MICHAEL BARONE: WHY NOT THE WORST?

I asked over the weekend if there has ever been an administration with a less impressive cabinet than President Biden’s and posited that Michael Barone might be able to come up with one. It occurred to me to ask him. For background he cites his column on the Harding administration here (September 2, 2015). Mr. Barone writes:

Here’s my take, based in part on a recent visit to the Warren G. Harding Museum and Home in Marion, Ohio. Harding is often rated one of the poorest presidents — quite wrongly in my view, as I have written on other occasions.

He did have cabinet members who were found guilty of criminal misconduct. But he also had Charles Evans Hughes, highly intelligent and experienced, as Secretary of State; Andrew Mellon, the greatest venture capitalist of the era between the 1873 and 1933 depressions, as Secretary of the Treasury, and Charles G. Dawes as the first director of the Harding-created Bureau of the Budget. Hughes negotiated the Washington naval arms limit treaty, Mellon pushed successfully for major tax cuts, Dawes in just one year established in the agency an institutional culture of excellence which has persisted for a century. The result was surging prosperity and a competent government.

How do the accomplishments (in progress at the moment, after 18 months of the administration) of the Biden cabinet compare with those of their counterparts in the Harding administration (which lasted 29 months until Harding’s death in August 1923)?

I myself don’t think this is a matter of “less impressive”. I think we have an administration that is largely controlled by ideologues whose mission is teach the US a brutal lesson. For them, the destruction of the US economy is not a bug, it’s a feature. It’s no accident. Their modus is to swing the data and the realities to a point where the public becomes largely numb. They will open the Overton window to the point where the entire wall containing that window collapses. Just like introducing grooming into early elementary school grades. It’s so outrageous and despicable to anyone with any sort of moral standards that at the end of the day (and there IS no end of day, because the efforts will not cease) SOME degree of this grooming will be the inevitable outcome. They will make the reality so egregious that any sort of relief will be welcomed, but the outcome will inevitably skew towards the desired end result.

If interest rates rise to the point where the US can no longer service its gargantuan debt and the US defaults on its debts, that’s within their window of acceptance. The consistency of this team is scary remarkable, particularly when viewed as continuations of 0bamas’ policies. They are vandals ready and willing to destroy everything they see. They want revenge and they definitely see it that way.

Biden chooses people based on sexual kink and skin pigmentation - not on competence.

Warren G. Harding made some mistakes in his choices but it wasn't part of an intentional plan. That's a big difference.

Considering how Biden makes his choices we're lucky the country's NOT totally bankrupted and giving off radiation like a core that's melted down.

(Then again we're not even half way though Biden's First Term...)

Harding was one of our GREATEST and most successful Presidents. The last administration to cut both taxes and the size of government, resolving the Wilson Recession in record time and unleashing the prosperity of the 1920s. Stayed out of people’s business and kept us out of war, too. Hated by leftists because he proved Wilsonian Socialism was a disaster and failure.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.