"This is hard to watch," says Noah Rothman at National Review. Give me break. A reporter yelled out a question over a noisy tarmac that President Biden couldn't make out, hearing only the word "strike." So he said a few anodyne words about using collective bargaining to settle the looming port strike and then walked off.
As it happens, the question was about Israeli air strikes in Yemen. Biden misheard but that's all. Yet Rothman insists this is further evidence of mental collapse:
The president’s continued deterioration is more than a curiosity. Those near him knew his absence of mind could affect his performance in the event of a crisis — and a crisis is now upon us.
Hurricane Helene cut a 600-mile swath of devastation across the American southeast.... The stakes are high, and all eyes will be on the administration’s response to this disaster. The nimbleness of that response could weigh heavily on voters’ minds in impacted swing states like Georgia and North Carolina. Perhaps the president and his subordinates will earn high marks. But given Biden’s condition, that is a gamble.
Over-the-top stuff like this probably helped keep me a little too optimistic about Biden's condition over the summer. Can't give in to wackos, after all.
Beyond that, this happens to play into a longstanding pet peeve of mine: the president who rushes back to Washington when disaster hits so he can be photographed in the Situation Room looking stern and directing the response.
In reality, of course, the president has no more influence over disaster response than he does over a trip to rescue astronauts at the space station. It's all handled by FEMA and the Army and other agencies who have plans locked and loaded and ready to go. The president barely even has to give the order.¹
All the real presidential action is long over by the time a disaster actually strikes. The reason George Bush was eviscerated over his handling of Hurricane Katrina wasn't because of a silly dance he happened to be doing the day the levees breached. It was because he had spent the previous four years decimating and privatizing FEMA, eventually hiring the incompetent Michael "heckuva job" Brown to run it. When disaster hit New Orleans, it didn't matter if Bush was on the job or not. FEMA had fallen victim to ideological neglect and it was too late.
The same dynamic is true for every disaster. Either the president has long since put effective response teams in place or he hasn't. He could be on vacation on the far side of the moon and it wouldn't make a difference when disaster finally strikes. We should all grow up and stop pretending otherwise.
¹Although he can withhold the order, as Donald Trump was fond of doing to Democratic states hit by disasters.
Apparently when the pols show up at disaster sites the whole rescue and reclamation effort has to stop to ensure the security and visibility of Mr. Big I Am. It's much better if they stay away, unless you work for National Review, where sham and posturing are at the core of governance.
Yeah, Trump's "I alone can fix it" is asinine. Governing is a team sport and the president is the head coach who sets the standard and the tone while putting people in place whose specialties will make sure we can handle any scenario.
Well, if criticism for bad stuff an administration hasn’t done, but might possibly do in the future, is now OK, I’ll go on record here decrying the (Zeus forbid!) potential second Trump administration for the massive climate-change disasters it could very possibly bring about, given TFG’s denialism.
Far too many Americans care more about the appearance of doing something over actually doing something, and this mentality has taken over both government and corporations. This is one of the real dangers facing our republic as problems mount with no effective response to them, not whatever Elon Musk or Donald Trump pulled out of their butts to bitch about today.
There are deep-seated atavistic tendencies in the electorate towards monarchy. Even the PM in parliamentary systems with good accountability gets nudged towards god-king-ship.
The "good king, evil advisors" trope -- "If only the Tsar knew..." is eternal.
And a widespread folk belief in the Mandate of Heaven,that isn't going away.
From a USA Today story:
"In addition to FEMA, the effort includes the Federal Communications Commission to help establish communications capability. The National Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Defense will all be providing resources to rescue and assist in clearing debris and delivering life saving supplies, [Biden] said."
A big disaster apparently involves more than just FEMA. Where else would this be coordinated other than the President's office? But I do mean office. The President probably is not doing much coordinating (if it is actually he or she doing it and not aides) traveling around among the various points of disaster.
"Over-the-top stuff like this probably helped keep me a little too optimistic about Biden's condition over the summer. Can't give in to wackos, after all."
You insisted that Biden needed to resign after his bad debate, that was in June.
I don't remember Trump withholding disaster orders. I don't remember this even coming up. He was a dick about Puerto Rico, but other than that couldn't have cared less about disasters. When did he ever withhold any disaster assistance?
Fortunately, Google has a better memory:
https://apnews.com/article/helene-hurricane-damage-fema-trump-biden-harris-e5c1feed690765bac4d7096ce9dceb96
https://www.eenews.net/articles/helene-isnt-the-first-time-trump-inserted-politics-into-a-natural-disaster/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/10/16/trump-administration-refuses-to-give-california-federal-aid-for-wildfires/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/new-probe-confirms-trump-officials-blocked-puerto-rico-receiving-hurri-rcna749
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/sens-murray-cantwell-ask-biden-to-do-what-trump-wouldnt-provide-disaster-aid-for-washington-state-wildfires/
There was also more I had heard last week about Trump f*cking over North Carolina.