Biden's big COVID bill proves a lot of his critics wrong
How Joe Biden could end up being the most transformative president since FDR
By HEATHER DIGBY PARTON
MARCH 12, 2021 2:38PM (UTC)
Anew book by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes about Joe Biden's campaign for president is called "Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency," which seems like an unnecessarily disparaging title about a man who won a decisive popular vote victory in the midst of a global pandemic. But, I guess, that's just the way politics goes these days. I haven't read the book but early reviews focus on the fact that nobody, even Biden's former boss Barack Obama and former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (whom the authors call the "vampire in the bullpen"
thought he had a chance and were, apparently, not afraid to say so. It sounds like the typical campaign book gossip, which is fine as far as it goes, but the truth is that in 2019 I don't think anyone but Biden's family and team thought he was the strongest candidate to beat Donald Trump.
It was assumed that the 2020 campaign would be a bare-knuckled brawl and that the Democrats should put up someone who would relish going toe-to-toe with Trump. It was going to be a very big show and Biden's old school political style didn't have the razzle-dazzle most people thought would be necessary to compete with The Trump Show. But, as we know, everything changed in the first months of 2020 and the world suddenly got very serious. I don't know if the Democratic electorate had some sort of collective instinct or it was, as the title of the book implies, just a matter of luck, but in that moment of great fear and anxiety, Joe Biden, with his years of experience and what felt like calm, compassionate wisdom, rose to the top of the field and eventual victory.
That weird political moment provided an opening for a leader with empathy, the word that's so often referenced in relation to coverage of Biden that it's become like his middle name. But I wouldn't call it lucky.
With the country reeling from five years of a bizarre political circus topped off by over half a million dead and an economic catastrophe for tens of millions, good presidential leadership requires equal measures of humanity and competence. And while I think most people had confidence in Biden's ability to handle the first, the second was harder to predict. So far, it's looking pretty positive on that front as well.
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https://www.salon.com/2021/03/12/bidens-big-covid-bill-proves-a-lot-of-his-critics-wrong/
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and lost it by TWICE as much in 2020 -- why wasn't that worth mentioning? Why is it so far out of the realm of possibility that Trump's popularity could have simply diminished, especially with the help of his big lies, race-baiting, Mafia don management style, dementia symptoms, and pandemic fumbling?
But this is very typical of Salon, who crowned Tupac Shakur as the patron saint of "black boy rage" without noting that it was black boy rage that crucified him; and allowed us to be lectured on the differences between bad sex and rape by someone who didn't mention that her sex life began at the age of four via her own father. And by the way, Salon, how does a book that hasn't been read get reviewed in the first place?
Rocknation
