Departing President Joe Biden offered a farewell brag this week to his State Department about how his tenure had improved America’s stature abroad. In his now accustomed weird mix of whispering and fiery shouting, Biden apparently felt he had to lie or mislead about almost every one of his “achievements.”
Yet to the extent that anything improved abroad on his watch—the weakening of Iran or the near destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah—it was due despite, not because of, Biden.
Biden, bowing to election year political pressure, did all he could to restrain and block Israeli retaliations to the October 7 massacres. Only after he was repeatedly proven wrong does he now shamelessly take credit for what Israel ironically achieved by ignoring his own threats directed at Israel.
Biden is correct only that Iran is “weaker than it’s been in decades.” But Tehran was aided, not hurt, by Biden’s nonstop efforts to lift sanctions, to allow Iran to make billions in oil revenues, to pay the theocracy billions of dollars in hostage ransom, and to beg the mullahs to reenter the ill-starred Iran deal. Everything Biden did makes it much harder for Israel to survive.
So, Iran is now weakened only because Israel ignored Biden’s nonstop ankle-biting and finger-shaking not to retaliate to Iranian aggression. Instead, the Netanyahu government systematically destroyed Iranian air defenses after killing most of Iran’s foreign terrorist operatives.
Biden referenced the end of the Assad regime in Syria, but it imploded not due to any effort by Biden. It was overwhelmed instead only after the Israeli decimation of Hezbollah and humiliation of Iran—coupled with the election victory of Donald Trump—that encouraged Assad’s enemies to attack a now isolated and weakened regime.
Biden is also taking credit for rumors that Hamas might release its hostages, who have been held in a subterranean labyrinth since October 7.
But why, with less than a week left in his tenure, did Biden believe Hamas might begin releasing the hostages when even his own Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has criticized the administration for spending 16 months pressuring Israel, which only emboldened Hamas’s stonewalling?
Much more likely, the election of Donald Trump and his threat to unleash terrible retribution on Hamas (and implicitly on Iran) had prompted the terrorists’ tardy willingness to negotiate a release.
Of the horrific scramble from Afghanistan—the greatest humiliation of the US military in a half-century that cost the lives of 13 Marines—Biden boasted: “[I am] the first president in decades who’s not leaving a war in Afghanistan to his successor.”
Think of his warped logic: Biden does not leave a war to his successor only because he fled in humiliation and lost it.
Biden also took credit for saving Ukraine from Russia. But he conveniently omitted why Russia invaded in the first place.
Had Biden not destroyed American deterrence by fleeing Kabul and leaving behind billions of dollars in abandoned U.S. military equipment, had he not claimed, prior to the Russian invasion, that his reaction to Putin’s likely aggression would hinge on whether it was “a minor incursion,” then the Russians might never have invaded at all.
Vladimir Putin grabbed Crimea and the Donbass in 2014 during the Obama-Biden administration. He later sought to swallow the entire country with an attack on Kyiv in 2022 on Biden’s watch.
However, Putin stayed within his borders only during one of the last four administrations—Donald Trump’s.
Biden crowed that he accomplished all these misadventures without the use of force—“We have not gone to war to make these things happen.”
But Biden did more than any other recent president to weaken the U.S. military. Under his tenure, the Pentagon suffered a real reduction in its budget. And it never quite recovered from the Afghanistan debacle.
Annually, the military now comes up 40,000 recruits short due to Biden’s draconian vaccination requirements, its new woke mandates, and its constant false accusations of “white rage” and “white privilege” in the ranks—libels that prompted a Pentagon internal investigation that found no such racism.
China was never more bellicose than during Biden’s presidency. It serially threatened Taiwan, used cyber warfare to bully the U.S., brazenly expropriated U.S. military technology, and without worry sent a spy balloon to traverse the U.S. with impunity.
Biden’s open border saw more than 10 million illegal entries, among them thousands of Chinese nationals. Meanwhile, Chinese investors were freed to systematically buy up thousands of acres of America’s farmland adjacent to sensitive US military bases and installations.
Add it all up, and Biden would have done better to have just kept quiet and departed his failed presidency in shame.
Many years ago I learned something that till this day serves me well as a tool to rapidly evaluate people. As a professional I cannot practice as an island. I could certainly practice with a small cadre of sophisticated well trained people and do outstanding work. But what do you do about growth which will be demanded of you as your reputation advances? With me it was never about money. It was always about performance. That being the case I cloned people and did everything I could so others could get all the credit. That only works for a short time because the institution then becomes so reputable that everyone wants to work for you and clients come from far and wide to see you. You are therefore forced to expand.
Lots of people arrive with starling resumes and today with AI they merely have to go to Chat Box or some other AI resume builder so that what you are faced with is a group of applicants providing resumes and recommendations which are all potentially equal. So what do you do? I hired provisionally and never failed to provide applicants with every opportunity to screw up. They were supervised but were deliberately made unaware of it. Furthermore, I used two key ingredients which brought out the best and the worst rapidly. In one way or another, and there are many ways, I made sure they were given both power and money and paid close attention to how such was used.
When people have money how selfish and/or greedy will they be? When they have power how will they treat those they don’t like?
Joe Biden was never a mystery. He was never someone the electorate should have been confused about and neither should the Democratic Party elders. The fact is that the electorate was never confused and neither was the Democratic Party elders. They had to steal the 2020 election to give them access to the power and the money and Joe Biden was exactly the candidate they knew he was going to be. Only in the end he was too much of what he previously always was and it became very evident that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. He had a record that was long and horrific and he gave America exactly what he always gave… carnage, destruction and ruin. And likewise his woke and DEI apostles followed in his footsteps wherever they controlled the levers of power with California being an emblematic, shining, ostentatious example. Throughout the last four years every effort was made to fool as many people as possible and at the very end that narrative is still the only playbook Democrats still hang on to. The only thing they have left is the next four days till Trump’s Troops arrive to root out the saboteurs and moles that remain in the labyrinth of the deeply invested in and infested bureaucracies. Like Hamas in Gaza they now have to be discovered and destroyed.
You and I, we share a similar perspective on people and what qualifies as quality or not.
We want to help - not hinder - build - not tear down.
Why? Because we know that so many people never had our opportunities to take the time to understand and? Are operating with less than effective paradigms of “the way the world works”.
Thus - we structure the way we deal with people accordingly.
Alas - the number of people who actually in the end warrant such kindness - from experience we have found are few and too far between.
My business model - creating, selling fine art and representing fine art artists - fortunately doesn’t require me to actually have employees - with all the attendant complications - I don’t need to delineate for you.
But rather - I always orchestrate and help them create venues that they can profit from selling my creations - ever so profitably and I - and my young partner - organize, systematize and help them set in motion that helps them make good money; more than they were before.
So - save for my very bright - at least an I.Q. of 140 - partner - who made me a liar. (I had the partnership from hell - where I was the creative force and stupidly made men who were basically tagging along partners.) That afterwards I swore I would never, ever, come hell or high water have another partner?
He - upon God smiling on me - connecting me with him - made me think - maybe I should reconsider that! LOL
There is no doubt in my mind - that if - maybe when? - someday you meet him - that you would love him - no fair you can’t have him!
But I decided - what the hell - I want him as my partner - and I will have him as such.
Anyway - I only wrote that - this - all - for your amusement - realizing - sadly that few read these comments any more - and thus are more or less like faux private emails to each other.
Because, I wanted to communicate with you and say I agree with you and then send this missive to my boy - my Nigerian partner - a lad of only 31 - this comment. Who I sent an email earlier that Task is one of the most intelligent commenters on this site
Your evaluation sees in me what most people don’t. Like you I have brought partners to success that they never thought they could achieve and still don’t understand it’s because I insist that we should never be satisfied. If they will not go the next step I will do it for both of us. I can’t tell you how often I have to explain to people why I do what I do but it’s often and, furthermore, what’s worse, is that I repeat myself with the same people that I explained things to many times previously. You know why? Because they don’t share the same empathy. And there is something else. Why other people they ask? Why not them even though they are struggling under a load of excessive exuberance. Like a dog with two bones in his mouth trying to figure out how to manage a third one they just don’t get the fact that when I notice another with nothing I say “why can’t you also see what I am seeing?”
Sounds like you have had several people who, unfortunately, didn’t measure up to you - in terms of their understanding of how someone like you - or myself - operate when we engage with someone - especially at the partnership levels.
My, new partner, Jeffrey, is not just a business associate but has become a best friend as well (a side note; I am blessed when it comes to the quality of my friends - in terms of their intellectual brilliance as well as personalities; to the point I don’t like to call any one of them my “best friend” - because the thought of the others hearing that and thinking I think less of them than another - upsets me)
Anyway, I have always been of the opinion that if one is going to have a genuine partner, rather than a glorified employee one euphemistically refers to for the sake of being inclusive as a “partner/team member”, that a real partner has to bring to the table skills that both complement and expand the skill sets that I have - if not? What’s the point?
As Henry Ford the first once said, “Why do I need a PhD when I can hire one?”
Jeffrey’s abilities - in terms of organizational skills and creativity mirror mine, and he also is a gifted writer; which means he can fill in a void I have re my novel about young male immigrants to America who happen upon a funny, less than young fellow who sees in each of them abilities - and decides to help them come to understand the ins and outs that being raised in Africa, Bangladesh or the Middle East don’t teach you - about how to move and groove in the U. S. of A.
It’s a bit of fiction mirroring reality with a bit more actual excitement than my life - and theirs has in reality! But, Jeffrey, being a genuine African and a man who has managed to attain the same type of self-actualization that we have - all on his own - will give it the verisimilitude that I - never having been yet to Africa - much less not being raised there - could never give it.
Couple this with the fact from a business acumen standpoint having someone you can trust implicitly - means that the power of the two heads are better than one paradigm is even more powerful.
It’s also, more fun to mountain climb in someone else’s company.
A fact of which, you are undoubtedly well aware.
In my life I have had male and female partners, young and middle aged, and discovered that only one, who was not even a partner, always went the extra mile to assure that the outcome, after throwing in all current technology, time, effort and skill would not be second guessed afterwards. We both gave it all and then some we didn’t even know existed. Now that does not mean I’m never satisfied. On the contrary I am mostly satisfied because most cases require far less than maximum but there is a subset that will not survive unless everything is done perfectly and to the maximum.