Biden's Secretary of Transportation — former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg — is under fire this week for his absence during an escalating supply chain crisis that threatens to leave American stores filled with little more than empty shelves ahead of the busy holiday shopping season.
As Katie explained earlier on the supply chain problems, "the situation has reached crisis levels as 250,000 shipping containers remain offshore" waiting to be offloaded at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach while "Americans across the country are experiencing shortages" that are expected to become more widespread.
"It turns out," Katie reported, "Buttigieg has been on paternity leave, and while he's had plenty of time to do interviews for People magazine about his home life, he hasn't been at work."
At this point, focusing on arguments about Buttigieg's decision to take paternity leave misses the larger question of why Mayor Pete was tapped for a key role in Biden's cabinet overseeing America's transportation system despite his inability to handle potholes in South Bend.
Ric Grenell — who served in the Trump administration as Ambassador to Germany and Director of National Intelligence — called out both Biden and Buttigieg for the debacle:
It’s clear @PeteButtigieg was hired because he’s gay.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) October 15, 2021
After 6 months on the job he takes 2 months off?!
This is what we get when Cabinet hires are made according to the woke rules of identity politics.
"This is what we get when Cabinet hires are made according to the woke rules of identity politics," Grenell noted. And he's right.
In the fantasy land of the woke left, personal accomplishments or abilities don't matter. Or at least they don't matter nearly as much as the identities a person can claim. The more "marginalized" a person is, the better.
For Biden and his decision makers, it didn't matter that Buttigieg couldn't manage one Indiana city's roads because they knew Biden could get a gold star from the wokesters for putting a supposedly marginalized person in a prominent position. And despite the mainstream media's claims, Buttigieg wasn't the first openly gay man to serve in a cabinet-level position, Grenell was.
The ongoing hubbub over the merits of paternity leave — an attempt to distract from the fact that the Biden administration was caught somewhat literally asleep at the wheel of its transportation strategy — again misses the point. Buttigieg could have and should have seen the supply chain crisis building before he quietly took his leave, one that no one even knew he was taking until reporters finally checked in on what the Biden DOT was doing about the crisis.
If the Secretary of Transportation had been focused on solving the supply chain problem back in July then we wouldn’t be in this deep of a crisis.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) October 15, 2021
Who covers Transportation for the @nytimes?! @maggieNYT
The fact that no one noticed Secretary-Mayor-Pete was missing for two months is further testament to his do-nothing tenure at the Department of Transportation. If two months of inactivity could slip by the reporters who cover DOT without notice, Buttigieg probably wasn't doing much of anything in the time period between taking office and starting his paternity leave.
Those who have called out Buttigieg and Biden for their failure now find themselves at the end of a woke outrage firehose as the left scrambles to the aid of Democrats. But Grenell isn't buying the outrage.
Agree. Gays are not oppressed in America.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) October 15, 2021
But don’t tell that to the Democrats because they need the gays in fear.
Behave and get in line! https://t.co/xGznB71MFc