So Go Ahead, Hold Joe Biden to a Higher Standard

No Matter What Happens in Congress, Biden-Harris Have Got Things Done 

Was it the late summer heat wave that affected the east coast?  

I must have missed it on my calendar, but apparently, it is now "Be nice to Joe and Kamala" week in the mainstream media.  After weeks of put downs, caustic criticism and taking a "We could have done this a lot better" attitude toward the withdrawal from Afghanistan, it looks like the Washington Post has decided to pick this moment for their commemoration of the week.  

Gene Robinson is a great writer and commentator.  It's pretty clear he hasn't bought into all the negative rhetoric coming out of the media in the wake of the Afghanistan withdrawal and evacuation, which will go down in history as a major political and military success.  I'm glad to see his words back in the Post.  I like this perspective and I think he's exactly right.  

Was It Just The Contrast? 

I will never forget that Saturday morning last November when the major news networks determined that Biden's lead in Pennsylvania would hold and made the projection that Joe Biden would be elected President of the United States.  It was James Carville and Nicole Wallace who kept my nerves in check that week with their assurances that this was all going to turn out fine.  Carville had already done an analysis of the Pennsylvania ballots left to be counted and had determined that if the trend held, Biden would come out on top by roughly 70,000 votes, and that there were not enough votes remaining in Arizona, looking at the trend, for Trump to catch up.  And, he said, he wouldn't be surprised if Georgia fell into the blue column by "a few thousand votes," were his words.  He usually gets these things right. 

I had just walked into the living room when the announcement came that all of the major networks had declared Biden the winner.  Within minutes, it seemed, the whole country was out in the streets and parks celebrating.  My wife burst in from the kitchen wanting to know what happened.  I couldn't answer because I was sitting on the couch sobbing.  It was quite an emotional experience and things would get more tense and nerve-wracking right up to the moment that Biden took the oath and Trump got on his plane and headed back to the swamp.  

After four years of lies, deceit, scams, conspiracy theories, vain, pointless babbling and gross incompetence in the Presidency, we suddenly had someone who knew what needed to be done and how to get it done.  For a while, I thought it was just the contrast between the two after the country emerged from its worst Presidency in history.  That was certainly easy to feel.  But the bottom line is that the Biden administration is headed by an extremely competent leader who has the kind of experience and knowledge it takes to be President of the United States.  His predecessor had none of that. 

So I agree with you, Mr. Robinson.  This is an accomplished and experienced Presidential administration that has indeed got things done.  Lots of things.  It has not been perfect, but it stands in stark contrast to his predecessor, who was a deplorable, immoral, incompetent, inept, completely selfish boob.  

Holding Biden to a Different Standard

Afghanistan seems to be the turning point.  Military leadership involved more or less vindicated Biden today, even if the media doesn't seem to be paying much attention to it.  If the whole withdrawal had been left completely up to the Biden Administration, it would have been done right.  But the deadline had been set, the negotiations had been completed and the wheels were already turning in Afghanistan.  Everything had been done by Trump, who selfishly made sure he set a date that would prevent him from worrying about any political consequences from the withdrawal.  He knew that he would either be in a second term, and consequently the withdrawal would no longer be an election "threat" for the other side, or that his successor would be in office and would have to deal with the absolute mess that his poor planning and terrible "deal making" would achieve.  

The whole situation was further complicated by the fact that after he lost the election, his administration refused to participate in any kind of transition with the Biden administration.  This brute cared so little about this country, its military, its people who were still in Afghanistan as military contractors, and the Afghans who were loyal to the US all the way through that he was willing to put all of that at a major risk of destruction to avoid any dirt getting on his cuffs.  We've come to expect this total and complete breakdown of moral character from Trump.  It's who he is, it's in his DNA.  Ask his niece.

That makes the whole Afghanistan episode an even bigger achievement and accomplishment and feather in the cap of Joe Biden than it might have been if he'd been able to negotiate and organize a real withdrawal that would have been in America's best interest.  If planning and setting the deadline had been up to Biden, it would have been done right all the way through.  As it was, he still pulled it off and that in and of itself is a testimony to the man's ability to serve in this office.  Biden is a man of character and since we've come to expect this of him, he gets held to a higher standard.  We expect Trump to fail and be selfish.  We expect Biden to succeed and think of the good of the country. 

I'm all for holding him to a higher standard.  That's why I voted for him and that's why the country overwhelmingly elected him.  

It's Not All About Them, It's About the Whole Country

So we have gone past all the doomsday predictions about the national debt and government spending.  That's one thing Trump did for us, point out what a bunch of bull all that was from Republicans while running up something like an $8 trillion debt and gutting the country's means of paying for it.  Now there are proposals on the table which will bring jobs and benefit the country along the same lines that the Affordable Care Act benefitted it.  It's popular, and that's the only reason Republicans are opposed to it.  Their obstructionism has cost the country and Joe Biden wants to bring the prosperity back.  

Well, he was part of a Presidential administration that helped stimulate one of the biggest economic comebacks in history, so why not?  

While they can be annoying and rattle off pointless political cotton candy, Republicans are currently affirming and providing flat out confirmation that the Biden administration is right on target to bring about this economic recovery.  They wouldn't be screaming so loud if they didn't see how the Democrats will benefit from this politically.  And in the long run, that's the motivation that will bring the recalcitrant Democrats along, muttering, fussing but still pushing it through in the long run.  They have no hope of returning to office if this infrastructure bill does not pass. 

So hold Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to a higher standard.  Their administration is getting things done and that is exactly why we elected them in the first place.