Joe Biden Hits Another Milestone of Failure and Attempts a Desperate Pivot – Opinion

When Joe Biden was campaigning every other week or so while running for president, he made one promise repeatedly: To “shut down” the coronavirus.

Now that we have a complete year of his presidency, it is clear that he did not keep that promise. The number of cases has exploded and more people have been killed under this administration than ever before. COVID-19 is now considered to be a serious epidemic by all reasonable standards. Those realities have pushed Biden’s disapproval to a new milestone. For the first time since taking office, he’s now rated below Donald Trump at the same point in his term.

The official word is out: Trump’s approval ratings are higher than Biden at this time in office (41.9% to 41.3%). pic.twitter.com/CDDTPfdEMw

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) February 2, 2022

It’s hard to overstate how much of an accomplishment this is for Biden. He did not go into office as a polarized president like Trump. Instead, his electorate gave him low marks and he never had the chance to run for governor. Biden enjoyed a normal honeymoon period, mostly thanks to his promise to bring the country back to its former self. This was all over in the latter half of 2021 when the withdrawal failed from Afghanistan proved to be the break point.

Biden’s flailing has continued since then, with yesterday’s desperate pivot. After failing to shut down the coronavirus, the president is now moving to “end cancer.”

I’ve formed a new Cancer Cabinet, which will be convened in the coming weeks. These people will lead the effort of all government to eliminate cancer.

— President Biden (@POTUS) February 3, 2022

At first, I was hesitant to dunk on this too much because, in a vacuum, it’s a good thought. Who wouldn’t want to end cancer, right? This move is insulting, but I find it more and more ridiculous. Cancer is not an acceptable political tool. The cancer does not exist for talking points.

And to be clear, that’s exactly what I believe this is. Biden could have announced a plan for funding new and groundbreaking cancer research. That would be one thing. Instead, he announced a “cancer cabinet,” which is just Washington-speak for appointing a bunch of DC apparatchiks to highly-paid government positions. It is not the key to ending cancer. It’s just an attempted PR ploy that diminishes the work actual cancer researchers have been doing for decades. Do they really believe that Joe Biden was just waiting to join them?

The president’s move comes across as not knowing when to put the shovel down. What depth does the administration plan to dig? What happens in two years when Biden’s new pledge and “cancer cabinet” haven’t produced any results? This is the problem with constantly promising new things when you haven’t even delivered on your prior promises. This is not right. It’s abusive.

These timings and arrangements are simply too ridiculous to ignore. Why not announce this a year ago if it’s such a priority for the president? Further, making the big reveal a “cancer cabinet” is a very cheap attempt to give Biden credit for any future research breakthroughs, even if they have absolutely nothing to do with the White House. The topic of cancer shouldn’t be about assigning political points.

When the dust settles, this isn’t going to help Biden’s failing presidency, but another broken promise on such a serious topic will hurt a lot of people. That the administration didn’t seem to even consider that in their framing is disturbing.