Posted on May 5,
2024
Cold, Old Joe
Age can't explain Biden's callousness
by
Daniel
Clark
And now, for someone completely indifferent ...
Ten days after pro-Hamas rallies first broke out on
American college campuses, and under mounting criticism for his inaction on the
matter, the President of the United States finally spoke. Even in light of the low expectations, his
remarks were disappointing. Okay, so he
did point out that the destruction of property is not constitutionally
protected free speech. He also called
out anti-Semitism, even if only to condemn "Islamophobia" in the same breath,
as if the two were equally valid concerns at the moment.
Never
did he refer to the motivation of the people who are committing the acts of
destruction. He didn't even mention
Hamas, or revisit its atrocities of last October. Nor did he remind everybody that the
Palestinian terror group continues to hold almost a hundred hostages, eight of
whom are Americans. At no point did he
instruct or even encourage the universities to react to the situation more
forcefully. He said nothing about the
obvious coordination among the various demonstrations across the country, or
express concern about possible foreign involvement.
It may be tempting to attribute Joe Biden's muted
reaction to his age, and to assume that he simply lacks the energy and mental
competence to show his genuine concern.
The problem with that excuse is that he is still capable of being
enthusiastic, and even fiery, when it comes to a favorite topic of his: ice
cream, for instance, or transgenderism, or his belief in a right to kill
unwanted children. These are the things
that animate him. He may not be able to
muster any righteous anger toward lawbreaking terrorist sympathizers, but he'll
rail almost endlessly against "MAGA Republicans," by which he means all of the 47
percent of the electorate that voted for his opponent last time around.
Biden hasn't expressed anything close to that kind of
outrage against the Iranian-backed terrorists who have been taking potshots at
American assets in the Middle East. Not
only have his responses been weak, but he has treated these enemy forces as if
they were acting independently, rather than recognize Iran as the true culprit.
This lack of concern for Americans in harm's way has
been evident at least as far back as Biden's reckless withdrawal from
Afghanistan, which needlessly got thirteen of our servicemembers killed, and
abandoned an estimated 9,000 Americans in a country that had just been handed
over to a murderous band of terrorist-harboring totalitarians. Far from expressing regret for these events,
the president declared them to be "an extraordinary success."
It's not as if he only seems clueless when it comes to
foreign policy, either. As inflation
began surging in the summer of 2021, Biden dismissed the increase as temporary,
only to have it continue to skyrocket over the following year, reaching a rate
of 9.1 percent in June of 2022. Now, he
brags that the inflation rate has dropped off, even though it is still
historically above average. But it's not
as if prices are coming down now. It's
just that the rate of last year's increase was not as devastating as the year
before. The annual rate for 2023 was a
4.1 percent increase from 2022, which was an 8.0 percent increase from 2021,
which was a 4.7 percent increase from before Biden was president. Cumulatively, that means an item that cost
$100.00 when he took office is now $117.72.
Biden
and his party dealt with this problem by enacting the deliberately mislabeled Inflation
Reduction Act, which in reality is little more than a gigantic sop to
"green energy" scam artists. A year
after its passage, the White House issued a "fact sheet" about the impact of
this legislation, which made no attempt to argue that it was reducing
inflation, or even that this was its intent.
It did boast, however, that it had been the "largest climate investment
in history." By using inflation as a
pretext for this $783 billion taxpayer giveaway, the Democrats recognized the
economic hardship being felt by the American people, but instead of trying to
assuage it, they employed it as a means of advancing the snob agenda.
Perhaps the most vivid illustration of Biden's
attitude toward his fellow Americans has been his immigration policy. Upon taking office, he issued a slew of
executive orders to facilitate the overrunning of our Southern border. Among the problems this has exacerbated are
the exposure of our country to foreign terrorists, the mass poisoning of
Americans with fentanyl, the serial violation of the property rights of
landowners near the border, the strain this stampede of illegals has put on
social services and the resulting burden on the taxpayers.
When he finally responded to public concerns about
theses matters, he did so dismissively, by appointing Vice President Kamala
Harris to be the "border czar." Sounding
like a liberal criminologist, he tasked her to determine the "root causes" of
illegal immigration, primarily through diplomacy with nations in Central
America. This March, she unveiled the
results of the administration's efforts in Guatemala. They included the creation of a Central
American version of Americorps, a promise to improve
Guatemalan math and reading skills (as if our federal government had proven
itself competent in this area), an ill-defined program called "Indigenous and
Civil Society Engagement," and, for some reason or other, "biodiversity
conservation." Much like the Inflation
Reduction Act, Biden's border policy uses a legitimate crisis as cover for
the usual Democrat elitist pursuits of eco-twaddle and DEI mindbarf.
In 2020, Biden made "empathy" the buzzword of his
presidential campaign, but that hasty makeover would not have fooled anybody
who had seen the before picture. In
reality, he has made a half-century career out of being one of the most
ambitious and cantankerous characters in Washington. He's not merely inattentive to the concerns
of the American people; he consciously rejects them. Far from appearing oblivious, Biden flaunts
his disdain for the plight of the people he's supposed to serve. The shortcomings of his presidency are not
the result of his being old and confused, any more than they are attributable
to a childhood stuttering problem. He
has simply chosen not to give a damn.
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