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DFW

(54,055 posts)
Fri Mar 12, 2021, 05:53 AM Mar 2021

What Biden REALLY needs to do (and he's doing it)

What Joe Biden needs to do is ignore all the newspaper op-ed pieces, blog posts, and TV pundits saying with definitive authority, "Biden needs to (fill in your pet issue here)."

He has his agenda, and is acting faster on the legislative end than any president in recent times. Any president can issue executive orders, and he has done his share of that, too, but the real work is the legislative end. He can't do that by himself, and needs Congress and his VP to work with him to make it happen.

Maybe (probably?) his decades-long experience in the Senate gives him a unique perspective/insight on how the whole process works, and where the pitfalls lie. He was the one candidate among them all who knew better than anyone what obstacles Moscow Mitch had in his arsenal to throw against him. He didn't spend his Senate years--not to mention his own 8 years as VP-- going out and making speeches and selling his own brand. He was in the thick of the process, and thus knew where the potholes in the road lay before he got to them. I'm quite sure he knows he can't avoid them all, but he will be better than most others at avoiding them.

At his age, Joe Biden knows the clock is against him, and he's acting accordingly. He knows that most people expect him to be a one-term president. But so far, he has proved he has every intention of making the most of what time he has, and that he has the will and the presence of mind to do it. Now, it could very well be that his initial success comes for the very reason that he has stunned the opposition with his very speed and skillful maneuvering. Maybe they will quickly regroup and mount a far more effective opposition from here on in. However, he has a hell of head start, and the initiative, while the Republicans are still rubbing their eyes like a deer in the headlights. I hope they will be rubbing their eyes for a long time.

There is no doubt that Joe Biden has his own wish list about 200 feet long. The last thing I will do is be so arrogant as to think mine is more important than his.

Ergo, for now, I will keep my own wish list in my pocket instead of on the chest of my T shirt. Joe Biden isn't "Brownie." He really IS doing a "heck of a job." Far be it from me to tell him what he's doing wrong, and, especially, what it is that he "needs to do."

9 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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What Biden REALLY needs to do (and he's doing it) (Original Post) DFW Mar 2021 OP
Well said. And we're seeing and feeling the benefits of not only Joe's experience abqtommy Mar 2021 #1
An excellent commentary. n/t. NNadir Mar 2021 #2
American Rescue Act - 12 million adults, half of poor kids, speak easy Mar 2021 #3
Or else, they will only see the other half. DFW Mar 2021 #6
Why bring up his age? gab13by13 Mar 2021 #4
Because you're ALWAYS "quite healthy" until you're not DFW Mar 2021 #5
This 10,000 % msfiddlestix Mar 2021 #7
I had just seen one more "Biden Needs To...." than I could take DFW Mar 2021 #8
Yeppers.. msfiddlestix Mar 2021 #9

abqtommy

(14,118 posts)
1. Well said. And we're seeing and feeling the benefits of not only Joe's experience
Fri Mar 12, 2021, 06:50 AM
Mar 2021

but the experience of most of our Democrats in and out of the national and local
governments. It looks to me that what we've all learned in dealing with the reTHUGS
over time has paid off in being able to use our knowledge and motivation to take over
and prevail every day in every way.

speak easy

(9,101 posts)
3. American Rescue Act - 12 million adults, half of poor kids,
Fri Mar 12, 2021, 07:45 AM
Mar 2021

lifted out of poverty. As if the pundits give a flying fuck about the poor.

DFW

(54,055 posts)
6. Or else, they will only see the other half.
Fri Mar 12, 2021, 10:44 AM
Mar 2021

One way or another, it's never OK that he has gotten off to a great start.

And, no, most pundits aren't interested in much more than the ratings. There are exceptions (Norm Ornstein comes to mind).

gab13by13

(20,867 posts)
4. Why bring up his age?
Fri Mar 12, 2021, 07:49 AM
Mar 2021

He is quite healthy. I found the article depressing. Who gives a darn what the conservative MSM thinks.

President Biden is amazing and is doing amazing things for our country. eom.

DFW

(54,055 posts)
5. Because you're ALWAYS "quite healthy" until you're not
Fri Mar 12, 2021, 08:37 AM
Mar 2021

My own father was the very image of great health at age 77. He ran daily, had a figure like a model, and could beat guys 20 years his junior at tennis every week. Until one day, at a tennis game with neighbors, one of them commented he was looking a little yellow. He saw a physician the next day, still feeling great, and the doc said that something might be very wrong. It was. He had pancreatic cancer, and didn't live another year.

Not everyone is Tito or Mugabe. The fact is that deadly diseases or strokes can hit without warning, and the chances of it happening are greater with advancing age. Maybe he'll be perfectly fine at age 82. But betting the future of the country on that is a risk, and I think he is far too much of a pragmatist to ignore that.

DFW

(54,055 posts)
8. I had just seen one more "Biden Needs To...." than I could take
Sat Mar 13, 2021, 04:19 AM
Mar 2021

If all of these people know better than anyone else what Biden needs to do, then they should have run against him in the primaries. A whole roster of people who knew „what Biden needs to do“ better than he did all lost to Joe Biden. The only one he publicly told to shut up was Trump, but there are plenty who still deserve it.

msfiddlestix

(7,265 posts)
9. Yeppers..
Sat Mar 13, 2021, 01:17 PM
Mar 2021

I've been "off line" and tuned out to media for the past day.. Still not ready to "tune in" to the whiny blubbering blather.

Just sick to death of it. It's like let's all just pretend the last five years of nightmarish hell didn't happen. Or the last fifty years didn't happen. Some good things, but a lot of bad....

Stuff we once referred to as dumbya's reign of terror. But for the United States be led by a sociopathic psychotic, and still be "popular" by significant numbers is something I never imagined would happen here.

No one can predict how long Biden will be able to implement the broad sweeping measures (I never imagined he would be willing to do) he wants to see implemented. Neither can he, and he is working every moment like it could be his last. And that alone needs to be applauded.

I don't know quite how to put it, but Biden is far more brilliant and perceptive in terms of the depth of the issues than I ever gave him credit for. It maybe a factor of a number of things, growing self awareness and evolving on a myriad of socio-economic inequities and other issues, the experience he had in the Oval office with Barack Obama's tenure, all of the above and more. I really don't care. I care about what he's apparently learned and how he is putting those lessons learned front and center and doing it with courage and resolve. and I respect and admire him greatly for it.

Sorry for the somewhat incoherent ramblings. I'm just going leave it here. I have my granddaughter with me and we're off to enjoy our time together.








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