Thursday, March 31, 2022
Political Mayhem Thursday: The Biden Performance
A year and two months into the Biden presidency, we've seen this administration deal with a lot: the pandemic, inflation, a sudden war in Europe, and a Supreme Court vacancy. In dealing with these crises, there have been no real disasters, and some very bright spots.
Internationally, he seems to be threading the needle between supporting Ukraine and not getting directly involved in the war. Certainly, his tour of Europe featured some of his trademark gaffes (it probably was not great to label Putin a war criminal, and definitely a slip to mention that the US is training Ukrainian troops in Poland), but he also seems to have played a strong role in rallying-- and basically re-forming-- NATO.
He made a great choice for the Supreme Court, and I think that is pretty evident to all by now. KBJ presented herself very well during a trying confirmation hearing, and certainly does not seem to be some kind of radical. I look forward to seeing her on the court. To the administration's credit (and particularly the White House Counsel), she seemed very well prepared for the hearings.
On domestic issues, it is more of a mixed bag. The receding of the pandemic didn't seem to have much to do with administrative action, and we are primed to get caught flat-footed if a new variant surges. On the economy... well, the President, any president, doesn't do much to control short-term economic shifts, and the jolt in energy prices is tied to international events, not domestic policy. (The fiction that if we opened up federal land to drilling, then companies would rush in tomorrow and start pumping is ludicrous-- any benefit would come in years, not months).
The big disappointment with Biden, sadly, is in the area I care most about. He has completely ignored criminal policy to the point of negligence. He hasn't appointed a single member of the sentencing commission, which has been without a quorum for four years. He hasn't appointed a pardon attorney. Despite a backlog of 18,000+ petitions, he has failed to grant-- or even deny-- a single one. And the administration has failed to lead in even the simplest reforms of policing or sentencing. I'm very disappointed in this abrogation of an important responsibility.
But, overall... it could be a lot worse.
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