President Biden had a two-hour presser yesterday. To be fair, he had every right to take this opportunity to defend his administration. However, his administration is indefensible because it has offended our sense of reality too much, for too long.
Joe Biden sounded like Saddam Hussein's spokesman nicknamed "Baghdad Joe" who bragged publicly about beating Americans back when Americans were already taking Baghdad by storm during the Second Gulf War. Americans, quite frankly, are used to politicians' lying about everything under the sun. But, if President F.D. Roosevelt declared no losses during the attack on Pearl Harbor, he would be impeached and run out of town in no time. And yet, Biden had the audacity to impress us that his botched Afghanistan withdrawal was no big deal. What about the loss of 13 American soldiers on top of leaving a good portion of the American arsenal behind in a hostile country?
Everyday Americans may care more about kitchen table issues than foreign affairs. Well, where is the president just when we need him most to tame inflation? Again, Biden prefers the fantasy of job numbers to the reality of inflation rates. America is a consumer society, which means that we are consumers first and foremost. No American president can get away with insulting American consumers' intelligence.
Having been in Obama's long shadow for eight years, Biden may want to show the world that he can also be "a transformational president." He thus picks the fight like the so-called "voting right" that he can't win. He simply takes himself too seriously. That's why he is so unserious about reality. Take a reality check, Joe.
Author: Lingyang Jiang