Since 2014, The Weekly Bystander has been nominating qualified candidates for the “Bystander Hall of Shame.” As usual there can be many nominees for 2021. New York seems to be a spawning ground for nominees starting with disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo, and his brother Chris Cuomo who lost his coveted post at CNN for ethics violations, both personal and journalistic. Of course, former NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio has finally departed with the reputation as the worst mayor ever to serve in the Big Apple.
But why bother with nominations when the clear winner for 2021 is President Joe Biden whose first year in office has been truly shameful. Actually, Biden has practically nominated himself. You may recall that during the 2020 Presidential debates he blamed President Trump for the Covid deaths of over 200,000 people, and insisted that “anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as President of the United States of America.”
A few weeks ago an editorial in the Wall Street Journal pointed out that there have been over 400,000 Covid related deaths during the first year of the Biden administration. Nevertheless, the President refuses to remove himself from office.
I am not blaming President Biden for the Covid deaths during his administration but his induction into the Hall of Shame is due to his blaming others, and then not taking any responsibility himself.
Just as shameful is his consistent refusal to give former President Donald Trump any credit for the development of the vaccines that he now believes should be mandated for every American. It is as if Operation Warp Speed never existed.
A few days ago he put the icing on the cake by claiming that dealing with the pandemic was not a matter for the Federal government but should be left to the states.
Blaming President Trump for Covid deaths will go down as one of the most shameful deeds not only in Joe Biden’s long career, but also in the history of the USA. He could have gone a long way to heal the Nation’s divisions by awarding former President Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence the Presidential Medal of Honor for their efforts in promoting the speedy development of the vaccines.
At a rare press conference yesterday, President Biden claimed that he had accomplished more in his first year in office than any other President in history. This rank hyperbole can only be viewed as a shameful attempt to cover a variety of misdeeds that would have led Democrats to impeach President Trump over and over again.
Who can forget the chaotic manner in which our troops withdrew from Afghanistan? Who can overlook the chaos on our southern border that Vice-President Kamala Harris was supposed to take care of? Policy mistakes and failures are not necessarily shameful, but failing to acknowledge that inflation exists or that the government has anything to do with it is shameful. President Biden wants to tax the rich, but inflation is a cruel tax on everyone, rich and poor.
Finally, President Biden came into office last year after winning a narrow victory in a hotly contested election. His party had a slim margin in the House of Representatives, and a 50/50 Senate. He claimed that he wanted to heal and unify the Nation but then went on not to court the opposition but to vilify his opponents. Senator Mitch Mc Connell said after President’s Biden’s recent speech in Georgia that he did not recognize the man he had longed worked with in the Senate. It is hard to say whether the President’s failure to seek compromise is his fault or the fault of his handlers, but it is a shameful departure from the long course of American politics.
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