When a new president comes to town, everyone is eager to work in his administration or cabinet. People will walk away from lucrative and prestigious jobs for the opportunity to have a key role in a new presidency.As Victor Davis Hanson points out in a piece titled A Cabinet of Dunces, Mr. Biden's administration is already loaded with people who are unsuited for the role they've been given.
At the beginning of his first term, the president’s political capital and influence with Congress is at its highest, the air is full of optimism and energy, and he has his pick of the very best talent in the country.
The president’s first staff and cabinet are his “A Team.”
But working in the White House or in a top-level cabinet position means long hours and a relentless pace, with a lot to do against the ticking clock of the midterm elections. About two years later, the president has usually done a ton of work and had a rough midterm. The “A Team” gets burned out and is ready to move on to more lucrative private-sector roles.
The “B Team” — the deputies and assistants and people who came in second during the interviews before the inauguration — usually step in sometime around the second or third year.
If a president is lucky enough to win a second term, well, then the “B team” is ready to depart to corporate consulting, lobbying, academia, writing their memoirs, and stepping into their media gigs.
At the start of the second term, the “C Team” takes over. These folks usually aren’t the best, but they’re loyal, and they’ve kept their noses to the grindstone for four years. They’ve earned their promotions, even if they might be in a little over their heads.
And after the second midterm — which usually goes badly as well — well, by then, the “C Team” is ready to move on and the party’s top rising talent is really focused on who’s going to be the next nominee for president.
So, by year seven of a two-term presidency, the increasingly exhausted president is left with the metaphorical dregs of whoever’s still around and willing to do the job — the “D Team.”
A White House is much less likely to recruit top-tier figures from Capitol Hill, the corporate world, academia, or other fields at this point in an administration’s life cycle. They’re asking these potential recruits to walk away from good jobs to spend two years in an administration that gets less attention and coverage than the Iowa caucuses or Super Tuesday.
Hanson discusses the ineptitude of much of Biden's cabinet - Merrick Garland, Pete Buttigieg, Deb Haaland, Lloyd Austin, Alejandro Mayorkis, Jennifer Granholm. By the time the reader reaches the conclusion, he or she is ready to despair for the country.
Hanson concludes with these words:
The common denominator to these Biden appointees is ideological rigidity, nonchalance, and sheer incompetence.If we add Mr. Biden's current press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, to the mix, it seems as if Mr. Biden, at less than two years into his presidency, has already stuck us with the "D Team."
They seem indifferent to the current border, inflation, energy, and crime disasters. When confronted, they are unable to answer simple questions from Congress, or they mock anyone asking for answers on behalf of the strapped American people.
We don’t know why or how such an unimpressive cadre ended up running the government, only that they are here and the American people are suffering from their presence.
