"... with an amoral, would-be autocrat in the White House — versus how we’re finishing it. It’s because I don’t measure my presidents solely by the price of gas, the firmness of their grip on their political party or their odds of re-election. There is more to life, and to leadership, than that. Is Biden’s performance in the presidency superior to what another Democrat’s would be? I can’t say. It’s indisputably flawed.... But that doesn’t change the fact that what our country needed a little over a year ago was an end to President Donald Trump, and what Biden provided was just that.... To go by polls, Americans are judging Biden harshly, and many have soured on him.... But that doesn’t erase Biden’s fundamental decency. That doesn’t eliminate his capacity for empathy. Did his predecessor possess either? Not that I could tell. And as I try, in the spirit of the holiday season, to point you away from gloom and toward something, well, merrier...."
Frank Bruni dispenses wan Christmas cheer (in the NYT).
Readjust your expectations for Biden, and he's just fine. I note that it's a readjustment back to what he purported to be when he was running for President. I'm glad to see the bigger ideas shelved. Settle down and appreciate the good-enough.
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141 comments:
Just love it.
"Fundamental decency" and "capacity for empathy"
What rock has he been hiding under for the past 40 years?
Ah yes, Biden’s “fundamental decency” and capacity for “empathy” as noted by Frank Bruni.
JB is the same guy who simply laughed at and walked away from a reporter who asked him (using candidate Biden’s standard) about his responsibility for hundreds of thousands of COViD deaths.
You’d have to have a heart of stone to not laugh at the contortions the press goes through to cover up (well, at least attempt to cover up) for this political thug.
Ah yes, Biden’s “fundamental decency” and capacity for “empathy” as noted by Frank Bruni.
JB is the same guy who simply laughed at and walked away from a reporter who asked him (using candidate Biden’s standard) about his responsibility for hundreds of thousands of COViD deaths.
You’d have to have a heart of stone to not laugh at the contortions the press goes through to cover up (well, at least attempt to cover up) for this political thug.
Delusional Disorder, some are so afflicted.
Low bar.
To summarize: After Trump, it's all good. How could it not be?
It’s because I don’t measure my presidents solely by the price of gas, the firmness of their grip on their political party or their odds of re-election.
That's good, because your president* sucks at all three.
"But that doesn’t erase Biden’s fundamental decency." Yeah right. Look back at the way Biden treated Clarence Thomas. He's an evil, divisive human being.
"Settle down and appreciate the good-enough."
My apolitical son recently commented to me on the Biden's presidency: "Never seen such incompetence."
I am more harsh. The country is circling the drain. Biden is accelerating it at a rapid rate. We have little chance of recovering.
The WH talking points have gone out. All the NPCs on twitter have been bleating "Decency and Empathy!" for the past few days.
would-be autocrat in the White House
Frank obviously hasn't been tracking covid mandates on everybody except Gov unions like USPS
- health care workers (note not teachers)
- Fed employees
- Fed contractors no matter how indirect
- all business over 100 staff
but not state or local gov even though the funds flow gives him the leverage
This is good enough? WTF?!
Life was good before Chi-Com get-chi-com-crooks elected virus showed up.
Life was good under Orange Man Bad.
the left are banning Natural Gas... one municipality at a time.
Whatever you do - don't call the left "autocratic"
New York Times progressives preaching to their hivemind.
When my friends were celebrating Biden's win I cautioned that while it's good to move on from Trump we're just going back to three decades of failed neocon foreign policy and failed neo liberal economic policy.
It's what comes after Biden that will be truly transformative.
When my friends were celebrating Biden's win I cautioned that while it's good to move on from Trump we're just going back to three decades of failed neocon foreign policy and failed neo liberal economic policy.
It's what comes after Biden that will be truly transformative.
"Good Enough"
(feat. Jussie Smollett)
(from "Original Soundtrack From Season 1 Of Empire" soundtrack)
I gave you all of me
But it still ain't enough to make you happy
I gave you everything
It still don't measure up
It feels like I walked five thousand miles
And didn't even come close
Feels like I try to make you smile
But you don't even care, no
I'll never be big enough to pay your dues
But I keep trying
And you just keep making me jump through hoops
What do I got to do?
In other words:
Biden has been a train wreck. Covid, the economy, Afghanistan, inflation, general ineffectiveness, the list goes on. When viewed through an objective lens and when subjected to the ordinary scrutiny of past presidents, Joe Biden has been an unmitigated disaster of a president and is running the country into the ground. It's ok to acknowledge - how could you not? - that life is worse because Biden is in charge.
But there is one name, the mention of which can make the tremendous loss of life and of life savings this president has caused seem acceptable. One man without whom all the intelligent people could agree that our current situation is desperately dire.
Trump.
So while I recognize the disaster that continues to unfold at the expense of my fellow Americans, I'm thankful to Trump for having saved Brandon's presidency.
Other than not being Trump, what has Biden done?
And it seems clear that Joe has been bribed by foreigners via Hunter. Why doesn’t Frank Bruni care about that?
What strange power one man can have over an entire political party and the culture that sustains it.
What will the Democratic party do when Trump is gone? He can withdraw from public life and destroy them at the time of his choosing. Without him, they have nothing to unify against.
Well, except America and Americans. This is going to be interesting to watch. Unfortunately, I can't see us getting through it without some hostile entity trying to take a shot at us out of the opportunity this will create. I take COVID as a case lesson on how things can get out of hand. Time to start another pot of coffee...
A handy example from AA of why discourse is so difficult. The columnist has no difficulty telling us the earth is flat.
What this country needed was to have its governance returned to career politicians and life long bureaucrats. They are never immoral or autocratic. Got it.
Basically nothing left other than "no mean tweets."
Don't forget about Biden desegregating restaurants and movie theaters before driving an 18-wheeler to Africa but getting arrested before he could visit his pal Nelson Mandela. :-(
This is insane. Trump is an autocrat just because he says he is, just as Biden is decent and moral because he says so.
I can't fathom why they hate Trump so much, unless it's only about abortion and immigration rhetoric.
No expectations, no disappointments. No joy either.
I've been waiting for this argument or figured that somewhere someone has already been making it, Biden's disastrous Presidency is not a failure if we accept that the only thing that matters is that he's not Trump.
I could be enraged if I were willing to work at it, whenever I read or hear someone spouting that Joe Biden is a decent human being. This is the Big Lie.
The only president of the modern age who actually rolled back the power of the presidency. Yeah, that guy’s an autocrat. Has Frank Bruni ever had a thought that wasn’t dictated to him by the Democratic Party? Sure, the presidency isn’t about competent governance, it is about no more mean tweets. Of course he writes for The New York Times.
Biden is better than literally Hitler.
“He’s still not Trump!” Not exactly the most encouraging slogan I’ve ever heard.
I think the dummie is wearing his mask over his eyes- as I tell my 18yr old: there are none so blind as those who refuse to see…
Merry Christmas Eve.
We are learning a lot about the human mind as libtards like Bruni talk about Trump and anyone but Trump. I am always struck by their claims about reading Trump’s mind. Would be dictator? What did Trump ever do to show this? He respected the law (redefining his travel ban to suit the court) and did not try to take away fundamental individual rights like Biden is attempting in the vaccine mandates. He worked very hard to enforce the laws such as on the border. Brandon ignores the laws and a judge had to tell him to follow the law on Remain in Mexico.
So reality is not the reason Bruin thinks Trump is a would be dictator. I could speculate on why Bruni thinks this but that would be claiming I can read his mind.
Do any of the liberal commenters have any insights into this? Bruni seems to lack support in reality for his claim about Trump.
People like Bruni and the people who listen to the people like Bruni are a scourge on humanity. A step below the genocidal but on par with the damage they cause. Fuck them all.
Happy Christmas.
"Capacity for empathy" is not the same thing as actually "showing" empathy. I am not seeing any actual empathy being displayed by him or his staff.
NYP -
"The administration is so desperate, it’s begging the press for better coverage. (What, they’re supposed to lie about gas and food prices? I guess so.) The Chinese and Russians are moving aggressively against the United States and its allies, on the ground, on the seas and even in outer space, because they don’t fear repercussions from a tired, incoherent president who presides over an administration of woke incompetents and Obama retreads."
Oh, wow.
Donald Trump is an autocrat because that's what the Left needs him to be. PDJT was a Federalist who governed according to the Constitution. The Moron in Chief currently residing in the White House is a fascist dictator who believes his word is law. It's his way or the highway. The vaccine mandates are straight out of fascist: We will you obey us or you will lose your job. That is the very heart of fascism: obey us or we will punish you. The one word that describes fascism is mandatory.
"As Time magazine reported shortly after the 2020 election, a “cabal” — Time’s word — of “left-wing activists and business titans” worked to get rid of Trump. It pushed mail-in voting. It moved to block election fraud suits brought by Trump and supporters. It employed social media censorship to mute pro-Trump arguments and amplify anti-Trump arguments. It sponsored protests.
Time calls this a “conspiracy to save the election,” but in truth it was a conspiracy to save the election for the Democrats. The consequences in terms of lost faith in democracy have been severe, but the worst effect is that the winning ticket was never seriously vetted by the media or the campaign process. As a result, we have a president whose mental capacity is openly doubted by much of the nation."
-Glenn Reynolds
Oh, wow.
Damn that would-be autocrat Trump! Now we've replaced him with a full blown actual autocrat.
All Trump did was push back Russian and Chinese imperialistic expansion, foster peace accords in the Mideast, drive the US economy to its best performance in decades, and create the highest employment rates for minorities and women ever. Damn him!
Dems say he had to go, in the words of Mel Brooks in Blazing Saddles, "To protect our phony baloney jobs!"
Is Biden’s performance in the presidency superior to what another Democrat’s would be? I can’t say.
I can’t say either. But what I can say and will say is that his performance is inferior to the performance of his predecessor. Let me know when the inflation rate and unemployment rate match 2019.
He apparently doesn't measure his Presidents on actual performance either, just how much he hates the guy he took over for. Must be nice to not have to deal with failed policy after failed policy. From border noncontrol to supply chain issues, from the Afghanistan disaster to run away inflation, this Presidency is an abject failure. Hating Trump isn't going to change that.
Puke. Biden is an incompetent loyal DNC company man with an ever failing "cringe worthy" everyman schtick. Every day the Dems fail to learn the real and true lessons from the Trump phenomenon, the stronger the Republicans become.
Well then, it doesn’t matter how many people suffer or even die so long as Frank Bruni feels better about who occupies the White House. Noted.
with an amoral, would-be autocrat in the White House — versus how we’re finishing it
we're finishing it with an immoral actual autocrat... How's that better?
just asking
Settle down and appreciate the good-enough.
On the best day of his life, Joe Biden was miles away from good enough. And Bruni knows it.
Including the ever circling Hunter torpedo still searching for a ship in convoy Biden to sink?
Biden is stupid, empty, and vicious. I don't know what Frank Bruni is, but his opinions appear to be suspect. He is detached from the real world, living in a fantasy where down is up and bad is good.
Also, he is fixated on Trump, who actually had many very good policies. An honest assessment would show Trump failed in the following ways:
1. Like Obama and now Biden, he focused on dividing us rather than bringing us together.
2. Like Biden, he failed to deal with the pandemic properly. Operation Warp Speed was brilliant; the contentious, smart-alecky press conferences were fatal.
3. Trump managed to create an atmosphere where 81,000,000 people voted against him, however, whatever. Yes, the Zuckerberg millions goosed those totals, but Trump created in the public a very real desire to get rid of him.
"Settle down and appreciate the good-enough."
The problem with Biden is that he is not good enough for anything.
My guess is Bruni, a member of the media, did not receive any empathy from Trump. And justly so, given the medias disdain for him. There are millions of us across the US who saw and felt his empathy though. Good jobs, better wages, high expectations, no new wars, Covid vaccine production, etc. we’re just a few ways this came through. America First, not Media and Elite First.
...an amoral, would-be autocrat in the White House — versus how we’re finishing it.
Notice how Trump's worst critics always assume away the burden of persuasion in support of their hatred of him, and that everyone reading should just know how terrible Trump is as a person.
And, as if proving Buni's own projection, isn't it Biden who's finishing his first year in that exact manner?
To go by polls, Americans are judging Biden harshly, and many have soured on him....
They've been persuade by experience, and their own two eyes.
But that doesn’t erase Biden’s fundamental decency. That doesn’t eliminate his capacity for empathy. Did his predecessor possess either? Not that I could tell.
Again, no need to make the case or persuade, you should just believe.
Bruni just underscores how much Trump's opponents rely on cliched media narratives rather than specifics to anchor their criticism against him.
Bruni spins handmade tales to sustain a perception of reality through Twilight lenses. Ha! Ha! Ha!
Cutting through the BS ("fundamental decency"-- really?) we have the same-old same-old: Statism now, statism tomorrow, statism forever!
Stupid, just stupid. Amazing, the liberal's lack of judgment of character. I guess that's why they're liberals.
If there's any one thing people note, and have noted about Joe Biden for 50 years, it is not his "fundamental decency". He's corrupt- and has been for decades. He lies. He's got that rare combination of stupidity mixed with bluster. In his prime he was nothing if not a bully. And when he tries that out today it looks pathetic. He's long been regarded as a mental lightweight. Giving him the 'gavel' so to speak, as leader of the formerly free world does not make him more right. Nor does his history of talking loudly over people make him more right. It just makes his stupidity more in your face- so you can't miss it.
Not to mention his habit of arranging to take money from anyone for access to himself, or his proclivity for smelling the hair of women of all ages not married to him, and touching them as he does so. Whether alone or in front of their mates and the world, it seems to not bother The Decent One.
Frank Bruni keeps his head firmly plugged up his own ass. There is no way he could write this kind of basic horseshit without being too far up that canal for too long. My word, he's not grown as a thinker, observer, or writer in decades now. I hate to just attack with ad hominem, but there's not much else I can pin on it. This is a completely mailed-in leftist junk heap in time for the holidays- to make all of those earnestly better people who read The Times feel better about their situation.
LOL to all who said "Oh, wow."
Biden has provided a small incomplete let-up in Trump Derangement Syndrome. Bruni feels that, and is glad.
Our minds determine our realities.
Man, “Capacity for empathy” actually made me laugh! Is that a core competency of the Executive branch in Bruni’s world? The problem inherent in all the reframing we see is that the mainstream anti-Trump arguments including Joe’s campaign message boiled down to “This is NOT normal,” yet what we are living through now after almost two years of nonstop covidmania strikes people as “This is NOT normal!” Ever so much more so.
I can't fathom why they hate Trump so much, unless it's only about abortion and immigration rhetoric.
No, it's because he was once a Democrat. Trump is an apostate. He's abandoned the party of segregation, slavery and fascism. That's why he must be destroyed.
Bruni is so full of shit my screen turned brown!
It is criminal that I can't go back and review the tweets I made about President Trump's first year. Any of the tweets that included the "@realDonaldTrump" moniker were erased from history earlier this year.
But I remember celebrating his first year because it was stunning (and because the media wasn't going to), I called them "180-degree turnarounds" he accomplished in that single 12-mo stretch:
-- North Korea went from terrorizing us with nuclear to shaking hands at the DMz.
-- The ghastly ISIS routed and collapsed.
-- renewed hope and life for Israel and the middle east begun w the recognition of Jerusalem as the true capital
-- astonishing ramp up for employment, in particular for blue collar workers, that continued breaking records every year (until the WuFlu descended.)
contrast and compare with Joe and the Hoe and despair.
"It’s because I remember how we started the year with an amoral, would-be autocrat in the White House."
Amoral is a value judgment. Trump clearly has morals, though Bruni may not approve of them.
Was Trump more or less of a would-be autocrat than the guy who promised rule by phone and pen after his party lost control of congress?
I find, again and again, that these supposed bright literary lights of the Left are as dumb as a box of rocks.
I don't measure my president on empathy or even his decency (though Biden fails on both counts). Not even a little bit. Why the hell should I (or Frank Bruni) care about that? I measure it on job performance. The economy, wars and, yes, the price of gas. IOW, how has he changed, for better or for worse, the lives of his people.
Here's some more things I judge my president by: Spiking inflation, supply-chain shortages, near-record gas prices, open borders, the flight from Afghanistan, multi-trillion-dollar deficits, and polarizing racial rhetoric.
Bruni doesn't believe one word of what he wrote. Not one word. He has a goal in mind, and that's complete power for the left. Anything that can be said to advance that goal will be said.
I watched Chris Hayes on MSNBC (for all of 10 seconds) with a report that there are food shortages and the possibility of starvation in Afghanistan. How could this be a surprise? My recommendation is that the Taliban trade the stuff we left behind to China for food. Bet the ChiComs would make a fair trade.
"Capacity for empathy." Remember, kids, that in Hivespeak, "empathy" is defined as "a willingness to spend other people's money." So by that bozo definition, yeah, Dopey Joe's got lots of "empathy."
There's an old Bruni column praising Kamala Harris. So his idea of "good enough" obviously needs work.
It hasn't even been a full year yet, and with any luck, there are 3 more to go. Luck, because the alternative is President Harris.
One cannot label Trump "autocrat," and and at the same time sing praise for a president who is willing to use "any means necessary" to achieve his and his party's permanent installation in power.
Turley:
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/12/24/whatever-it-takes-politics-biden-reverses-his-earlier-support-of-the-filibuster/
"Is Biden’s performance in the presidency superior to what another Democrat’s would be? I can’t say."
Since we've actually had Democrat Presidents before, we can say. Neither Obama or Bill Clinton (both Presidents I didn't like) ever reached this level of failure. Hell, he's making
even the Carter Presidency look like a roaring success. So no, Biden's performance isn't superior to any other Democrat.
In regards to Joe Biden, he's no Donald Trump
Perhaps a slogan both sides can get behind.
My make-or-break reason for voting for Donald Trump in 2016 was "He's not Hilary." My opinion of her, based on her performance since the 1970s, was that she was vicious, incompetent, and corrupt. Anything on top of not-being Hilary was a bonus, and I was pretty pleased with his performance over the next four years.
In 2020, a lot of voters seem to have voted for Biden on the basis of "He's not Trump." I wonder how many feel he has achieved or given the country anything more than that not-being. And do they even care?
"I can't fathom why they hate Trump so much..."
Because, as someone who'd never held political office/power, he was actually doing things other politicians have spent their entire careers claiming to care about but never actually addressing.
His accomplishments make them look bad.
That's one reason they hate him.
There are only two parties - Patriots and Traitors. Biden may be a fool and he may be bordering on senility, but he isn't a traitor. He isn't the head of a transnational crime syndicate posing as a legitimate government. That would be the other guy.
A guy who threatens death is empathetic? I dont think he knows the meaning of the word.
Welcome to the post-truth, post-reality world. Shabby mediocrity is modesty and decency. Self-pity is empathy. Incompetence is strength.
Today, columnists write for those in their own bubble and tell them what they already think and want to hear. Bruni will win a Pulitzer. The prize jury is also inside his bubble.
If Bruni were to go to Biden's old neighborhood in Scranton-Wilmington, though, and find someone with all of Biden's chacteristics, only less famous, less corrupt, and more competent, Bruni would probably despise him. We are, or at least Frank Bruni is, so sunk in tribalism that it warps all thinking and judgment.
I have registered as a Democrat, Independent and a Republican at various times in my life. As a result I tend to go by the idea that even a stopped clock is right twice a day and try to give credit when I see it. Hard to do with this administration.
Joe Biden on his best day struggled with "good enough". In my opinion, Obama saved him from obscurity by choosing him as VP. Now, with his cognitive decline, he may actually be the "old man baying at the moon" that people try hard not to notice were it not by the VP position.
Recently I followed a link back to early Democratic primaries where Biden took a lot of heat from his fellow Democrats. Harris was not the only competitor to attack him and many of the complaints are ones people are making today. Supposedly the Democratic Party were worried about the possibility of a Bernie Sanders win and stacked the deck for Joe instead. I am going to guess that they really feared that Bernie would lose to Donald Trump. Biden appears to be trying to be as progressive as Bernie so maybe we would have been better off with the real thing than Biden's version.
I think they should have picked Tulsi Gabbard. Thirty years of Bush - Clinton - Bush - Obama - Biden is not producing any original thinkers. But what of Donald Trump? I didn't vote him or Clinton in 2016 but I did vote for him in 2020. Two reasons: One, he did try some new things that actually worked. He never struck me as homophobic (Biden did and does);
still a racist (I admit he may have been when he was younger, but seems to have learned something - which Biden does not); or sexist. He absolutely is a "pig" in his personal life but appears to not have mixed the personal and professional (which Biden has). The second is that the USA was in the middle of a pandemic. Sometimes better to go with person trying to deal with the disaster - even if you disagree on other issues - than try to start from scratch educating someone new.
Biden sucks and is yet another loyal establishmentarian who will serve up riches to the rich and gruel to the masses, maintaining continuity even the parties alternate occupancy of the White House. Yet, at least Biden is not Trump. A meager thing for which to be thankful, but we cannot expect any better with either of our major parties in this twilight of our republic.
Frankly, I think we will get a Trump again--either the original again or another eager fascist following his lead, and his like in other nations.
America has never seen such an autocrat in office.
'But that doesn’t erase Biden’s fundamental decency.'
Why do people say this?
Biden is an opportunistic scumbag. A mid-IQ grifter who has gotten along all these years by being a glad-hander and back-slapper. A plagiarist who fakes holiness and uses his religion like a shield. He's a bum.
People hated Trump because he had a big ego and beat them all at their own game the first time out.
Name a president (or any politician for that matter) who doesn't have a big ego.
"...Biden’s fundamental decen... his capacity for empathy."
Biden has a new granddaughter he has never bothered to meet.
"...Biden’s fundamental decen... his capacity for empathy."
Biden has a new granddaughter he has never bothered to meet.
Robert Cook: " I think we will get a Trump again--either the original again or another eager fascist .."
Makes me laugh.
Dems get upset because they think one Senator is blocking the President's handlers' agenda, as if the legislative branch were supposed to rubber stamp the President's wishes and ignoring the other 50 Senators opposed. The Dems don't like the current makeup of the Supreme Court and want to do an end around to pack the courts. Biden issues that his handlers likely know are unconstitutional in the hopes of changing the facts on the ground. But Trump is the authoritarian.
"I can't fathom why they hate Trump so much..."
Because, as someone who'd never held political office/power, he was actually doing things other politicians have spent their entire careers claiming to care about but never actually addressing.
His accomplishments make them look bad.
That's one reason they hate him.
Another reason is that he pulled back the curtain on the wizard pretenders. We would never have seen what a stinking mess government is these days.
I always ask my leftie Trump hating friends to name his two worst policies. Bafflement. Silence.
I just saw a 4-headed panel of talking heads (including Wolf Blitzer.....who is a profound idiot) claiming that Biden seems confused.
I can't think of any WORSE advice than to "settle down and appreciate the good enough".
Miss Ann, you are asking us to utterly ignore the political, economic, social and moral chaos this low buffoon, this life-long phony and grifter, has inflicted upon us.
He has needlessly caused tens of millions to suffer because of his Shocking Full-Frontal Incompetence, which his manifest senility exacerbates.
There IS no "good enough" to appreciate.
So "Settle Down", MY ASS.
I came across a bunch of articles from the early Trump years saying that Trump wasn't just lying, he was bullshitting, the difference being that bullshitting implies a complete indifference to what the truth is or whether there is any truth. The articles, like Bruni's op-ed, were thin on examples.
Harry Frankfurt and his too short, too popular book have a lot to answer for. As critics pointed out at the time, Frankfurt didn't account for the audience's ability to see through "bullshit." Trump was a salesman, a promoter, a showman, who liked to call things "great," but people took that into account. They weren't really deceived by what he said. They recognized it as exaggeration for effect.
With Biden and his followers, though, the denial of truth and facts goes deeper. It's a question of "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?" As bad as the spin on the border, or Afghanistan, or inflation, or shortages, or BBB, or the deficit, or energy prices is, it's having to forever bend the knee to Biden and call him decent and compassionate that gets to me. I can understand feeling one has to defend his party and his policies, but can't that be done without forever pretending that the naked emperor is fully clothed?
""I’m glad we have Biden. I’m really, really glad. That’s because I haven’t forgotten whom and what he replaced. It’s because I remember how we started the year...""
This is being said repeatedly in the capitals where Russian, Mandarin and Farsi are the primary languages.
jim5301: "There are only two parties - Patriots and Traitors. Biden may be a fool and he may be bordering on senility, but he isn't a traitor. He isn't the head of a transnational crime syndicate posing as a legitimate government. That would be the other guy."
LOL
You make Olberman appear sane.
"...transnational crime syndicate posing as a legitimate government..." Is this crime syndicate named "SPECTRE" by any chance? It's my understanding that for a few hundred thousand dollars you can get failed former British intel agents to write that up in a dossier for you!
If you order up 3 hoax dossiers you get the 4th for free....plus egg roll!
Bruni is satisfied with empathy and decency in our “president” because he knows that Biden is president in name only. Biden is just a stooge wandering around the White House not sure where he is while the decision makers are behind the scenes calling the shots. Bruni sounds like a total moron whose hatred for Trump is blinding him to the sad shape the U.S. is in under Dementia Joe. I thought the job of the President was to defend the country and protect the citizens. No where in the President’s job description does it call for him to be empathetic and “decent”, (whatever Bruni’s definition of decent is.) Bruni better get his dainty ass ready for another Republican take over in 2022 and 2024. If I want “empathy and decency”, I have family and friends for that. Americans want a strong leader who is ready to protect this country from foreign invaders and states that will harm us. A leader who puts American interests before our enemies. But Biden cannot do that because he has been compromised and is subject to blackmail by the Chinese, Russians and other countries where he has financial interests. I think Mr. Bruni needs to climb back onto his mama’s lap and suckle from her breast to feel secure and safe from that autocrat, Trump.
"What strange power one man can have over an entire political party and the culture that sustains it.
What will the Democratic party do when Trump is gone?"
Again, the Clinton campaign and the DNC promoted Trump to sow chaos in the Republican primaries. They worked with him for years, accepted his money, made him a part of the entertainment industry.
Above the lowest levels, everything directed at Trump is a charade. It would have been directed at anyone. The upper levels are coolly orchestrating all of it. If Trump should depart, they'll effortlessly switch targets.
Doncha just love all that empathy Biden has shown for the Americans left behind to the Taliban? Great guy. Orange Man Bad wouldn't have done that. He would have made sure every last American and Afghan who helped us was out before closing shop there. These people!
As we enter our Era of Stagnation, it is encouraging to see that there is no shortage of loyal Pravda--er, NYT-- writers eager to sing the praises of President Brehznev and his accomplished Vice President Andropov.
We need an intelligentsia to elevate mediocrity to the heroic, by demonizing any alternative.
Blogger Robert Cook said..."Frankly, I think we will get a Trump again--either the original again or another eager fascist following his lead, and his like in other nations."
Please defend your assertion that Trump is a fascist. Sincere request; educate us.
"...Biden’s fundamental decen... his capacity for empathy."
Bill R: "Biden has a new granddaughter he has never bothered to meet."
And a daughter who explicitly states in her very own diary her supposedly "decent" father used to shower with her.
It doesnt get any more "decent" than that on Team Dem.
Can you imagine, pause to take a breath, if Ivanka had written in her diary her father used to shower with her?
Another reason is that he pulled back the curtain on the wizard pretenders.
Trump is Toto!!
"It's my understanding that for a few hundred thousand dollars you can get failed former British intel agents to write that up in a dossier for you!"
You understand correctly.
Democrats have got to have a whipping boy... and even if the one being whipped has nothing to do what all the problems created by Biden... they gotta whip it anyway.
As Tiny Tim would say, "In this business, you're as good as your last hit record, and mine was more than 26 years ago." .... And Biden never had a hit record.
Because my company does a small amount of work for the department of energy, and we are thus a federal contractor, we were ordered to let go anyone who is not fully vaccinated. Including people who work remotely and never enter an office.
If that isn’t autocratic overreach, I don’t know what is.
It’s because I remember how we started the year with an amoral, would-be autocrat in the White House — versus how we’re finishing it.
Well, we're finishing it with an amoral, corrupt, race-baiting actual autocrat (CDC "Eviction moratorium", his utterly illegitimate "vaccine mandates" that have no legitimate Federal powers behind them, resorting to Executive Orders rather than negotiating with Congress, attempting to force BBB through on a corrupt one Party vote, rather than negotiating with the other side)
I guess Bruni finds that an "improvement" since it's an autocrat forcing Bruni's ideas on the rest of us.
I don’t measure my presidents solely by the price of gas
Because Bruni is rich, and therefore doesn't have that impose significant negative effects on his life.
And he's an amoral monster himself, so he doesn't care about the poor people who do have to care about the cost of gas, because it affects their ability to feed their children.
But that doesn’t erase Biden’s fundamental decency
Well, you can't erase something that doesn't actually exist, so in that respect Bruni is correct.
That doesn’t eliminate his capacity for empathy
No, Joe eliminated that himself decades ago. Nothing else would explain him routinely claiming that the truck driver who hit his wife and kids was drunk. When the truck driver wasn't drunk, and the accident was entirely his wife's fault
Did his predecessor possess either? Not that I could tell
Being an amoral monster whose sole definition of "goodness" is "does that person's political beliefs agree with mine", it is no surprise that Bruni couldn't perceive any good in Trump.
But that's Bruni's failing, not Trump's.
Trump spend his Administration working to make better lives for Americans who were less well off than Frank Bruni. For Bruni, this is the ultimate sin.
And thus his foaming at the mouth hatred of Trump
Me too. Sometimes a person best serves as a bad example. Just two years ago we had the highest employment in all categories, the most vibrant economy and the most secure society. Hell, even CNN producers were enjoying themselves.
Bruni claims that Trump lacked both decency and empathy. And supposedly Slow Joe has both decency and empathy. I dunno--abandoning several hundred Americans and several thousand Afghans who had helped and supported US troops in Afghanistan over a 20 year period doesn't seem to be very decent to me. And I don't think Slow Joe cares a whit about those folks, so he's get zero on the empathy score. There's much else that one could say about Joe--provided that, unlike Bruni, one had more than two functioning brain cells.
Bruni and his ilk asked, "What could be worse than Trump?" Well--we are finding out each day.
Really, Cookie? An actual fascist? You mean someone who believes "nothing outside the State, everything for the State, nothing against the State"? Yeah, I can see where you'd hate THAT, your devotion to individual liberty being well established.
But that doesn’t erase Biden’s fundamental decency.
None are so blind as those who will not see, and who then turn down the knob on the gaslight just one more tick for just for laughs.
"He isn't the head of a transnational crime syndicate posing as a legitimate government"
For every crime you can list by Trump, I will list one by Biden, and the difference will be that I will have actual evidence.
David Begley said...
Other than not being Trump, what has Biden done?
And it seems clear that Joe has been bribed by foreigners via Hunter. Why doesn’t Frank Bruni care about that?
Because Frank Bruni is part of the team that routinely gets bribed by the Chinese Communists and other foreigners hostile to the US, so he considers that a feature, not a bug
Fundamental decency? The guy who began his campaign on a lie and continues to smear Trump with this lie about Charlottesville? The guy who publicly mocked then challenged an 80-year-old Iowan? The guy who smeared Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas for the sin of being conservatives? The guy who has enriched his entire clan while on a Senator’s salary?
Fundamental decency my ass.
empathy Biden has shown for the Americans left behind to the Taliban
Yeah, em-pathetic. A rug pulled, unconditional surrender, people left behind, catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform, and billions in state-of-the-art military housewarming "gifts".
That "whom" in the third sentence really grates on me. Where are the "layers and layers of fact-checkers and editors"?
Bill R, you're quite right. Hunter's daughter ought to make some difference to the "empathetic, decent" Prez, yes?
'Another reason is that he pulled back the curtain on the wizard pretenders.'
One of the biggest things Trump did was expose the phony media once and for all as D operatives. Nothing less...
The worst that can be said about Trump is that he didn't go far enough (e.g. Obamacares including progressive prices and availability, [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] immigration reform, environmental and labor arbitrage, planned parent/hood, etc.), his early actions were guided by the wrong advice of medical domain experts, deferred to local jurisdictions to manage nationwide insurrections, and didn't stand up for the colored attribution of the people assembled on Jan 6... all's fair in lust and abortion, I suppose.
Humperdink said...
Robert Cook: " I think we will get a Trump again--either the original again or another eager fascist .."
Makes me laugh.
**************************
Why? dopes like Cook really do think that being in favor of "the people" over the state IS fascistic.
Cookie, here's the definition of fascism, from an Ur-Fascist himself: Benito Mussolini:
“Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”
Your should repeat that out loud until you commit it to memory, or until your lips get tired (which I suspect will happen first).
Settle down and appreciate the good-enough, Boris.
Apparently Biden agrees, good enough. https://notthebee.com/article/biden-lets-go-brandon-i-agree
Back in my pre-retirement days I had the motto "Good enough usually isn't."
SO I guess Bruni has the ability for empathy that would allow him to understand how glad tens of millions of Americans were that Hillary Clinton was not President.
One person's "judging harshly" is another person's "judging fairly." Just like "Swift-boating" meant telling vicious truths about John Kerry.
He would have said the same about Hillary Clinton. Not that she's ever been "fundamentally decent" but, TRUMP!!!
So, how low would the bar have to be before Bruni would not claim, "but TRUMP!!!"?
On the floor. Considering that Bruni would accept anyone at all (no matter how incompetent or compromised) over Trump, how is this not essentially an "anyone is better than Hitler" argument?
If a man who likes to inappropriately sniff and touch underage girls is "fundamentally decent," then Ghislaine Maxwell should be released forthwith and Jeffrey Epstein is due some posthumous image rehabilitation. Note that I wrote "If."
"If that isn’t autocratic overreach, I don’t know what is."
Ooohhh! Let me guess! It's empathy, isn't it?
"Good enough" at what, exactly?
"But that doesn’t change the fact that what our country needed a little over a year ago was an end to President Donald Trump, and what Biden provided was just that"
Ummm... Biden has been so ineffective that Trump is stronger than ever. Just a little bit of competency and humility and Trump would be in the rearview mirror. Trump is stronger than ever and that is 100% Biden's fault.
I get they did not like Trump or his policies, but the "would-be autocrat" always surprises me. Why exactly did Trump do that was authoritarian? He cut regulations, appointed judges whose philosophy is to defer to the will of elected legislators, deferred to local authorities (in COVID and elsewhere), complied with idiotic and probably unconstitutional federal judge injunctions, etc etc. Does Frank Bruni really not recall that President Pen and Phone essentially ruled by decree for the last 6 of his 8 years?
How is Hunter's art career going? Still on energy boards?
Renaissance man!
Smartest man the big guy knows!
Robert Cook: " I think we will get a Trump again--either the original again or another eager fascist .."
Makes me laugh.
Not me. After the Democrats destroy the economy with the Green bullshit, we may end up with a fascist. The real thing. Not Trump as the lefties imagine. Anybody to the right of VI Lenin is a fascist to lefties like Cook.
Settle down and appreciate the good-enough.
How about settle down and appreciate the suck?
good enough to destroy the country, as much as possible
Because fascist is Trump, all right.
His gov’t goons taking down any info considered false on the internet- mandating shots to the point of inserting chips of info into bodies of the vaccinated and preventing those unvaxxed from eating in restaurants, going to movies, shopping in stores etc.
Pretty soon it’s rumored that anyone unvaxxed won’t be allowed to be treated in hospitals b/c healthcare is a right!! Or- something.
Shorter Bruni: He’s not Trump.
The entire country agrees.
The people left behind in Afghanistan most of all.
"Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Is the Kindest, Bravest, Warmest, Most Empathetic, Most Fundamentally Decent, Most Wonderful Human Being I’ve Ever Known in My Life." -- Frank Bruni
"Why exactly did Trump do that was authoritarian?"
Ugh. Among other things he enacted an eviction moratorium using the Centers For Disease Control. Trump is a populist and populists are prone to authoritarian things.
Cribbed from elsewhere on the web:
"During his decades in public office his reputation became fixed as slow-witted, unprincipled, self-promoting, gaff-prone, and vindictive."
This has been the opinion of conservative and conservative-leaning Americans for years, long before Biden became Obama's VP.
This is the real Biden, not the Biden of Bruni's fantasy.
A guy who finished near the bottom of the class in his third-tier law school, a serial plagiarizer, an obnoxious creep, a guy who reacts with belligerance if his intelligence is questioned.
Bruni claims that Trump lacked both decency and empathy.
I'm willing to bet that Bruni only watches the alphabet-networks and reads only NYT (Pravda on the Hudson), WaPoo (Pravda on the Potomac) and the Atlantic. None of those sources would ever cover Trump's acts of compassion, such as attending a Fallen Officer (police) ceremony, nor greeting the troops overseas. You only have to look at how the troops responded to Trump, Hillary, Obama and Biden. They loved Trump, hated the others.
Short definition of fascism: mandatory. Everything else flows from mandatory, the punishments for not complying and the force required to make people comply. Joe Biden has proved his bona fides with his mandatory vaxx requirements, as have Democrat governors, mayors and county executives. I'm calling out Washington Duke Jay Inslee, King County Executive Dow Constantine and Seattle mayor Jenny Durken.
It's a real race to the bottom at the NYT......
Paul Krugman, or Frank Bruni???
Neither one of these motherfuckers has ever had a thought that wasn't bought, and paid-for.
Apparently it is both decent and empathetic to threaten people with loss of livelihood if they don't obey the President these days. Tyranny and autocracy have been redefined as decency and empathy and are perfectly fine when it's for your own good in the eyes of the left.
You may not have liked Trump Mr. Bruni, but you are absolutely going to hate what the people turn to in reaction to Biden and find yourself wishing for the days of Donald Trump down the road.
Bruni is a bitter, nasty person. When his mentor, the great Elinor Burkett, was falsely charged with "storming the stage" to share credit for an Oscar for a documentary she researched and wrote and produced and largely directed (the child-man she had worked with unilaterally decided he alone would accept the award, behaving against tradition and rules), Bruni didn't lift a pinky to defend her. A man who behaves this way cannot be a judge of decency.
But he's an aging white guy too. Soon he will be purged from the Times for not being woke enough. He has his coming.
D.D. Driver said...
"Why exactly did Trump do that was authoritarian?"
Ugh. Among other things he enacted an eviction moratorium using the Centers For Disease Control. Trump is a populist and populists are prone to authoritarian things.
***************
Sorry, but CONGRESS passed the CARES Act, which Trump signed, that initiated the eviction moratorium. Trump didn't behave in a unilateral, "authoritarian" manner.
So...what are the "other things"...?
But we all understand, some of you gotta keep that Trump hatred alive, no matter what the facts are.
"But that doesn’t erase Biden’s fundamental decency. That doesn’t eliminate his capacity for empathy. Did his predecessor possess either? Not that I could tell."
I still have a problem with the mindset: the people that I don't agree with politically are 100% bad.
Human beings are very complex. To quote Little Mary Sunshine, "There's a little bit of good in everyone." Even if you're finally beginning to acknowledge the flaws in "your" guy, it's still mentally unhealthy to put blinders on and see zero good in the "other" guy.
If you are a Senator and don't insult or attack or belittle or condescend to other Senators or to the media, you too can become "fundamentally decent." It helps if you can fake a glad-handing "common touch" and ask them about their kids, or sports or their vacations. It also helps if you are a Democrat, and it doesn't hurt at all if your peers convince themselves that you are too stupid to be truly corrupt or malicious.
You can brag all you want about doing things you didn't actually do, and you can put down little people who don't matter, but if you can make people feel sorry for you, Washington DC will say that you have a massive capacity for empathy. I'm curious about how those words "fundamentally decent" and "empathy" come up in relation to Biden. It's almost as if a memo went out telling people what they had to say about Joe.
D.D. Driver said...
"Why exactly did Trump do that was authoritarian?"
Ugh. Among other things he enacted an eviction moratorium using the Centers For Disease Control. Trump is a populist and populists are prone to authoritarian things.
And what are those "other things"?
He was President at the start of a massive pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of people. What I observed was that he mad virtually NO use of "emergency executive powers". For the most part he kept the Feds outs nd let the States run the show.
Far and away he through Federal power around less than any other President in the last 100+ years would have done.
So, do tell us all the "other things" that Trump did. And try to find one that neither Biden nor Obama did. Because it'a rather telling if you can't
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