Is Biden in Charge?

Evidently, the White House has figured it out. It has figured out that the national mood is souring, not just because so many things seem to be going wrong, but because no one seems to be in charge of the government.

So, we have Joe Biden on a media blitz, holding meetings, addressing the nation, pretending to be in charge. And yet, reality bites, and sometimes it bites down hard.

When it comes to things going wrong, we have a multitude. From the ongoing and mindlessly destructive war in Ukraine to the immigration crisis on the Southern border to runaway inflation to the absence of baby formula to a cratering stock market to a wave of urban violence to senior banking officials telling us to prepare for an economic hurricane, nothing seems to be going right. 

Was Joe Biden just unlucky, as some of his advisors would want us to believe? Or is he simply washed up and cerebrally impaired. How many people, seeing Biden’s address on gun control, obviously trotted out because Democrats, facing almost certain electoral repudiation in five months, are looking for an issue, any issue, to rally the troops, honestly believe that Joe Biden can lead on the issue?

In a strange way, the more Biden tries to act like a leader the more the country concludes that no one is in charge. Heck, most people now understand that no one is at home, either. 

As for why no one imagines that Biden is in charge, the reason must be that he is not in charge. He is like a scarecrow that no longer scares anyone. He is incapable of speaking in public without tripping over his thoughts. It is not a case of someone who has a lisp. We should retire that idiotic idea. In Joe Biden we see someone who is cognitively impaired, who cannot articulate consistent policy, whose remarks need constantly to be corrected by staff. And this does not even take into account the simple fact that he has obviously had cosmetic surgery on his face-- thus making it appear that his face has been stretched a bit too tight. It is not a look that inspires confidence.

We will not list the multitude of Biden gaffes, which are not charming gaffes, but are misstatements by someone who does not know what he is talking about. Even Biden himself is complaining about the fact that the more his staff corrects him, the more it looks like he is not in charge. The problem is, every time Biden opens his mouth he puts both of his feet in it. What’s a staff to do?

Moreover, dare we mention that the administration is being led by idiots. It feels like a ship of fools. Biden’s back up, vice president Kamala Harris has shown herself to be a monument to incompetence, incapable of making the least public statement without looking like a complete imbecile. As noted here and elsewhere, she is Biden’s insurance. The only reason why no one is talking about invoking the 25th amendment is Kamala Harris.

Whatever you thought of Jen Psaki, at least she was not cerebrally challenged. Her successor Karine Jean-Pierre seems completely lost and in over her head. Keep in mind this idiot is the public face, the communications face of the administration. 

And yet, she is not the only idiot in the administration. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, seems to get the giggles whenever she is asked about gas prices. She does not inspire confidence. 

And while Pete Buttigieg seems to have a functioning mind, he unfortunately knows nothing about transportation. While supply chains are backed up, while ships are backed up waiting to unload their cargoes, while diesel fuel prices soar, Mayor Pete is taking time off on paternity leave.

As for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, his first directive was to seek out the white supremacists in the military. That is, to divide the troops against each other. You can imagine how serious our foreign adversaries took that piece of silliness. Now, as you know our great military commanders have decided to pay for gender mutilation surgery and has declared war on the weather. And besides it is promoting more women-- because, as you see in Ukraine, all of these strong empowered women leaders strike fear in the heart of Vladimir Putin.

And let’s not forget the totally hapless Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, a man who has no idea that the nation has a border, and certainly has no plan to stop the invasion from the South.

You are known by the company you keep, as the old saying has it. A president is known not just by his doddering presence but by the people he has chosen to lead his administration. Now, with the Biden administration, we see diversity, equity and inclusion in action. We see a band of incompetents, a passel of imbeciles who are not even capable of pretending to be competent.

And this is happening with the full connivance of the media. True enough, the media has been turning against Biden, because, as the old saying goes, the rats are abandoning the sinking ship. But, the media has done everything in its power, short of self-immolating, to rescue senile old Joe.

Consider the baby formula debacle. Babies across America do not have the formula they need. It is obviously the result of a major administrative cockup, led by the Biden FDA. Apparently, we have the problem because no one in the administration took the warning signs seriously. These warning signs, as you know, have been around for some eight months now. 

For Biden to call a meeting with industry leaders in the baby formula world feels cosmetic. It feels too little too late. It feels like the band playing on while the Titanic sinks.

If you would like a thought experiment for today, imagine what the media would be saying if babies were getting sick or starving for lack of formula during a Trump administration. You would never hear the end of it. You would have commissions working to impeach Trump for genocide of American babies. The hue and cry would drown out everything else.

In today’s America, in the corrupt corporate media, it’s yet another difficult problem for the Biden administration to tackle. Even if the Biden administration has made a complete hash of the issue, the media will still try to spin the issue as something that Biden is taking charge of and is solving. 

And, on one score, the Biden administration has failed most miserably. As one Jon Levine writes in The New York Post, the Biden people consistently shift the blame for their failures. They are radically incapable of taking responsibility for everything that has gone wrong on their watch, from the Afghanistan pullout, to the Ukraine War, to the inflation and immigration crises, to the baby formula problems. To Biden and his crowd, it is always someone else’s fault.

If it’s always someone else’s fault, you are not in charge.

We will grant an exception to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin, who has said that she underestimated the extent of the inflation. But then, to cover for her, many economists and central bankers have asserted with all due seriousness, that no one saw it coming, that the best analyses missed all the signs.

Of course, this too is self-serving nonsense. Lawrence Summers saw it coming in early 2021. He said so in public. He is not a Republican operative. The mini-minds of the Biden administration ignored him.

The Biden administration is going to go down as a world historical failure, of mammoth proportions. But at least, Joe will have put another nitwit on the Supreme Court.