Joe Biden: ‘The Buck (Never) Stops Here’
Joe Biden owns America’s COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden ran for president on promises to federalize America’s COVID response: “I will,” he said, “act to get control of the virus” – “on day one,” no less.
In September, 2020, Biden charged Trump with personal responsibility for 200,000 (then-current) COVID deaths: “If the president had done his job…from the beginning, all the people would still be alive.”
In mid-October, candidate Biden tweeted: “We’re eight months into this pandemic, and Donald Trump still doesn’t have a plan to get this virus under control. I do.”
In a debate, Biden said, “Anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain president of the United States…”
Four days pre-election, Biden announced: “I’m not going to shut down the country. I’m not going to shut down the economy. I’m going to shut down the virus.”
In short, Biden’s campaign cynically politicized COVID to harvest votes, and, as importantly, capitalized on COVID restrictions to allow an enervated candidate to (non)campaign from the basement of his Wilmington-area mansion. Both gimmicks worked.
Now, fast forward to his December 27, 2021 online meeting with state governors during which President(ish) Biden admitted failure: “There is no federal solution. [COVID] gets solved at the state level.”
Immediately following that craven attempt to duck responsibilities he hung on his predecessor, Biden fled to his plush Delaware beach house for photo-ops with a new puppy.
What went wrong?
After all, as president, Biden benefitted from COVID therapies developed during nearly a year of experience, and from President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine initiative.
In office, Biden mandated vaccinations for federal employees, employees of companies doing business with the federal government, and he ordered the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to enforce vaccinations for all businesses employing 100-plus people. Biden himself was fully-vaccinated before Inauguration Day.
Nonetheless, there were more COVID deaths during Biden’s first ten months in office – with vaccines available – than in all of 2020, most of it without vaccines.
On December 31, 2021, American pandemic deaths exceeded 820,000, more than half of which were – applying his own campaign rhetoric – Joe Biden’s personal responsibility.
Ironically, during the campaign, Biden and his running mate expressed doubts about the safety of Operation Warp Speed products. Kamala Harris said she wouldn’t take a “Trump” vaccine.
Once in office, though, both dismissed public concerns about the vaccines’ safety and efficacy. Biden even called getting vaccinated “a patriotic duty.”
In fact, as vaccinations increased and COVID cases/fatality rates declined, and, Biden opportunistically “took ownership,” and, last July 4, boastfully predicted “our independence from a deadly virus.”
Oops…!
Plagued by COVID variants Biden/Harris “didn’t see coming,” and a COVID test kit shortage Biden vowed, but failed to fix, on December 27, an ineffectual president formally surrendered, washed his hands – he thinks – of COVID, and tried to sidestep blame by passing the buck to fifty governors, more than half of whom are Republicans.
Belatedly realizing that his vaccine mandates caused real problems – among them staffing shortages in critical services, including first responders, the trucking industry and health care – Joe is struggling to escape judgment by telling America the virus must be “solved at the state level.”
Americans aren’t supposed to notice that Biden’s extemporaneous thinking/speaking skills are…putting it kindly…impaired, so aides dismissed the press pool before Joe (his staff, really) took governors’ questions.
Biden’s handlers are desperate for a COVID exit strategy, so they’re trying to unload responsibility/accountability onto the states, while pretending Joe never made commitments he failed to keep.
It won’t work. America knows Biden smeared his predecessor, made empty promises, claimed credit for progress made before he took office, and dumped his failures on governors before taking another vacation.
COVID has mutated; its symptoms are milder; but it isn’t going away. In two years, smart officials have learned that living with the virus means protecting vulnerable citizens, prioritizing therapeutics, providing vaccines for willing recipients, and avoiding sequels of the shutdowns/mask mandates that have already proved ineffective in stopping – or even slowing – COVID’s spread.
Surely, certain dense and/or proto-fascist governors and mayors, primarily Democrats, will continue to issue/attempt to enforce arbitrary COVID mandates. They’ll fail, too.
Meanwhile, the president’s negative approval ratings will crater as America holds Joe Biden to the standard he set in 2020: “Anyone…responsible for that many deaths should not remain president of the United States…”
https://www.pottsmerc.com/2022/01/03/jerry-shenk-joe-biden-the-buck-never-stops-here/
