident came as the 78-year-old was preparing to depart Maryland for Atlanta.
America’s oldest elected president will have done little to dissuade the doubters over his suitably for office after losing his footing in a series of calamities that ended with his on his left knee, holding the railing with his right.
To his credit, Biden got back up, gave his bruised knee a rub and ascended the rest of the staircase before finishing with a salute to the US marines who had flow him by helicopter to the airport.
Biden '100 percent' fine after stumble on Air Force One steps, aide says https://t.co/xh63QDYlj7 pic.twitter.com/gPpH5tJ3DK
— The Hill (@thehill) March 19, 2021
Later, deputy White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre provided an update on the President following his fall.
“It’s very windy,” she said. “I almost fell coming up the steps myself. He is doing 100% fine.”
Asked if Biden had been checked over by a doctor following the stumble, Jean-Pierre said: “I just – all I know is – I can tell you is he’s doing fine. He’s doing great.”
Biden is no stranger to accidents of this kind – he fractured his foot last November while playing with his pet dog.
It’s not the first time a US politician has suffered a fall ascending the stairs to Air Force One either – Mike Pence, stumbled in similar circumstances last June.
The most famous remains that of President Gerald Ford and occurred during a visit to Austria in 1975.
Ford lost his footing going down the steps in wet conditions. He later blamed a long-standing knee for the fall but the incident saw the President earn a reputation as something of a klutz.
In the case of Biden, most moderate Americans are unlikely to care, particularly after the President made good on his pledge of delivering 100 million vaccine doses in his first 100 days in office, some 43 days ahead of schedule.
As actor and Biden supporter Jeffrey Wright put it on Twitter: “I don’t care if Joe Biden trips on the Air Force One stairs stone drunk after an all-nighter, so long as he keeps pounding Covid with this vaccine rollout.”
