Biden’s first 200 days
Hugo Gurdon, Editor, and Chief, Washington Examiner.
Joe Biden, like most presidents, made much of supposed achievements in his first 100 days. Remember how, arriving in office, he promised 100 million COVID vaccine doses in that period. It was a soft target, for, as some of us pointed out, the vaccination pace on Inauguration Day, for which he could claim no credit, was sufficient to reach his goal. But by touting it, he demonstrated the significance attributed to the 100 days milestone.
Less attention is paid to the 200 days milestone. This is a mistake. For the first 100 days is a three-month blur when an administration is taking shape and its successes and failures haven’t had time to come into focus. It’s in the second hundred days, when the razzmatazz and newness are over and an administration has lost its first freshness, that one can really judge.
Biden’s second hundred days have been an unmitigated disaster.
It was then that inflation soared above 5%. It was on Aug. 9, Biden’s 199th day, that Democrats released their fiscally reckless and culturally destructive $3.5 trillion budget plan, drafted by socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders with the intention of reshaping American life with a big expansion of the ballooning welfare state.
It was in Biden’s second 100 days that illegal immigration turned from a mere fiasco into a national crisis. The number of illegal migrants doubled in January to 78,417 compared to the same month of 2020, as Latin Americans accepted Biden’s invitation to come north, no questions asked. The numbers jumped again each month, and by his 100th day, the March numbers were out at a shocking 173,283, five times what they’d been a year earlier. Yet it was only in his second hundred days that it became clear there’d be more than 2 million illegal border crossings this year, that there’d be no decline in arrivals during the intensely hot summer months as the administration has promised, and that Biden had created the worst immigration crisis in more than 20 years.
Then came the worst disaster so far, America’s collapse in Afghanistan. It was on Aug. 10, Biden’s 200th day in office, that the Taliban overran three provincial capitals and it became obvious that their barbarian blitzkrieg would consume the entire country, ending America’s 20-year efforts against them in a humiliating rout.
This debacle is like the turn of a kaleidoscope that rearranges all the pieces into a new, unrecognizable, and startling pattern. The picture of America’s place in the world has been changed irrevocably. Friends and foes everywhere are reassessing their relationship with us. The former are making worried inquiries about whether our “leader” has entirely lost his marbles. The latter, knowing that America under Biden is no longer to be feared, are taunting America with unconcealed contempt.
We are living through a sort of implosion, in which no one seems to be in charge of America and our elected chief executive is a weak and shambolic embarrassment.
This is what Joe Biden has wrought in his first 200 days.
RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY: All of us have wondered who is behind this president? He’s clearly not in charge and I think Americans have a right to know who's in charge. Last night on Laura Ingraham's show, I believe it was Congressman [Mark] Green said that he was briefed that the president was told not to close Bagram Air Base and he did it anyway, and so we know that Joe Biden has bad judgment but we also know he’s not there and I’m sorry, 13 military members are dead. Hundreds of Americans are trapped behind enemy lines and the American people deserve to know who is in charge and if he's not up to the job, something has to be done. This is unsustainable.
