By Ray Cardello for March 1, 2022 Season 9 / Post 14

 

The annual State of the Union speech is usually a partisan campaign rally where the President touts all the country has accomplished in the last year and how he is to thank for all of the gains. I have been thinking of Biden’s speechwriters’ position this year. How can they put a positive spin on the first year of the Biden Presidency? My conclusion is they cannot.

 

George Stephanopoulos asked Jen Psaki on Sunday what Biden would key on with a 37% approval rating. She was prepared for the question and had this fantasy idea ready. She said, and I will paraphrase, that problematic time takes true leadership, and Joe Biden was going to key on how his experience and strong leadership skills made him the perfect man for this time in our country’s history. Wow, she was serious when she threw that answer back to George. She failed to touch on the historically low approval numbers. Jen did not hear that question.

 

Let’s cut to the core. The 37% says all you need to know about Joe Biden’s leadership of this country. There are two factors that Biden continuously refers to when he wants to show what a good job he is doing. The Job Growth and the Economic Growth Numbers. Only a fool would buy that snake oil. The job growth is not the creation of new jobs but a recovery of the ten million jobs lost due to the Pandemic. Truthfully, we are a long way from 100% recovery. Similarly, when you shut an economy down for over a year, it is easy to show year-over-year gains as that same business comes back online. Joe, you have to try harder than that.

 

Let’s put aside the fluff. How about we detail the failures and how we will correct our course to do better. Here are some of the more significant situations we fell short on:

 

• The Afghanistan Debacle. We messed up the escape, and we still do not know if we have any Americans still held by the Taliban. Thirteen brave young men and women came home in flag-draped coffins, and we abandoned billions of dollars worth of equipment. Poland, Romania, or any NATO country that wants to fortify itself against the Russians would have welcomed that equipment. Or we could have given it to Ukraine. I bet they would have even picked the stuff up in the desert.
• Out-of-control gas prices. You inherited a country enjoying energy independence for the first time in our history, and you put us back in bed with OPEC and Russia for our crude oil needs. Not only does that put us at their mercy for cost, but every barrel bought from Russia helps pay for the attack on Ukraine. Now that we have numerous sanctions on Russia, $7 or $8 a gallon gas is not out of the question. By the way, how are those folks that were making a good living on the pipeline doing working at Walmart for minimum wage?
• No longer safe to go out at night. Your party’s defund the police idea, and your soft on crime DAs have given us the worst crime numbers in fifty years. Enough said on that, except stop blaming the guns. Blame the guy you see in the mirror.
• Inflation, the Joe Biden Broad-Based Tax. Supposedly in the 7% range, but we all know it is 10% or higher, and that is without gas and energy cost increases. How sad when grocery stores have to put steaks in a security case. You keep trying to blame American spending on inflation, but even you don’t believe that. Okay, maybe you do.
• Ukraine, the next Afghanistan. You had months to come up with a strategy but did nothing. You went halfway with marginal sanctions claiming we had to wait and see how Russia reacted to them. Ukraine doesn’t have time, Joe, and you are sacrificing them to Putin as you did the Afghans to the Taliban. You learned nothing from your mistakes, or you are too old and stubborn to change your ways. Either way, Ukraine will fall, and that makes you zero for two

 

So give us the facts, Joe. We can handle the facts if they come with a plan. Oh, that’s the problem, isn’t it? You have no plan.