The storm had already claimed the lives of at least two people in China's Hainan and 16 people in the Philippines
Is it just me who’s thinking that the Press is going soft on Joe Biden in the early days of his presidency? Perhaps the media is giving him some time and a long rope to settle into the job though he’s been a Washington insider for most of his life. They didn’t give Trump that option at the start of his presidency if I remember right. But let bygones be bygones in the re-United States of America as the liberals would like us to believe.
The new president has escaped scrutiny while the Press is more concerned about the fashion sense of Vice-President Kamala Harris, from her Converse shoes to her purple inauguration dress. Biden, however, is a cut above when he sports a $7,000 Rolex during his first signing outing at the Oval Office. The mainstream Press didn’t watch that wrist, but the tabloids wrestled with it. Elitist maybe. He didn’t look like the commoner’s Joe that his acolytes portray him to be.
Nevertheless, I like uncle Joseph; I really do. Joe, if I may call him that, has had it tough for most of close to five decades in public life. I like his grit, his fortitude for making both a personal and political comeback after losing his wife and baby daughter in a road accident four decades ago.
His sons Hunter and Beau survived the crash and Joe has admitted in interviews that he contemplated suicide as he nursed his sons back to health in those dark says. But he fought back for his family and country and here is, as President of the greatest democracy on the planet.
Joe later lost Beau to brain cancer and I have been a fan of the man who I would call the master of modern comebacks to make it to his country’s highest office, though I despise the make-believe niceness that his Democratic party seeks to espouse. I like Joe because he never gave up on his dream since making his first pitch for president in 1988 when a plagiarism scandal wrecked his campaign.
Personal tragedy has made him the president that he is. It could define and dictate his actions, and what he wants to be remembered for as commander in chief. Or is it too early to judge the family man who wants to be perceived as everyman and woman’s leader? I still can’t get that watch out of mind and I am tempted to think he will be a sugar-coated president who will be easily forgiven by the Press if he trespasses, which will do great harm to the neutrality of the media, or what is left of the virtue that few believe in.
At the moment, Joe is taking off from where Barack Obama left in 2016. This is Obama 2.0. Better safe than sorry. No gaffes so far, just the right words, or none at all since he made that unity speech during the inauguration. But he’s a man who appears to be in a hurry to get things done, or rescind some of his predecessor’s unpopular decisions like the ban on people from some Muslim countries that was racist at its core.
He’s tightened Covid rules, a healthy change from the Trump era, and has asked staff to be polite to each other in an age of political and ideological rudeness. Sounds good, but he’s not out there to take those tough questions yet. Trump loved the spotlight and the jousting with the Press. Joe may let his team take the hard ones from the media which won’t be fun to watch.
The media likes him because he hasn’t strayed on to the stage yet. He appears to be controlled than one being in control. Will he be an inward-looking president focused on domestic policy and the economy, or will he have a masterplan for global health that will lead us out of this pandemic crisis? How he’ll deal with the tough issues like Iran or China when he steps on that stage, is also uppermost in many minds.
Bringing Iran in from the cold without curbing its nuclear and missile ambitions would be a bad idea. The last time Obama tried it, the regime got away mildly and used the reprieve to stock up on missiles and promote its proxies. The deal was to cap the nuclear programme for 10 years. Iran behaves well, and all would be well in the Middle East, the dealmakers led by the US, EU, China and Russia imagined. That did not happen, and I hope Joe does not go down that path again.
Now that the deal has been shelved and with Tehran continuing to fan sectarian strife and propping up proxies in the region like the Houthis, Hezbollah and the Syrian regime, it would be interesting to see how Biden deals with these rabid warmongers in the Middle East.
Who knows, Biden may be biding his time as former president Trump’s impeachment gets under way in the Senate. I hope uncle Joe hits the ground running and the media gets to ask him those pressing questions. The clock, sorry $7,000 Rolex is ticking, Mr President.
– allan@khaleejtimes.com
The storm had already claimed the lives of at least two people in China's Hainan and 16 people in the Philippines
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