Tomorrow is the State of the Union. It’s weirdly late for SOTU, which is usually in February, but the speech comes at an extraordinarily propitious moment — at least for foreign policy. Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have effectively sewn up their respective primary processes, and we’re well on our way to 2020, the sequel. The only potential spoiler is a third party candidate… Maybe Nikki Haley? More on that later. First, SOTU.
Biden could actually play the leader at his third State of the Union. Could. Now, foreign policy is our jam here, though our listeners know all too well that Marc and I have harped on addressing immigration, crime, and inflation — as if somehow Team Biden lived under a rock and couldn’t figure that out. But last year, despite Russia’s war in Ukraine, growing threats from China, Iran’s advancing nuclear program etc, Biden didn’t get to foreign policy until 10:06 (SOTU starts at 9 pm). And even then, it got barely two sentences. That has to change.
Congress has been dithering over the passage of a supplemental aid bill that will aid both Ukraine and Israel in their ongoing defense, and support Taiwan to defend itself as China inches toward invasion. We’ve seen every iteration of this package — with border provisions, without the border, only Israel, loans for Ukraine, separate, together, you name it. What we have not seen is any presidential leadership.
Yeah yeah, Republicans are at daggers drawn with each other. And not just Republicans. JD Vance, Rand Paul, and Bernie Sanders have an unholy alliance uniting hating on Israel, hating on Ukraine, hoping desperately for our allies to lose to our enemies. But you know what? They are not the majority of their parties. What is needed is for a sane bill to come up that does what’s necessary to help our allies win their wars, protects our country from the predations at the southern border and boom — that’s it. But there’s a key missing ingredient: Joe Biden.
At the SOTU, there are two ways Biden can handle Congress’s obstreperousness: He can attack Republicans for siding with Putin, or he can rally the majority of Democrats and Republicans to move forward with an assistance package that gets Ukraine and Israel, in particular, the weapons they need. Which will it be?
A leader would rally members to his side, underscoring these are AMERICAN national interests, that Russia and Iran and Hamas are enemies of the United States at war with our friends. That Congress has been a stalwart in aiding our friends.
A partisan would announce that the Democrats are the party of freedom and democracy and the Republicans are the party of Putin and dictatorship.
Which play will Biden make? Here’s what NBC News says:
In his State of the Union speech this week, President Joe Biden will pose a question that he hopes will answer itself: Whose side are you on?
Are Americans, as he’ll frame it, on the side of lower health care costs, democratic freedoms and Ukraine’s fight to keep itself from being swallowed up by Russia? Or on the side of drug company profits, tax breaks for the wealthy and Russia’s autocratic leader Vladimir Putin?
Needless to say, the “whose side are you on” speech will win no converts, and offend even those inclined to support a supplemental. But that’s always been the problem: Biden — and more importantly, his staff — care more about the politics than the policy. They care more about scoring off their opponents than about getting stuff done. This has been the MO of the Biden administration from the outset, notwithstanding his inaugural pledge to unite Americans.
It’s a crying shame we don’t have leaders who want to lead.
PS I teased Nikki Haley at the outset, and here’s what’s on my mind. In the podcast we’re releasing tomorrow, the pollster Mark Penn underscored that if there was ever going to be a year for a third party, this was it. No one wants to see the Biden-Trump movie again. But when I asked him about the so-called sore loser laws that could keep Haley off the ballot for a No Labels run, he said they wouldn’t pass constitutional muster. I’ll be trying to dig more into that in the coming days. No matter what, it’s an interesting question.
Whenever I look at Joe Biden and his administration … I can almost hear that popular Leonard Cohen song playing in the background; the song “Everybody Knows.”
Check it out and see if this song doesn’t become an instant jingle tune in your head whenever Biden is on the news.
Refer to: https://youtu.be/mnfoUJxI2dM?si=-ACnDLYuKMrGafP2
IMO, this would be a most appropriate song playing in the background on a loop during the Biden SOTU tomorrow night.
Everybody knows that Joe’s a crony … everybody knows that he sold out too. 🎶
Everybody knows that Joe isn’t thinking … everybody knows that he’s way past due. 🎶
(My suggested additions to the song.)
I think when Cohen came up with this song, during the 1980s, it was meant as a critique against Reagan. But it’s funny how a work of art transcends the artist and can come to have a new and different meaning as new events and issues occur.
Another good example is John Carpenter’s (who is a big liberal, but still a good director) 1980s sci-fi political thriller “They Live.” This too was also produced as a critique of 80s Reaganism, capitalism, consumerism, etc.
But if you were to watch this movie now, especially what with cancel culture, leftwing conformity, “wokeism” and shadow banning so much the norm now, the themes of this movie now seem particularly salient and very appropriate for our current times.
https://youtu.be/DPZOi8EgcYM?si=dmcnh1I-4zGrelyR
The late great conservative mensch Andrew Breitbart had a brilliant observation … “politics is downstream of culture.”
This adage seems especially true in these rather surreal times we are living in.
In the meantime, many of us feel like we’re just crawling from the wreckage, especially on this day after “Super Tuesday” … g’day!
https://flic.kr/p/2peRJM8
It is no surprise that NBC news, or most mm would WANT to frame the sotu as which side are you on. Controversy works for them. Í don't think Ukraine defense spending should be tied to border reform but I can understand why this happened. Most Americans would support Ukraine if you explain that this isn't like Iraq or Afghanistan. We can actually make a difference in supporting a new democracy. My Congressional Representative Elise Stefanik has put forward a bill to ensure that money going to Ukraine goes were it is supposed to. Not like what happened in Afghanistan. And most Americans would support border reform. Biden should make it clear to the far left that open borders are BAD for immigrants and for us. I voted for Biden because he wasn't Trump and he wasn't woke. He only pursued woke tropes to gain support and votes,imo. He would be better off(and so would the country) to go to the center and stay there.