I’m Thinking I Was Wrong
Okay, as you know I have always adored Joe Biden. As a human being he stands tall in the self-actualization triangle. I believe he is a genuine adult.
He was not my first pick to be president. I thought we needed someone younger with new ideas and a new plans. Maybe I was wrong.
Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote about Abraham Lincoln’s Team of Rivals and here’s Joe repeating history. Look at his cabinet. Look at his advisors. I guess old guys know stuff, too.
I listened carefully to his speech last night. He calmed the waters, he gave cautious hope, he has a plan, he loves his country, he passed a major bill, and he understands how I feel. I think he’s what we need right now.
By the way, I am told that the rightwing over on Twitter is calling the president Dementia Joe. They say he relied on a script. Yes, he did. That’s what presidents do unless they want to start an insurrection and get people killed. They also say he can’t remember Trump’s name so he calls him the former president. No, he knows Trump’s name but he’ll be damned if he’ll say it, and calling him “the whining ninny baby I whipped,” seems harsh.
I liked the speech. It gave me hope.
‘Listen to the people who are talking about how to fix what’s wrong, not the ones who just work people into a snit over the problems. Listen to the people who have ideas about how to fix things, not the ones who just blame others.’
~ Molly Ivins
1He wasn’t my first choice either but he made me proud last night!
2He will ALWAYS be Diaper Don or at best the stuff in the diaper!
3President Biden is calm. Everyone(almost) knows we, the people needed calm and a break after the former guy tried to destroy our country.
4You’re absolutely right. He wasn’t my first pick, either, but. . .
As Mick Jagger and Keith Richards so eloquently wrote:
“You can’t always get what you want
5But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need.”
I’m with you. I was behind somebody else; however, some of the stuff in the Relief Act is far more progressive than most of us realized. Further, there is the new Voting Rights Act to get through McConnell’s cabal and he is fully behind the revived workers’ rights movement and the union organizing that is taking place in Aladamnbama. He has exhibited such a calm, reasonable demeanor that he is getting stuff done that we could only dream about a few months ago.
I mean, who knew?
6Yes!
7Two things were very noticeable to me. The man is actually capable of showing concern and empathy for the people he serves…..now there’s something new and different. The other thing I noticed was how few times the words “I” and “Me” were used in his address. Again, big difference from the Orange Turd
8I didn’t think it would ever happen but I have now forgiven Joe for Clarence Thomas.
9I have noticed that his cabinet is made up of people of all ages, so there are people there with new and fresh ideas. More importunately, he will listen to them. Also noticed that several in the media also refer to 45 as the former president, so Joe is not the only one not mentioning his name. Joe does need to set the dementia rumor to rest – all he has to do is go on tv and say “woman, man, camera, tv”.
10Biden wasn’t my first choice, either.
I watched the Ken Burns series on the Roosevelts on PBS a few months ago, and I was struck by the potential similarities between FDR and Biden.
FDR was considered something of a lightweight in his younger years, I think, but his polio battle gave him an empathy and a strength in his convictions that I don’t think he had before.
Biden has a similar history, but with family tragedy rather than personal illness. At his core, he’s always been a decent man, but I think tragedy has had the same effect on him — given him a greater sense of empathy (perhaps that was always there, I don’t know) and the strength to understand what’s important and what’s not. At his age, I think Biden’s out to do what’s right, take care of people, and then retire gracefully.
And that’s exactly what we need right now.
11Biden is the real deal and he’s doing exactly what he said he’d do. Repugnanticans can only come up with the same old shit- he’s spending too much of their money (on people and urgent needs) instead of more tax breaks for people that don’t need it. Their current go to deflection buzz words, cancel culture, and dimentia Joe are all they have because they have no plans to help people (only to keep their votes from counting).
12Biden was my choice for a long time because I felt he could beat trumpf and he knew how to govern. Repugnanticans are just jealous poor losers. We live in two different universes.
I was hoping for a more “progressive” candidate but I’m with you, I am pleasantly surprised. Not only is he a real leader (which we desperately need) but also has appointed maybe the most diverse cabinet in my lifetime. I really believe he might be the person we need at this moment. He really highlights the difference between Dems and the GQP. Go Joe!!
13Our Democrats is learning
14Same here. At the beginning I think I preferred at least ten candidates over Joe, but now I think he’s exactly the person America needs in that job. With everything he does he reminds me of Harry Truman’s statement that it’s amazing how much you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit. Joe wants results, not credit, so he’ll get ‘er done.
15Normally I would have preferred a younger candidate with new ideas but these are not normal times and I thought we needed Joe’s experience to jump on the previous president’s messes. There’s no time for on the job training. And megasoid @ 1, I really miss Molly Ivins.
16At the end of the speech, as he walked away, my wife and I turned to each other and immediately said “It’s nice to have an educated man who can speak complete coherent sentences there again.”
17OK I’ll hold my hand up too — when the whirlwind descended on New Hampshire last Feb there were, I think, 23 of them, and Joe was #22 on my list (Tulsi Gabbard was the Bridge Too Far). I was wrong about Joe and only too happy to admit it.
BFSMan — Truman’s homily about credit has been adopted for the last decade by the Republicans, only with a slight alteration: “It’s better for nothing to get accomplished than for your opponent to get credit for it.”
18Joe was my Senator when I lived in Delaware and I liked him a lot. I worked on his first presidential campaign in 1987!
But I admit he wasn’t my first choice in 2020.
I am SO glad I was wrong!
19I am a caregiver for someone who has had a stroke.
Quite some years ago, Mr. Biden had surgery to remove a brain tumor. Such surgery is tantamount to a stroke or a traumatic brain injury (TBI). It is clear to anyone who understands such things that the lesion was on the right side of the brain, which is (among many other things) the seat of impulse control.
In the immediate aftermath of his surgery, Mr. Biden acquired a reputation for making “gaffes”.
I am on record as having said, at that time, that Mr. Biden ought, for these reasons, to retire from public life. I believe that I also publicly deprecated, on the same grounds, his selection for the Vice Presidential nomination in 2008.
Anyone who knows anything about brain injuries knows how inconceiveably, unimaginably, FCCKING, FCCKING HARD Mr. Biden has worked since then to get where he is today.
Accordingly, I retract — too late, and in great shame — my earlier comments about him, and wish him long life and increasing success.
20These comments are all such a treat to read!
I’d add one thing, at the time pundits said, “Only Nixon could go to China.” Perhaps only Biden could give us a progressive agenda?
One final thought, NEVER elect anyone to public office when holding that office will be the most important thing in their life. It’s one thing if passing legislation that improves the lives of others is the important thing (WPA, TVA, ACA, American Rescue Plan, to name a few), but attaining & keeping a title is a whole other thing.
To Biden, being a good Dad and a good man comes first. He may get it wrong but he’ll own it, try to fix it, and sincerely apologize when it happens.
He’s what we need and Cheryl, “person, woman, man, camera, tv,” priceless.
21I often think back on the week after the November election. It was touch and go for awhile. If the Democratic Party had nominated someone other than Joe, even a candidate I would have preferred, would Trump have knee capped him/her (Sanders, Warren, anyone else) with constant accusations of socialism, soft on criminals, etc.? Enough that Trump could have swayed voters in three critical, close states?
In retrospect, although from our point of view anyone should have defeated Trump especially after his COVID non-response – – Joe might have been the only one who could have delivered the win.
22Chiming in on the ‘he wasn’t my first choice’. Last night Unca Joe was calm, reassuring, and boring. I liked that. I liked it a LOT.
23I just checked in on FOX and they’re still batting a thousand. Because of course they are.
The host labeled the vaccine roll-out clumsy.
He had a doctor on and asked leading questions. One was, “Is the roll out going too fast?” To which the doc said, “Uh, no. There’s no such thing as too fast. We need to get vaccines into arms. Now.”
Uh, wait. The roll out is clumsy? AND too fast? Sorry, FOX, you need to pick one.
And you KNOW they never said any such thing about Trump’s handling of the virus, right? Right?
The doc went on to pick apart every question the host asked and say that the administration is doing exactly what’s necessary.
He also cautioned the people saying THEY’RE moving too fast — congregating before getting the second [or even first] vaccine and that they need to WAIT THE PRESCRIBED AMOUNT OF TIME AFTER THE SECOND DOSE or they’ll undo any good work the vaccine can do for them.
iow, he gave exactly the opposite advise that FOX is pushing. But then he’s a scientists and they’re – – – not.
Not to be deterred, the host immediately brought on a politician who derided Biden’s statement about small groups getting together on July 4th. He pointed at the fact that people are already getting together in large groups and claimed, “See? Everything’s fine!”
iow, he said the opposite of everything the doc had just said. Because of course he did.
FOX does love to hand out mixed messages and keep things confused. So what if people die? Their deaths could give President Biden a black eye and that’s a Good Thing, right?
24And as to the, “not my first choice” thing:
Yeah, he wasn’t mine either BUT I’ve rethunk that. He lived through President Obama’s administration and learned exactly what needs doing when Republicans try to block every positive thing he’s trying to do: ignore them.
President Obama was in a unique position: 1] first black president so 2] forced to be more constrained and 3] try really, really hard — over and over and over — to bring R’s along with him.
Uncle Joe doesn’t have the same constraints and learned not to even try. If he had gone the route Obama HAD TO GO we might be getting some watered down emergency package by, maybe, July — at the levels and at a time when it would do absolutely no good — and the R’s could blame him. So he didn’t try. Thank goodness.
25Biden is passing his agenda in the face of total Republican opposition. He offered bipartisanship and they refused point-blank, which gives them no say. Had they cooperated even a little they could water down the Rescue, voting and gun-control bills, but they were too intent on intransigence and now they get nothing, good day sir!
Fintan O’Toole explains it better than I could:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2021/03/25/joe-biden-to-hell-with-unity/
26BFSMan @ 15:
27What? President Biden isn’t holding up the checks so he can get his name on them? What IS the world coming to?
What a relief to have sanity in the WH.
28I realize this is OT, but this story is what repugnanticans are. It’s not just ron johnson that is this racist and deranged- it’s the QOP as a whole:
GOP senator: If insurrectionists had been Black instead of MAGA I would have been ‘concerned’ – Raw Story
https://www.rawstory.com/ron-johnson-insurrection/
29I was one of the holdouts who didn’t state a [reference in 2019 or early 2020. I thought all but two people on the debate stages would be a tremendous improvement, and the two I objected to didn’t get very far.
I knew Biden would probably get it because he’d been almost a co president with Obama and would have the shortest learning curve and with the colossal mess Dumdum left us in, we needed that.
I might have felt closer to Sanders, Booker, Warren and Yang politically and I might have admired Buttigieg’s basic decency and Harris’s savvy, but honestly, all were qualified and I’d have supported anyone who won the nomination.
30My check showed up in my account today.
Pretty fast for “Sleepy”, “Dementia” Joe Biden.
31Welcome to the club. As you see, it’s a big one.
32After catching some of the speech I started reading Eric Alter’s _The Defining Moment _, on FDR’s first hundred days.
I’d bet that Joe has studied it.
33