Pirate's Cove

I’m not sure that Biden is cognizant that it is summer, except for the brief times they feed him ice cream

The two mistakes that ruined Biden’s summer

The disappointing employment figures that arrived last Friday were in some ways a symbolic capstone to a summer of disappointments for President Biden, most notable among them the force with which the Delta variant swept across the nation and the speed with which the Taliban swept across Afghanistan as U.S. forces withdrew.

Biden’s apparent miscalculations on the coronavirus and the Taliban have hurt his standing with the American public, sapping his administration of the upbeat, can-do spirit it had been hoping to carry into the fall.

“Biden’s Cruel Summer,” blared one recent headline. A “summer of freedom” from the coronavirus and a tidy conclusion to the war in Afghanistan never came to pass, and though it is debatable how much blame the White House deserves, there is little debate about where ordinary people place responsibility. For the first time since Biden assumed office, fewer Americans approve of the president than disapprove.

Miscalculation? How about total f***up, at least when it comes to Afghanistan, where Americans are still stuck? How about leaving Afghans who helped the U.S. in Afghanistan while bringing in ones who were completely unvetted? As for COVID, he promised to end it, but, what has he done? And, no, it is not debatable that Joe Biden gets the blame for Afghanistan, he’s the president. Any plan he approved. The buck stops at Joe’s desk napping lounger. But, how dare you ordinary people blame Joe!

And, as pollster Frank Luntz warned, “Biden’s polling numbers are not done falling.”

The president, his top advisers and outside supporters believe that refocusing on the economy will not only lift the president’s standing but resound in real ways with real people. “He came into office wanting to show people that government could work for them again,” a senior administration official, who asked not be named, told Yahoo News.

He’s going to focus on spending a lot of money on unnecessary things while raising the cost of living and forcing people to spend money they don’t have on things like solar panels, refitting their homes, and electric vehicles. It’ll be the same playbook as Obama. Sure, he was playing the guitar, but, it was the difference between a couple hundred dollar Squier Stratocaster and a $1400 Fender version. If you aren’t familiar, they both play music, and you can put the same strings on them. The wood may be the same. But, the tuners are better on the Fender, as are the frets, the pickups, the electronics, better care in crafting the fretboard, and more, making the Fender sound better with no buzz, being a faster playing guitar.

“The public always believes that Presidents can control more than they can and sometimes punish them for things they can’t control,” wrote Dan Pfeiffer, who served as a top adviser to Biden’s former boss Barack Obama, in an email to Yahoo News. “The good news for the Biden White House is that they have a huge opportunity to reclaim the narrative and assuage any concerns by passing their hugely popular economic agenda later this month.”

Oh, suddenly we’re back to “why blame Joe for things he can’t control” when Trump was blamed for everything.

Already, public approval of Biden’s pandemic response has dropped 10 percentage points since late June. Even though the Delta surge appears to have peaked, new variants are on the way. As in the earliest days of the pandemic, Americans are stockpiling toilet paper in fear of looming shortages.

The guy looks out of it. His COVID speech which will now be some time this week (maybe) will most likely be more of the same of a guy half awake barely able to read his teleprompter.

On July 4, the White House had a party on the South Lawn. Some had advised against the affair, since the coronavirus pandemic was not over. Having hundreds of people gathering in the presidential backyard for burgers and blues music might make it seem like it was. (snip)

“We’ve gained the upper hand against this virus,” he added a few moments later. The pandemic, he said, “no longer controls our lives.” Then music began to play and the party began.

Four days later, Biden made another promise, this one on a very different topic. Trump had made an agreement with the Taliban in 2020 to pull U.S. military forces out of Afghanistan by 2021; but Biden, a longtime critic of the conflict, not only embraced that goal but accelerated the timeline. Now he was defending that decision, vowing that when the last American troops left, the government of Ashraf Ghani would assert his rule, with the help of the U.S.-trained Afghan National Army.

Just two mistakes, why are you mean people blaming him?