President Joe Biden's administration is announcing the waiver of dozens of federal laws, including the Endangered Species Act, to build part of the border wall between the United States and Mexico. The president's Homeland Security Secretary says it is necessary due to a massive influx of illegal immigrants. The president personally says the border wall will not work, and his administration is only doing it because Congress demanded it.
The reality is that even Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, a pro-Biden Democrat, claims the border is not secure after two years of Biden insisting it was. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis began exporting illegal immigrants to blue state sanctuary cities that really just wanted to be sanctimony cities. The Democrat-run states and cities were fine lecturing Florida, Texas, and other states on how to handle the surge of illegals but really wanted no part of dealing with them.
Now that Democrat parts of the country, which often claim empathy while having little for their Republican brethren, have to deal with a flood of illegal immigration, they realize what Texas and other border states have put up with. They are not happy. They are complaining loudly. The New York Times has had to recognize the problem, which means Joe Biden has had to act. His polling demanded it.
This is a familiar pattern with the president.
The Biden family was content to ignore Hunter Biden's child. In fact, Joe Biden enabled many of Hunter's vices. Hunter Biden is a pitiful character. His mother and sister died in a car crash, but he and his brother survived. His dad went off to the United States Senate, leaving behind his traumatized sons. They were eventually raised by a new mother who, with their father, had a new daughter. One can understand the elder Biden's guilt. His favorite son dies of a brain tumor. His other son descends into drug addiction. Only reporters at the Washington Post could be so incurious as not recognizing a father's guilt led to enabling behaviors. Of course, Joe Biden helped his drug addict son trade on the family name. It was the least he could do to make it up to him. One does not need a psychology degree to recognize the pattern.
Instead of pushing his son to be a better man, Biden enabled his son's vices and business ventures. Instead of insisting his son man up, Biden refused even to recognize his own granddaughter. Only after Maureen Dowd blasted the president in The New York Times pages did Joe Biden decide to recognize the grandchild, claiming it took so long because he wanted to make sure Hunter was ready.
The president's dogs have been biting the White House staff members and Secret Service agents. A tourist could capture on his phone the details of Commander, the president's current German Shepherd, biting one staff member. Secret Service agents sign up for a job that potentially could see them jumping in front of a bullet to save the president's life. But the president seemed absolutely unbothered by the routine nature of his dog biting those agents.
Only after the New York Times ran yet another story about yet another biting did the White House take action. Concurrently, the tourist's photo came to light, and other media outlets ran stories about the White House staff, not just agents, getting bitten. Within a few weeks of the latest stories, the White House announced the first lady had disappeared the dog somewhere. When dogs bite regularly, their owner's behavior is always to blame.
Time and time again, President Biden has dismissed public concerns as just Republican critics making partisan statements. Only when The New York Times finally stops protecting the president does Biden bother acting? From his granddaughter to his dog to the border wall, it has taken The New York Times for Biden to realize the concerns are not just those of his opponents. The man who claims to wear empathy on his sleeve has none till the press tells him to. This is not leadership. This is a failure of character. His son gets it honest.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.