In Over His Head

Jim Geraghty at National Review writes a devastating assessment of the Biden presidency one year into his tenure. Geraghty states that the president, "makes promises that he doesn’t know how to keep, wildly overestimates his own persuasiveness, denies problems are problems until it’s too late, and offers excuses and points fingers when he fails."

He goes on to list eleven examples:

• Biden promised that he was going to “shut down the virus.” But he hasn’t.
• Biden promised that, “This winter, you’ll be able to test for free in the comfort of your home and have some peace of mind.” But you couldn’t.
• Biden promised that he was going to make Covid treatments widely available. But he hasn’t.
• We allocated them more than $4.5 trillion in Covid relief, but schools are still shutting down, workers are not in the office, and medical workers are burning out. Biden now wants another “substantial” Covid-relief supplemental-spending bill. We spent $1.9 trillion ten months ago! What the hell did we do with all the money that was already spent?
• Biden insisted that inflation wasn’t really a problem and wouldn’t be unchecked. But it was, and it is.
• Biden insisted that the wave of migrants at the border was just the usual seasonal pattern. But it wasn’t.
• Biden insisted that regarding the supply chain, “The much-predicted crisis didn’t occur.” But Americans are still seeing long backlogs at ports, empty shelves in stores, and long waits for usually readily available products.
• Biden insisted that he was going to get tough on China. He hasn’t.
• Biden insisted that he was going to get tough on Russia.
• Biden pledged that he was going to get Americans and Afghan allies home from Afghanistan. He didn’t.
• Biden pledged to ISIS, “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.” And then the U.S. military killed seven children and an aid worker in a drone strike.

He adds that "...this isn’t even counting the legislative fights that Biden chose, knowing the extraordinary difficulty of passage with a small majority for House Democrats and a 50-50 Senate: Build Back Better, a federal takeover of election administration, and creating at least a carve-out of the filibuster if not eliminating it entirely."

There's much else in Geraghty's column that's worth reading, but I'll just add some quotes he cites from other columnists:

• Jonah Goldberg: “Biden’s presidency is spiraling into abject failure.”
• Peggy Noonan, assessing Biden’s “Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?” tirade in Atlanta: “The speech itself was aggressive, intemperate, not only offensive but meant to offend. It seemed prepared by people who think there is only the Democratic Party in America, that’s it, everyone else is an outsider who can be disparaged. It was a mistake on so many levels.”
• The New York Times' David Brooks: “Today is the day for Biden to begin revamping his presidency in a more centrist direction. There’s no path forward for a leftish agenda.”
• Mike Allen headlines an article in his newsletter: “Biden’s Epic Failures.”
• The Washington Post’s David Ignatius: “Biden has been losing his way politically. As he chases support from progressives in his own party, he has failed to craft versions of his social spending package and voting rights legislation that he could pass with fragile majorities. He’s been spinning his wheels.”

In a speech yesterday the president touted his 1.9 trillion dollar stimulus bill and his 1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill as successes, but many economists believe that the former was one cause of our current inflation and that the benefits of latter will not be seen for years.

All in all, it's hard to disagree with Geraghty's assessment that Mr. Biden is in over his head.

UPDATE: In today's column Geraghty discusses the many lies and the complete incompetence on display in Mr. Biden's Afghanistan debacle. Check it out.