Stupidity Rules Under Biden, Just As It Did Under Trump

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at Strategic Culture

Biden starts so deeply prejudiced so that he is even less intelligent, and more hostile toward Russia, than was George W. Bush, who had said of Putin, he “looked in his eyes and saw his soul.” Biden says, instead, he saw no “soul”, but just a “killer.” However, Biden’s stupidity is even worse than that.

On March 19th, The Daily Beast headlined “Biden White House Sandbags Staffers, Sidelines Dozens for Pot Use” and reported:

Dozens of young White House staffers have been suspended, asked to resign, or placed in a remote work program due to past marijuana use, frustrating staffers who were pleased by initial indications from the Biden administration that recreational use of cannabis would not be immediately disqualifying for would-be personnel, according to three people familiar with the situation.

The policy has even affected staffers whose marijuana use was exclusive to one of the 14 states — and the District of Columbia — where cannabis is legal. …

In some cases, staffers were informally told by transition higher-ups ahead of formally joining the administration that they would likely overlook some past marijuana use, only to be asked later to resign.

“There were one-on-one calls with individual affected staffers — rather, ex-staffers,” one former White House staffer affected by the policy told The Daily Beast. “I was asked to resign.”

“Nothing was ever explained” on the calls, they added, which were led by White House Director of Management and Administration Anne Filipic. “The policies were never explained, the threshold for what was excusable and what was inexcusable was never explained.”

Biden isn’t doing this to satisfy his voters — quite the contrary: Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to this draconian anti-marijuana policy that he’s imposing. Pew had headlined, on 14 November 2019, “Two-thirds of Americans support marijuana legalization”, and reported that 55% of Republicans did, and that an even more overwhelming 78% of Democrats did. And the only age-group who didn’t were Americans older than 70. So, not only is the self-contradiction by Biden on this issue not politically advantageous for him, but especially younger voters will be disappointed by his arbitrary and self-contradictory policy-enforcement about this matter. It reinforces the public image of him that he really doesn’t much care about the public’s welfare — he’s simply ruled by his prejudices. His campaign statements for legalizing marijuana were fakery, and he is now actually punishing young staffers who had believed his statements and acted on that belief. The Daily Beast’s news-report closed by asserting that “would-be staffers in the Biden administration whose dream jobs were derailed by an opaque system now feel their own truthfulness has been used against them. ‘It’s exclusively targeting younger staff and staff who came from states where it was legal,’ the former staffer said.” This scatter-brained policy is obviously counter-productive, in every aspect.

Biden’s policymaking is stupid and driven by prejudices he has had his whole life, not only regarding domestic affairs (such as marijuana), but also regarding foreign affairs, as is shown in the following internationally embarrassing incident, which therefore makes even clearer that this is the type of person that he is — an old fool who is now just an older fool:

On March 17th, ABC News headlined “TRANSCRIPT: ABC News' George Stephanopoulos interviews President Joe Biden” and it included this discussion:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Director of National Intelligence came out with a report today saying that Vladimir Putin authorized operations during the election to under -- denigrate you, support President Trump, undermine our elections, divide our society. What price must he pay?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: He will pay a price. I, we had a long talk, he and I, when we -- I know him relatively well. And I -- the conversation started off, I said, "I know you and you know me. If I establish this occurred, then be prepared."

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You said you know he doesn't have a soul.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I did say that to him, yes. And -- and his response was, "We understand one another." It was -- I wasn't being a wise guy. I was alone with him in his office. And that -- that's how it came about. It was when President Bush had said, "I looked in his eyes and saw his soul."

I said, "Looked in your eyes and I don't think you have a soul." And looked back and he said, "We understand each other." Look, most important thing dealing with foreign leaders in my experience, and I've dealt with an awful lot of 'em over my career, is just know the other guy. Don't expect somethin' that you’re -- that -- don't expect him to -- or her to -- voluntarily appear in the second editions of Profiles in Courage.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So you know Vladimir Putin. You think he's a killer?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Uh-huh. I do.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So what price must he pay?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: The price he's gonna pay we’ll -- you'll see shortly. I'm not gonna -- there’s -- by the way, we oughta be able that ol' -- that trite expression "walk and chew gum at the same time," there're places where it's in our mutual interest to work together.

That's why I renewed the START agreement with him. That occurred while he's doin' this. But that's overwhelmingly in the interest of humanity, that we diminish the prospect of a nuclear exchange. But that and SolarWinds as well. He's been -- they've done some mischievous things, to say the least. And so we're gonna have -- I'm not gonna announce what I'm doing, but he's gonna understand that --

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: How about Mohammad --

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: -- it's not free.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: -- bin Salman? You said during the campaign that you would personally punish the Saudi leaders if they were found to be responsible for this death of Khashoggi. They were found to be responsible. Mohammad bin Salman -- Salman was found to be responsible. He was found to have acknol -- authorized it. Yet, you didn't personally sanction him.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Well --

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Why not?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Three things. One, I'm the guy that released the report. That report had been done for a while. It wasn't released. I insisted it be released, number one. Number two, when I spoke to the king, I made it clear to the king -- the king, his father, that things were gonna change. And I insisted on several things. Number one, we held accountable all the people in that organization --

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But not the crown prince?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Not the crown prince because we have never, that I'm aware of, when we have an alliance with a country, gone to the acting head of state and punished that person. And -- and -- ostracized him. But here's the deal. We said, number one, end the war in Yemen. End the starvation there.

The double-standard there (calling Putin “a killer” and also threatening him — all based on evidence that’s incomplete and dubious — but holding harmless Crown Prince Salman, against whom the evidence that he is a “killer” is indisputable) is probably obvious to everyone except Joe Biden himself. Furthermore, it’s even worse than that, because the Sauds wouldn’t have invaded Yemen if the U.S. hadn’t supported them in doing so — it was always a war by the Saudi, UAE, and U.S., Governments, to exterminate the Houthis in Yemen. Biden, too — and far more clearly — is a “killer.” Also, Biden’s publicly announced 100% trust in what the U.S. Director of National Intelligence says is grotesque, given the U.S. ‘intelligence’ community’s 100% record of neoconservative lies which were always accepted unquestioningly by Biden and which were cited by him as being reasons why the U.S. should invade Iraq, Libya, Syria, and other countries that the U.S. has invaded and destroyed. Who exceeds that record, as a “killer” (in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and more)?

Furthermore: Biden’s retrospectively now pontificating “We said, number one, end the war in Yemen. End the starvation there” is the exact opposite of what had been his position as the U.S. Vice President under Obama, because he was always even more of a neocon than his boss Obama was, and his boss was complicit with Crown Prince bin Salman al-Saud and with UAE’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in perpetrating this extermination-campaign in Yemen. The U.S. leadership is an international war criminal in Yemen. These late pontifications, from America’s new President, don’t diminish that guilt.

Biden’s holier-than-thou hypocrisy was being displayed there for all to see, in any nation where the press would choose to broadcast it. His especially targeted object of contempt in this particular matter, the head of state in the other nuclear superpower, Vladimir Putin, took advantage of that hypocritical public display, not only by responding to it in a gentlemanly fashion, but by challenging the U.S. President to allow the world community to listen-in on, and to view live in real time, their next conversation.

On March 18th, Reuters headlined “Putin offers Biden public talks after U.S. president says he thinks he is a killer”, and reported that “President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he and U.S. President Joe Biden should hold talks in coming days that would be broadcast live, after Biden said he thought the Russian leader was a killer and bilateral ties sank to a new post-Cold War low.” Their report continued:

“I want to offer President Biden to continue our discussion but on the condition that we do it live, online, without any delays but in an open, direct discussion,” Putin said, asked in a television interview about Biden’s comments. The two leaders last spoke by telephone on Jan. 26 soon after Biden took office. …

Suggesting Biden was hypocritical in his remarks, Putin said that every state had to contend with “bloody events” and added Biden was accusing the Russian leader of something he was guilty of himself.

“I remember in my childhood, when we argued in the courtyard with each other we used to say: it takes one to know one. And that’s not a coincidence, not just a children’s saying or joke. The psychological meaning here is very deep,” Putin said.

“We always see our own traits in other people and think they are like how we really are. And as a result we assess (a person’s) activities and give assessments,” he said.

Biden has the same holier-than-thou ‘policy’ on Iran: he demands that though the U.S. — under Trump — broke the Iran deal, America won’t even negotiate for a return to it unless Iran will first come back into full compliance with it and (in addition) reduce its missile forces (which weren’t part of that deal). On March 19th, the Washington Post headlined “Biden’s window with Iran is starting to close”.

The big bully, the U.S., under its new President, is having a big tantrum. So: What’s new? How will he respond when the nations that he hates and demands to conquer reject what he ‘offers’ for their capitulation? Will it be yet more invasions by the U.S.? Whom will that benefit, except, perhaps, corporations such as Lockheed Martin?

As regards Putin’s offer to have a live telecast debate with Biden, the White House promptly said that the U.S. President is too busy to do that.

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NOTE regarding “GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So you know Vladimir Putin. You think he's a killer? PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Uh-huh. I do. … It was when President Bush had said, ‘I looked in his eyes and saw his soul.’”:

This type of U.S. Presidential talking about Putin goes back to the following interview of George W. Bush on 29 May 2003 (which Biden correctly quoted there but turned now against Putin):

My main focus has been to deal with Vladimir Putin, leader to leader, because I firmly believe that if we can establish trust between each other, then we can see to it that others in our administration begin to trust each other more. And trust is an important concept.

I never forget my first question I was asked, after having met Vladimir Putin in Slovenia [in 2001], was from an enterprising U.S. reporter. He said, "Do you trust Vladimir Putin?" And I, without hesitating, said, "Yes." And he said, "How do you know?" I said, "I looked in his eyes and saw his soul."

We had just come from a very long conversation where we talked about family matters and we talked about our own personal lives. And I found in Vladimir a very genuine person, somebody with whom I could place my trust. And that doesn't mean we agree on every issue; don't get me wrong. But it does mean that we have the platform necessary to have good, positive relations so we can move our relations throughout our Government forward.

Obviously, Biden starts so deeply prejudiced so that he is even less intelligent, and more hostile toward Russia, than was George W. Bush, who had said he “looked in his eyes and saw his soul.” Biden says, instead, he saw no “soul”, but just a “killer.”

Biden, ever the plagiarizer, is actually picking up, there, not only from Bush but from Bush’s ‘Defense’ Secretary Robert M. Gates’s 2007 comment, which Gates repeated in 2014, that "I had looked into Putin’s eyes and I saw a stone cold killer." Whereas Gates was plagiarizing from Bush and turned it against Putin, Biden plagiarized Gates’s twisted-negative version of Bush’s favorable comment.

This is what a ‘democracy’ gets from having the owners of its mega-corporations, such as Lockheed Martin — corporations that thrive on invasions — be also the predominant funders of its political Parties. The result isn’t democracy; it is imperialism; and that’s what had produced both of the Twentieth Century’s two World Wars, and could be on the way toward producing this Century’s WW III.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

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