How do you stumble and yet land stronger than ever? How do you stumble and yet ensure it is your opponents who end up on their butts?
Call it the Biden two-step. Every so often, like each and every one of us, the president makes a misstep. It titillates his opponents. As usual, they zero in on the trivial just as they did yesterday when Biden, just like many of his predecessors before him, while keeping a schedule that would make most of us weep, had a slight mishap during the graduation ceremony at the Air Force Academy.
The media helped those opponents out with copious coverage. “Ahah!” said the talking heads as they reflexively turned the subject once again to the president’s age.
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But let’s think that through a minute. Given the outcomes we have seen this week, isn’t the real issue, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, not whether Biden is too old, but that time and time again his opponents appear too callow and inexperienced to keep up with him.
As a momentous week for Biden draws to a close, it is fair to ask what is a bigger story—a momentary incident when someone left a sandbag in the president’s path or is it the fact that Biden surefootedly handled a debt crisis that had the entire world on edge? Is it the silly gotcha mentality of Fox News or is the fact that Biden in a tough negotiation once again turned out to lead the process as deftly and elegantly as Fred Astaire? (Could Fred Astaire have shown the grace Biden did in complimenting the man who caused the crisis, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy?)
Is it more significant that everyone expected, yet again, that Biden would take the fall for the financial hostage crisis manufactured by the GOP, or that the tough-talking MAGA right ended up wondering what hit them, proven impotent in the face of bipartisan agreement to take a more sensible course?
Or turn to a story that is even bigger than the debt showdown in the United States. On Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave a speech in Helsinki, Finland that made it clear that the underestimated Biden had executed a pirouette in U.S. foreign policy that left vaunted master strategist Vladimir Putin flat on his ass.
In the very same country in which Biden’s predecessor had practically fallen to his knees before Putin, slavering praise upon him and criticism on the U.S. national security community, Blinken made it clear that America under Biden had completely reversed Trump’s policies. Trump wanted out of NATO. Biden expanded NATO to now include Finland and is very likely to soon include Sweden. Trump had withheld aid from Ukraine. Biden had provided unprecedented financial and material support to Kyiv. Trump was reviled and ridiculed by our allies. Biden was leading a new, energized global coalition.
As Blinken noted, with the NATO flag now flying over Finland, there had taken place “a sea change that would have been unthinkable a little more than a year earlier.” Where Trump advisers fretted over his plans to bolt from NATO, Blinken observed that “President Biden has focused on rebuilding and revitalizing America’s alliances and partnerships, knowing that we’re stronger when we work alongside those who share our interests and our values.”
Putin expected Biden and the U.S. to be weak as it had been under Trump. But as Blinken pointed out, today, “There is no question, Russia is significantly worse off today than it was before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine—militarily, economically, geopolitically.” A core thrust of his remarks was that Russia has already been strategically defeated.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken gives a speech at the Helsinki City Hall, in Helsinki, Finland June 2, 2023.
Lehtikuva/via REUTERSBlinken noted that the U.S. and its allies “have severely degraded Russia’s war machine and defense exports, setting them back for years to come.” He noted the devastating economic damage done to Russia thanks to the resolve of the Biden-led alliance. He observed that standing up strong to Russia sent a strong message to China not to underestimate us again. He also pledged to help rebuild Ukraine so it and the West would in the future be able to deter Russian threats of further aggression.
Perhaps most strikingly, Blinken explicitly rejected the idea that Russia be able to retain the territory it has gained in the course of this war, now in its tenth year. He rejected the idea of a ceasefire that would “simply freeze current lines and (enable) Putin to consolidate control over the territory he seized.”
At the beginning of the Biden administration, some thought he stumbled with the hurried and sometimes chaotic exit from Afghanistan. Some, like Putin, may have misunderstood what they saw. And now, not only has Russia suffered grievously for that error of judgment, but Biden and American standing have emerged stronger.
In fact, in such developments, we may see the secret of the Biden two-step. It is one that is rare in all but the very best leaders. Whenever he puts a foot wrong, he learns from the experience and so do the members of his team.
Biden handled a negotiation with Congress once before, as vice president, during the Obama years. Observers concluded that while he had helped get a deal, he had perhaps given up too much. He learned from that. He watched as President Obama failed to get out of Afghanistan and make the pivot to address the growing great power rivalry with China. He learned from that. He saw the Obama and Trump responses to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine were inadequate. He learned from that.
He observed the response to the economic crisis of 2008-9 provided too little support to the middle class and the weakest in our economy and so when he engineered a response to the COVID-induced crisis, he reflected that with support for real people and the real economy.
When flaws in the planning process regarding the exit from Afghanistan were identified, he and his team learned from it.
When his Build Back Better plan was rebuffed, he learned and found ways to advance key portions of it in other ways—in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, in the CHIPS and Science Act, in the Inflation Reduction Act.
When China policy seemed to have the U.S. careening toward Cold War with China, he learned from it and guided a modulation combining strength with an express willingness to engage on critical issues.
There have been many lessons in the course of a career that has spanned half a century at the highest levels in Washington. There have been mistakes and he not only acknowledged them, he grew from them. He did not waste the years. He did not let his ego get in the way as so many people in positions of power or privilege do. He learned. He evolved. He got better.
And therefore, fortunately for us, this Joe Biden, yes, this one that stumbled over a sandbag, is the best Joe Biden there has ever been. And because of that, because it has helped him achieve so many stunning and unexpected domestic legislative triumphs and so many great gains for America and our allies worldwide, he is now viewed, after just two and a half years as president, as one of the best to hold that very difficult job in the modern era.
The idiocracy and the MAGA echo chamber will laugh at Biden’s small stumbles. The media sheep who go for what is sensational instead of what is important will dwell too long on them. But what those who have observed Joe Biden and his performance as president will recognize is, that his opponents should beware, every time they find something to titter about, he is growing, getting stronger, and preparing to outsmart, outwork, outcompassion, and outlead them yet again.
