Former President Donald Trump was heavily criticized during his term — sometimes based on irrational hatred for the man, but sometimes validly. Numerous leaks of sensitive information and a revolving-door Cabinet characterized that early period.
Having been in government for nearly half a century, Biden was supposed to return experience and competence to the White House. However, even with all of his experience, compared to Trump’s first eight months, Biden looks completely unprepared for the presidency.
Objectively, some of Trump’s early mistakes could be attributed to the usual growing pains of a new president — perhaps even more so given Trump’s lack of government experience. And this curve should also be applied to Biden. That said, Biden was also vice president for eight years. And for all of Trump’s errors, Biden’s has arguably been much worse. Alas, one would think his accession would have been much less sloppy. Things took such a turn for the worse with his bizarrely incompetent, panicked retreat from Afghanistan that Biden was forced to defend his presidential record on Friday in an interview with NBC News’s Peter Alexander. Alexander focused on Biden’s campaign message of unity and competence.
“What do you say to Americans who say that you have not delivered on that promise?” Alexander asked Biden.
As usual, Biden shifted blame to everyone but himself and took zero responsibility. He said he inherited a mess from Trump and it would take him a year to deliver everything.
“Remember, I said it’s going to take me a year to deliver everything I’m looking at here. That’s No. 1,” Biden said. “No. 2, take a look at what I inherited when I came into office — when I came into office, the state of affairs, and where we were: We had 4 million people vaccinated. We had no plan. We had — I mean, I can go down the list.”
If Biden did say it was going to take him a year, I can’t find it. There does not appear to be any record of that. He certainly did not say it in his first speech as president-elect. He did not say it in his inauguration speech, and he did not say it during his address commemorating the anniversary of the pandemic. And he did not say it before his first address to a joint session of Congress.
It seems all Biden has successfully done during his presidency is blame all of his failures on other people — quite the opposite of what he promised.
Biden’s persistently inconsistent messaging on the COVID-19 pandemic has sown confusion. And for all the ballyhoo about trusting the science, Biden’s science has been as reliable as an iceberg watcher on the Titanic.
The disastrous exit of U.S. troops from Afghanistan empowered the Taliban and caused European leaders to doubt our reliability as an ally. The terrorist attack by ISIS-K, which led to the deaths of 13 U.S. service members at the Kabul airport, put an exclamation point on the incompetent execution of the withdrawal. A government shutdown is looming now, and Congress has been gridlocked over the infrastructure bill that was supposed to be a gimmie. Finally, the border is in complete chaos as an illegal immigrant surge has overwhelmed the Border Patrol.
Everywhere you look, the Biden administration is overwhelmed and incompetent. Its realities are vastly different from the promises of the campaign. President Biden has underperformed even the lowest expectations of his presidency, and people never had to say that about Trump.
