MIA

 

Woody Allen famously said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.”

In the midst of multiple crises, the adults in charge simply don’t show up. 

The American people can be quite forgiving even if things go wrong if you are honest and forthright and look like you’re trying really hard to solve the problem.

In one of America’s capstone projects, the Apollo program, 3 of our astronauts were burned to a crisp in that horrible launchpad fire in January, 1967.   Two and a half years later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin proudly stepped onto the surface of the moon.

We overcome missteps.  But you gotta show up and own up.

Less than a year in, Team Biden has show that when the going gets tough, the tough go on paid leave.

Biden put Kamala Harris in charge of the border crisis.  Harris didn’t visit the border until Donald Trump shamed her into it by threatening to visit the border first.  The only concrete Harris initiative was to stand at the podium and plea to the immigrants not to come and pledge to address the “root causes” of illegal immigration.  To date, there has been no plan put forward to fortify the border, provide for more security, or disincentivize immigrants from pouring in.

With regard to Afghanistan, as the horror show unfolded with the Afghan military in collapse, the country overrun by Taliban, and as our military scooted out, leaving equipment, Americans and our allies behind, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki was unavailable because she was on vacation.  Secretary of State Anthony Blinken headed to the Hamptons.  And old Joe claimed success at the podium, turned and walked away.   Meanwhile, 13 of our service men and women were killed and Afghanis were falling from the skies after futilely clinging to airplanes, reminiscent of the Americans jumping to their deaths on 9/11.

And the latest absence is Mayor Pete Buttigieg, our gay Secretary of Transportation, who wears his gender preference like a badge of honor and has no inhibitions about using it as both a sword and a shield.  He was last seen getting out of a van loaded with his bicycle, so he could be seen as a “green” worker pedaling to work instead of using the old combustion engine.

In the midst of a supply chain crisis, with cargo ships backed up and companies unable to get important goods, it turns out that Mayor Pete is on parental leave, and has been for two months.

Now, it’s fine to have a vacation.  It’s ok to take some time to be with your new child.  But there are roles and times when it’s simply not possible.  As an attorney, I know how hard it is to completely get away from the office.  It’s sometimes nearly impossible, even when you have adequate colleagues to pick up the slack.  Most attorneys concede that it is a hazard of the profession.  Likewise, almost every business owner I know is required to handle things while they are out of the office.   A day off for farmers?  You’ve got to be kidding.   And if you are in the restaurant business, vacations or “time off” simply doesn’t happen for you.

In these jobs, in a national emergency, with peoples lives and livelihoods at stake, these people don’t have the luxury of time away.  It was abhorrent that Psaki just wasn’t around to answer question during the Afghanistan crisis.  In a democracy, she owed it to our 330 million citizens to explain exactly what was going on, and the policy choices behind it. 

Mayor Pete needs to be working 18 hour days to unclog our ports and clear these cargo ships.

Instead,  Mayor Pete and Psaki declare a “success” and called it a day.

This is why conspiracy theories start.  People aren’t stupid.  When they see that no one is in charge or the person that’s supposed to be in charge is MIA, they assume that things are the way they are because the administration wants them to be that way.  Otherwise they would have SOMEBODY in charge working tirelessly to change course.

We can differ about policies and approaches.

But you have to show up to work.

 

Fossilized Tyrants

 

At the time of his election, John Kennedy at 43 was the youngest person to hold the office of president of the United States.  While I was just a toddler when he was assassinated, Kennedy was still talked about and adored when I was in grade school.  In fact, the vestibule of my Catholic grade school had three portraits on the wall—JFK, FDR, and Pope Paul VI.   Who ranked the highest was not a settled matter.

JFK’s youthfulness, vision and energy propelled a nation in the early Cold War years.  Elected a mere 15 years after the Nazi defeat, Kennedy exemplified a forward looking and confident nation.  He faced down Khruschev in 1962 and, after the Soviets had taken the lead in the space race, Kennedy threw down the gauntlet and challenged the U.S. government to put a man on the moon within a decade, which we accomplished.

But that was the America of 60 years ago.

The leadership of America today—the people setting the tone, writing the rules, and prioritizing the challenges have quite a different profile.

President Joe Biden is an addled 78.  Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House is 81 and when she’s not drunk on power, she’s just, well, drunk.   Anthony Fauci, the face of the Administrative State is 80.  Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is the young pup at 70. 

The age of our political leaders has a profound impact on their decision making and horizons.

Here are the facts.  Fauci’s life expectancy is 7 years. Nancy’s is 9.  Biden’s is about 9 ½ years.  And their timelines are much shorter when you consider how much longer each will be effectively functional—assuming you make the leap and consider Biden fully functional now.   This means that 3 of 4 of our branches of government (the Administrative State is a de facto 4^th branch) are led by individuals THAT HAVE VERY LITTLE VESTED INTEREST IN THE FUTURE.   Only one is expected to live more than a decade.

This explains a lot, and yet leaves a lot unexplained.

As we age, we necessarily become more focused on our legacy, on what we are going to leave behind, on the traditions, the structures and heritage we will leave to the next generation.  Yet this geriatric crew disconsonantly appears to be much more interested in accumulating and wielding power.   

The parallels to the waning years of the Soviet Union gnaws at me.  As the sun set on the Soviets, it would do well to recall the hoary succession of Secretary Generals that preceded Gorbachev and the collapse.  Leonid Brezhnev faded and died at 79.   Yuri Andropov lasted less than two years and died at 69.  Andrei Gromyko was still in power at age 79.  Konstantin Chernenko died at 73 after less than a year in office, prompting Ronald Reagan quip that he wanted to meet “face to face with a Soviet leader but they kept dying on me.”

Historian John Lewis Gaddis said Chernenko “was an enfeebled geriatric so zombie-like as to be beyond assessing intelligence reports, alarming or not.”

Many observers could say the same thing about Biden’s mental acuity.

Of all the circumstances that are swirling around, this is one that is most troubling to me. 

The Soviet Union collapsed about two years after its disgraceful withdrawal from Afghanistan, and after being led by a crusty, ossified series of rulers.

The echo should give us pause.

Exemptions from Accountability at the Top

 Last week, I wrote about the Barbell Theory of Exemptions, how the very top and the very bottom of our society escapes accountability for their actions, performance, and behavior, and how rules don’t apply to them.

General Mark Milley can make horrendous decisions and mistakes in judgment costing thousands of lives and billions of dollars.  Barack Obama can host hundreds for a birthday bash, unmasked without vaxx passports.

You can’t.

Antifa and BLM can smash windows, loot stores, and assault people and get away without any time in jail.

You can’t.

Young gangbanger Adam Toledo, shot by Chicago police earlier this summer after wielding a weapon has a virtual sanctuary to him at the National Museum of Mexican Art.  George Floyd has murals and statues.

When you pass, you will not be so honored.

But at the pinnacle of all this are the Bidens.

The son of our current president, singularly unaccomplished, has slipped the surly bonds of accountability at every turn. 

Most recently, it was disclosed that he received a $2 million “retainer” from Libya.  Then there was the whole controversy over his board position at Burisma, even though he had no business experience in the Ukraine and no energy experience.  The Secret Service apparently covered up for his violation of firearms laws.  He fought tooth and nail to avoid child support payments for a child that he had with an Arkansas stripper that was shown to be conclusively his with DNA testing.  And then there are the leaked photos of him with apparently underage girls and an FBI that still won’t reveal what they found on his laptop.

These are things that would bring any of us to ruin.  But not only has Hunter escaped any accountability, he keeps getting rewarded handsomely.  He received a $2 million book advance for his literary talent that sold less than 10,000 books.  Wink. Wink.  And now, having attended not a single art school—no toiling at the Rhode Island School of Design, Hunter is suddenly a famous painter whose artwork fetches upwards of $500,000 from undisclosed buyers.  Wink. Wink.  His genius is having to avoid any studios and the “starving artist” part.

Any business person, lawyer or other professional that engaged in this sort of monkey business would get driven out of their profession, exiled and perhaps jailed.

All of this is covered by the Barbell Exemption for Hunter.

Then we get to the “Big Guy,” Joe himself, who apparently got a 10% cut from some of Hunter’s shenanigans.

The people behind him have the biggest exemption of all.  If you are paying attention at all, you can see with clarity that the people that are REALLY running the country have made themselves invisible, that Joe is simply a figurehead reading lines provided to him, calling on reporters whose names have been provided to him and being cut short when asked incisive impromptu questions.   Biden, Blinken and Psaki have walked off the podium rather than answer hard questions.

It’s pretty clear that it isn’t Joe doing the actual decision making and there is lots of speculation as to who it might be----Obama, Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett??  They are being cloaked to shield them from accountability for the rampant inflation, increased gas prices, shutdowns and mandates and the catastrophic failure in Afghanistan.

These people symbolize the worst of what I have called the Barbell Exempt from accountability—the very top.

Our country won’t get back on track until we ALL are accountable for our decisions.