To see a list of previous articles, enter “Ukraine” in the Search Box on the upper right, on The Trenchant Observer web site, and you will see a list in chronological order.

Dispatches

1) Alistair Heath, “Joe Biden is president in name only but the US establishment refuses to admit it; For how much longer will we have to put up with the catastrophe of this gaffe-prone administration?” The Telegraph, March 30, 2022 (9:30 p.m.);

2) Bonnie Berkowitz and Artur Galocha, “Why Russia’s military is bogged down by logistics in Ukraine,” Washington Post, March 30, 2022 (10:17 a.m. EDT).

This article provides a highly detailed description and analysis of Russia’s logistical problems in supporting its invasion force in Ukraine.

3) “Ukraine War, March 28, 2022: Strengthening ‘the president we have,'” ThenTrenchant Observer, March 27, 2022.

Commentary

It is sometimes hard to find cogent criticisms of Joe Biden or the Biden Administration in the New York Times, except for the always pro-Republican and usually shrill columnists Henry Olsen and Marc Thiessen. I don’t know why the Times gives them a soap box, despite their always predictable Republican positions. I suppose it is to maintain subscriptions among the Times’ Republican readers.

So, I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, which can print good op-eds that are critical of Biden but in a more or less objective way. Recently they have published a few op-eds and an Editorial on Biden which largely hit valid points, even if a political punch occasionally finds its way into the article.

The Journal also hosts Michael R. Gordon, who for many years was the outstanding military historian of the New York Times, and Peggy Noonan whose weekly column is usually good reading.

But the best and most objective criticism of Biden and his personal performance is often to be found in the British newspaper The Telegraph. The criticism there seems to lack the feral personal antagonism to Biden one finds so often in the United States. The amount of vitriol in such articles is usually low. The focus seems to be more on what we can do to alleviate the problems Biden’s inadequacies cause.

Heath describes Biden as follows:

America is in desperate need of a determined and visionary leader, but has found itself stuck with an ineffective, erratic and gaffe-addled figurehead. Joe Biden is US President in name only, the weakest, least powerful holder of that office for over a century. He isn’t America’s de facto chief executive, let alone its commander-in-chief. He is, at best, non-executive chairman, even if polite opinion in Washington is desperate to keep up the charade that the buck stops with him.

The Telegraph can also say, at a safe distance from across the Atlantic, things that are obviously true but which offend certain Democratic sensibilities. One example is the simple statement that Kamala Harris is unqualified to become president, and was chosen only because of Democratic identity politics. These statements are quite true, but are simply noted in passing as one reason we are stuck with Joe Biden for another three years.

In a sense, Joe Biden has become America’s Leonid Brezhnev, whose infirmities could not be acknowledged because that would have threatened the entire coterie of people surrounding him.

Alistair Heath makes a number of telling points in explaining how Biden appears to be always guided by his subordinates.

Nonetheless, whatever Biden’s shortcomings may be, as the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board has memorably pointed out, “He is the president we have.”

Our challenge is to figure out ways to buttress his presidency, so that at least in the foreign policy arena the nation’s interests are protected, and its unique leadership role in NATO and the world is used to maximum effect in confronting the immense challenge posed by Putin and Russian barbarism.

The Trenchant Observer