Read This – It is Someone Else’s Blog – But You will be Better for Reading It

 

A Fine and Detailed Recap of Biden’s First Year – A Lot to Celebrate

Press Coverage of The One Year Mark

I find much of the press coverage of Joe Biden’s first year in office to be off the mark, in both content and tone. There is an interesting phenomenon within the media that I have noticed ever more in recent years. I refer to it as me too-ism.

A story gets picked up from one media source and is replayed by many more, at times it seems without much reflection, investigation, or independent work. I have been reading a lot of that in recent days in lconsidering Biden’s one year anniversary.

Much of the coverage, in my view, is unrealistic, inaccurate, and unfair. Biden came into office with the country badly divided, an opposition party that was dedicated to only one thing (resisting anything and everything Biden proposed) and razor thin majorities in both houses of Congress.

He brought to this setting a bold and ambitious agenda, yet also a yearning to find some common ground with which to work with the opposition (a hope he now acknowledges was unrealistic and is not going to happen).

Given all that, it was inevitable that much which the Administration and its supporters want was unlikely to happen, at least on the first try. Yet despite that, an impressive amount has been accomplished. This deserves recognition.

A Positive Recap from a Fellow Blogger

Many of you reading this are also readers of Letters from an American Heather, a near-daily blog by Heather Cox Richardson. I count myself among her readers and encourage others to be regular readers as well.

A few days ago, she published her first-year recap of the Biden presidency. It is an exceptional column, even by her high standards. She does a fine job of detailing what has been accomplished and the results flowing from those accomplishments. It is an impressive list.

That Biden has not gotten everything right is certainly true, and the blog I am recommending to you today does not, I have to say, call out those shortcomings. Among that list one can make the case for is that the emphasis on more accessible COVID testing has come quite late. The emphasis on voting rights protection came too late and in the beginning was too weak.

In part, this was because Biden hoped to find some middle ground with Republicans, an approach doomed to failure. The inability of the Administration to tell its story of success to the public at large, at local levels, is disappointing and surprising. It is possible that standing up to Russia over Ukraine has come late and weaker than it might have been, but time will tell.

And no doubt, there is more that falls short. Still, overall Biden has already accomplished more than a reasonable person should have hoped to see. He has also staffed his administration and filled nominative roles with the most diverse and talented team ever to run this government.

Think That is Too Much Praise?

Read the Richardson post and see if you don’t find yourself thinking more positively about this team and where it has taken us thus far.

I thought this was important enough to dedicate my space to citing someone’s else’s work. I was tempted to cite it and then paste in the content but decided instead to give you the link. Go take a look and browse some earlier posts while you are at it.

Here you go. Do yourself a favor and give up a few minutes to read the real news:

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-22-2022

      Bill Clontz

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