Barack Obama’s gift of sensible oratory in front of a giant audience was a robust political weapon, but arguably crucial thing he ever said was said privately.
Speaking to one other Democrat about Joe Biden being that party’s 2020 nominee, Obama warned, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to screw things up.”
There is no such thing as a substantiated claim that the previous president was flawed about his vp.
Evidence that he was targeted is in all places from the border to the economy to the crime explosion on Biden’s watch.
There may be also Ukraine, which proves Obama’s point another way.
This shows that even within the rare instances where Biden gets big policy right, he still finds ways to “fuck it up.”
Witness the strange timing of the president’s recent statements about Ukraine’s bid to join NATO and his administration’s skewed defense of why he plans to send cluster bombs to the Ukrainian military.
Any mistake in a key detail undermines the entire enterprise and threatens to lose public support for an expensive foreign policy.
![Joe Biden, Volodymyr Zelensky](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000013876904.jpg?w=1024)
Total U.S. aid to Ukraine reached $75 billion in May, according to a German research firm, making it by far the most important recipient of foreign aid in our country at a time when the U.S. government is running a deficit of $1.5 trillion.
What Biden was initially right about was the necessity to strengthen NATO and help Ukraine fend off a Russian invasion.
He understood that the aim of the alliance was to keep Russia out of Europe, and saw the invasion as a challenge to global security.
He did so despite the incontrovertible fact that smart money was betting that Vladimir Putin’s tanks and military would perform a contemporary blitzkrieg, split up their former satellite state and take what they wanted.
And in fact, some European leaders wanted to appease Putin, as that they had done for generations.
Fortunately, it turned out that the Russian army was far more incompetent and unprepared than anyone expected.
However it was also NATO’s military and financial assistance that enabled the brave Ukrainians to hold the road, and Biden was at the middle of this mobilizing effort.
But since that spectacular starting, the president’s habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory has reappeared persistently.
His serial refusals of improved weapons to help Ukraine were followed months later by reluctant approval, delays that cost our ally unnecessary casualties and territory.
When it got here to artillery, tanks and fighters, Biden’s hesitations ran counter to the strategy of giving Ukraine enough force to send back Putin.
![President Joe Biden](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000013669513.jpg?w=1024)
Joe’s muddy accounting
Furthermore, despite the staggering cost of maintaining the establishment, Biden has never expressed concern that each one the cash is getting to its intended destination and never being diverted through bribes.
His lack of curiosity comes despite the incontrovertible fact that well over $30 billion and was counted on to fall into the broad categories of humanitarian aid and financial support, with little tracking of where the cash actually went.
In plain language, which means that American taxpayers pay civil servants’ salaries, keep lights on, and who knows what else in a notoriously corrupt country.
Biden’s latest madness took place on Sunday, shortly before he left for the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius for the NATO summit.
![Volodymyr Zelensky](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000013906422.jpg?w=1024)
When asked by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria concerning the age-old query of Ukraine’s membership within the alliance, Biden said it was “premature” and that Ukraine was “not ready” to join.
This was a wierd response, because it was supposedly one in all the agenda items of the summit.
Amongst those apparently surprised was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who took the highly unusual step of blowing up his most significant sponsor and other NATO members.
“On the way in which to Vilnius, we received signals that certain wordings are being discussed without Ukraine,” he wrote in an extended, smoldering tweet.
“I would really like to emphasize that this wording refers to an invite to NATO membership, not to Ukraine’s membership. . . It’s unprecedented and absurd that there isn’t any timeframe for Ukraine’s invitation or membership.”
He went on to suggest that the strike would isolate Ukraine and would encourage Moscow to proceed the war indefinitely.
Admittedly, Biden is right to be cautious about Ukraine’s wartime membership, as this might legally trigger Article 5, which states that an attack on any member is an attack on all.
But this isn’t a recent fact, so why Ukraine believed the summit would bring it closer to membership, while Biden and other national leaders had a very different idea, is a big communication failure to say the least.
And Zelensky might be right that rejecting his request in such an embarrassing way will encourage Putin to proceed the war.
One other recent mistake by Biden involved his defense of sending cluster bombs to Ukraine, a weapon that has been banned by most countries, though not the US, although the White House has criticized Russia for using them against Ukrainians.
A certain percentage of the 72 grenade-style explosives that every bomb fires over a large area doesn’t explode immediately and could cause massive civilian casualties for years.
![President Joe Biden](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000013060150.jpg?w=1024)
Except for the devilish nature of those weapons, Biden’s explanation of why the US is sending them is noteworthy.
The Ukrainians are “running out” of certain explosives, Zakaria said, “and we haven’t got enough,” so cluster bombs are a “passage.”
oops.
Revealing the key of our ammunition stockpile is idiotic, as is the policy that brought us here.
Emptying the US arsenal
In February, I wrote about historian Niall Ferguson’s concerns that our aid to Ukraine was taking a toll on our own military supplies.
“The military-industrial complex has died down,” he said on the Dana Senora podcast.
“It’s surprising once we realize how much capability we have now utilized in Ukraine and the way long it is going to take to replace it.”
Ferguson said one effect was to compromise our ability to help defend Taiwan should China move against the island.
He called it a “strategic mistake” that Washington “failed to realize that China was a greater beneficiary” of aid to Ukraine and added: “All of the hard speak about defending Taiwan comes from an alternate reality.”
Just five months later, Biden publicly admits that the US is running out of ammunition.
If Ferguson saw this moment coming, why couldn’t the president?
Barack Obama pagination. . .
Midtown influx fiasco
Reader John Zimmerman asks and answers a matter concerning the impact of the congestion tax on Midtown Manhattan, writing, “Have the state and town thought of how this crazy plan will affect the humanities, theater district, and venues? Probably not.”
Governor Murphy’s Law. . .
Recent Jersey resident Steven Sarfaty is suspicious of Governor Phil Murphy’s motives in opposing Recent York’s congestion tax.
He writes, “Murphy’s only concern is what his cut shall be. He’s never seen a tax he didn’t love.”