Chris Christie nearly had me … then he nearly lost me.
I was prepared to anoint the former New Jersey governor as my favorite Republican running for president in 2024. Then he popped off with a statement on TV this weekend in which he declared Joe Biden to be the “most incompetent president since Jimmy Carter.”
Ouch, man!
OK, let me try to clear a couple of things up. First, President Carter was far from an incompetent chief executive. He scored a couple of huge foreign-policy triumphs, starting with the Israel-Egypt peace treaty as well as turning over the Panama Canal to the Panamanians. Carter has gotten a bum rap for the past 40-plus years and I am one American who is sick of it.
Second, I am still trying to determine where in the world these GOP pretenders keep seeing “incompetence” on the part of President Biden.
Joe Biden has managed, while facing the MAGA-led caucus in Congress, to do a number of memorable deeds. With the help of Democrats, we have an infrastructure improvement bill enacted; Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act that saves jobs and cuts the deficit by billions of bucks; we have policies aimed directly at battling climate change; the president and the GOP speaker of the House cobbled together a package that takes the debt ceiling non-crisis off the table for two years; the jobless rate has dropped to historic lows.
On Biden’s watch, we are adding hundreds of thousands of jobs each month; we are aiding Ukraine in its war against naked aggression by Russia; our European alliances are stronger than ever.
To be clear, Biden’s term hasn’t been perfect. I have never said it has been.
Chris Christie is repeating the MAGA mantra about presidential incompetence because it plays well with the slobbering GOP base that buys into issues such as The Big Lie and goofy QAnon conspiracies.
I will give Christie credit for taking on directly the immense personal and political failures of the 45th POTUS. It doesn’t give him license, though, to repeat the lies about POTUS No. 46, Joseph R. Biden Jr.
C’mon, Gov. Christie. If you expect many of us to take you seriously, you need to stick with the facts. Here is one fact worth remembering: Joe Biden has gotten more done in the first half of a term than any president in history.