It is evident that Joe Biden is utterly inept as commander in chief when even the sycophants over at The New York Times and The Washington Post have published some level of criticism during the past week aimed at the current administration’s floundering attempt to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. Even some of the talking heads over at CNN appear to have woken up over the past week to the disastrous failed leadership that is currently in charge of this nation.
The timeline of the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan is important. The Taliban seized control of the city of Zaranj in the Nimruz province on August 6, 2021 and continued advancing throughout Afghanistan in the ensuing days. Yet, against this backdrop, while the Taliban continued on its path, the President of the United States and his Chief Press Secretary Jen Psaki each took a vacation. Let that sink in for a minute. Ask yourself how many times you have had to forego scheduled personal plans for the sake of a job, maybe even one that pays far less than the salaries of either Biden or Psaki. Additionally, for those of you who have worked in a managerial role, ask yourself whether you would leave town and take some time away from the office even when there was an ongoing, and rapidly evolving crisis that needed immediate and comprehensive attention from your executive team. Yet, this is the work-ethic of the administration that is running this country: they take vacations while American troops and civilian lives are in peril. The Biden administration truly gives new meaning to the phrase, “work-life balance.”
While the world stood horrified by tragic video images of Afghan nationals who were desperately clinging to freedom on the side of a plane, tumbling downward to their deaths, the Biden administration was “out-of-the-office” silent. In Psaki’s case, the President’s hand-picked chief spokesperson indicated she was on a scheduled family vacation. Evidently, Psaki won’t let an international crisis impede her from enjoying some time away from the office. This is, after all, the “new normal” of white-collar work-ethic, so perhaps Ms. Psaki was playing socially-distanced badminton with her family in a park somewhere, begrudgingly having to put down her racket on occasion to respond to a pesky text message from her employer. One can picture her rolling her eyes, annoyed at the interruption, “Oh, it’s him again!”
At a bare minimum, what leadership entails is physical presence. Even on that most basic level, Biden and his associates have failed. As the events in Afghanistan exacerbated, Biden and his team remained silent, including the inconspicuous Kamala Harris. The delay in response by the Biden administration was palpable. And, it wasn’t just folks in the so-called “fly-over country” that felt the ineptitude of silence; it was felt on each of the coasts as well. Once Biden and Psaki finally returned to their jobs to address the American people, both of them seemed to be refraining from appearing overtly annoyed; yet there was an aurora surrounding their demeanors as though each was inwardly thinking, “Really? I had to come all the way back here, just for this?”
Much has already been written about Biden’s address to the nation on Monday evening, particularly as to his assignment of blame and shirking of personal responsibility, despite his use of a Truman catch phrase as a cloak. However, an additional point bears mentioning here. While Biden implicitly attempted to cast a wide net of culpability over three of his predecessors for the present situation in Afghanistan, the personal traits, leadership styles, and work habits, of each of those prior presidents tell us that none of them would have opted to take personal time away from the White House during this crisis; and, even if, contrary to their character, any of them had chosen to do so, history tells us that each of those men most certainly would have made haste, and not delayed, in addressing the American people. Biden’s inability to even fulfill this most basic of job duties makes him stand in stark contrast to his three most immediate predecessors. Pathetically and frighteningly, at a time when the country is in need of bold, decisive, consistent, and cogent leadership, Joe Biden presents as an incompetent, ineffectual and overwhelmed individual.