Buffoonery in the White House
Buffoonery is one of my favorite words. It doesn’t get enough use. Today, I rectify that.
President Obama spent eight years blaming President Bush for everything that went wrong. President Trump spent four years blaming everyone for everything that went wrong. President Biden has spent every single day in office blaming President Trump for the woes of his administration.
THAT’S NOT HOW LEADERSHIP WORKS.
When you are a new coach, you don’t talk about how shitty the team is and you don’t talk about the mess the last guy left you. When you are a new CEO, you don’t talk about the financial mess the last person handed you, or the personnel problems, or the messed-up profit and loss statement. When you take over any organization, you OWN it. You knew what you were taking over BEFORE you walked in the door. You knew that BEFORE you took the job.
From the minute you take over, at least in a public forum, you OWN it. The good, the bad, the ugly babies, the shit in the storeroom, the asshole that works in IT, the failing profit. ALL of it.
YOU ARE IN CHARGE. YOU ARE THE LEADER.
If you haven’t read the report on the withdrawal of Afghanistan or you haven’t heard the ridiculous briefing by Mr. Kirby from the National Security Council, that’s what the Biden administration ISN”T doing. They aren’t owning anything. It is, without question, blaming the entire thing on President Trump. President Biden and those that wrote the abhorrent report, are saying the new administration got handed a shit sandwich and the reason the withdrawal was chaos was all President Trump’s fault.
I’ll say it again for those that didn’t hear it the first time.
THAT’S NOT HOW LEADERSHIP WORKS
President Biden took office in January. The last days of the withdrawal took place in August. Eight months. You had eight months to change directions. You had eight months to make different decisions. And don’t give me this “President Trump made a deal with the Taliban” shit. Whether he did or not, you had the time and the power to undo the deal. You had the time and the power to rewrite the rules.
By the way, General Milley was in the SAME JOB under President Trump that he is in RIGHT NOW. Where is the accountability from the Department of Defense? General Milley called CHINA while President Trump was in office to assure them he wasn’t going to attack. Now, the administration wants us to believe he could only sit by and follow President Trump’s orders? Seriously? Give it rest. You either have balls or you don’t. It isn’t a part time thing. He either should have been fired by President Trump or fired by President Biden, but he is somehow riding the fence. I call bullshit.
One last name on the blame line…the entire intelligence community. Mr. Kirby stated that NO ONE in the intelligence community believed the Taliban would start attacking Afghan forces until after we left and that NO ONE in the intelligence community thought the Afghan security forces would evaporate like they did.
You’ve got to be shitting me. I spent thee tours over there. 2002, 20010-11, and 2012-13. We had been interacting with those people for twenty years. We had been training the Afghans since 2002 in some form or another. We had been fighting the Taliban since 2001. You’re telling me that NO ONE in the intelligence community saw that shit coming? Anyone who spent any time over there in the last twenty years saw that coming. There was never any question. Power vacuums are filled IMMEDIATELY and the Taliban certainly aren’t a group of folks you can trust to honor a deal.
But that’s the administration’s position. No one saw it coming. And it is all President Trump’s fault. And General Milley had his hands tied.
Buffoonery in the White House. That’s what this is. Buffoonery.