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President Biden’s Successes
I appreciate that Fox News has published at least two positive endorsements of President Biden’s first year. Other than the weak efforts by poor Jen Psaki to lay out the positives of President Biden’s actions, I had not seen any outside explanations of why we should be glad that Joe Biden is President of the United States.
One of the pieces (Biden Gave a Commanding Performance At His Press Conference) is by Kevin Walling. Unfortunately, the piece is nothing but vague characterizations of events and statements that make accurately measuring and commenting on them difficult. Well, except that Mr. Walling said,
Americans saw in their commander-in-chief someone willing to speak earnestly and frankly with the American people, and his command performance Wednesday harkened back to an earlier Biden from the campaign trail: forceful, direct, self-deprecating and earnest.
It was so earnest and frank that several Administration officials had to rush out immediately with “clarifications.” And press secretary Psaki had to spend most of her press conference this morning undoing (or “clarifying”) what the President said. So maybe the President’s press conference performance wasn’t all that commanding.
So we move to the more substantive piece by Juan Williams (Five Things to Celebrate From Biden’s First Year). Cutting and pasting from the piece:
- Biggest drop in unemployment in his first 12 months of any president in history
- Highest Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the measure of the growth of the American economy, in nearly 40 years.
- During Biden’s first year in office the stock market has seen its value soar go up 25%.
- The country has avoided another lockdown despite the rise of a new coronavirus variant
- By the end of last year nearly all schools were able to reopen thanks to Biden’s successful distribution of the vaccine.
Things 1, 2, and 3 are all things that most likely would have happened even if a house plant occupied the Oval Office (re house plants, see discussion on the thread “Remember – Biden Was Always A Plant” by @BDB ). Local and state restrictions on liberty and economic activity in 2020 were so severe that by January 2021 there was nowhere to go but up. I’d be more interested in a comparison to late 2019.
“Lockdowns” (Thing 4) were mostly functions of local and state governments, not the national government, so there is little basis for Biden to claim credit for a lack of lockdowns.
Closing down the schools (Thing 5, again, mostly decisions made by local and state governments) was clearly a mistake, and as it turns out the availability of vaccines (especially the availability to children) was not a major factor in decisions to reopen schools.
Mr. Williams is crediting to President Biden “successes” that are almost or totally independent of Mr. Biden’s decisions or actions. I don’t think inevitabilities are reasons to “celebrate.”
So I guess I’m still waiting for someone to explain why the American public should be glad Joe Biden is President of the United States.
Published in Politics
Whatever good things happened were in spite of Biden. I wish he’d just get out of the way–or maybe not–who knows what his people might try! Thanks for taking the time for the summary, FST.
Everything that happens in the United States is an emanation from the penumbra of the White House.
D’uh!
Hey, he got us out of Afghanistan!
What a disappointment Mr. Williams has become. The Obama sycophant could usually hold his own on the five during those dreaded 8 years. But his TDS is now legendary. My hope was that his son, Raffi, might cause some of the scales to fall from daddy’s eyes. Unfortunately DJT broke what little critical thinking Mr. Williams may have ever possessed.
He built back the Taliban better. Huge accomplishment.
Here’s the Kevin Walling bio from that Fox news piece:
What do you wager that any “Republican campaign strategist” could have had a piece praising Donald Trump’s first year on MSNBC’s or CNN’s site?
Whatever good things happened were a citizen’s correction on the destruction that Biden and other politicians are deliberately causing.
But I don’t even know if they’ve risen to the level of “good.” They’re just barely out of the realm of “not hellishly awful.”
Have you seen the price of arugula?!
Tell that to the unvaxxed residents of NYC.
Imagine what Biden’s poll numbers would be if he had a press that didn’t prop him up
As a self-employed house painter, I am in a variety of homes, with a variety of people, and a variety of political views. If you work from home, and your job was never affected by the covid restrictions, everything is status quo for you.
If you are one of these people, who agree with the covid restrictions, being the utmost in safety, and scientific honesty, Joe Biden, and his policies, are right in your wheelhouse.
To these people, they are sanguine in the fact that Joe Biden is the right man, at the right moment, for the job. No need to question, policy or reason.
If on the other hand, you are self-employed, or owned a business that was shuttered because of covid restrictions, and government policy, your life is not the same, and you are quite the opposite of sanguine, when viewing the same president, and his policies. And when I refer to Joe Biden and his policies, it is a meta View of the leftist, illiberal, political failures, that have thrown many lives into utter chaos.
Thus, the polar opposite views of the same Joe Biden.
He’s not running anything except he has to insist we get along with China as they have the goods on him. There is enough consistency that I assume some group is in charge, other than the Chinese.
I really don’t think Biden has any views. He has multiple scripts that he refers to. Recently: Hard working families, struggling to put dinner on the table, keep up with their payments, keep a roof over their heads. But he surely doesn’t mean it.