When President Joe Biden got a chance to argue his re-election case Sunday night, he made the best argument for why he should never have been elected in the first place.
Because apparently, his goal for a second term is to make the country as good as it was when Donald Trump was in the White House.
That was the unspoken message from the closing moments of Bidenās ā60 Minutesā Interview broadcast that aired Sunday night ā but it came through loud and clear.
In the Interview ā in which the soft-spoken Scott Pelley tossed softballs to the soft-headed president, judging by the transcript ā Biden got a pass on any question about how his appeasement policies on Iran might have encouraged the Hamas terror attack on Israel thatās opened up a new war in the Middle East.
(Thereās āno clear evidenceā Iran played a role, Biden claimed.)
He got to take free shots at Republicans ā who apparently donāt believe in democracy ā while not a word was mentioned about the insane left of his own party, where even condemning the decapitation of babies is a struggle.
He was allowed to blabber about the war in Ukraine, without questioning his own role in encouraging Russian President Vladimir Putin to think he could get away with the invasion or addressing the toll that U.S. support for Ukraine is taking on his own countryās military readiness. (Even CNN has reported that the munitions the U.S. is supplying Ukraine are leaving American military forces near a danger zone when it comes to resupply.)
And then he got pitched the grand-daddy of softball questions, and struck out badly.
āMr. President, given these two wars and the dysfunction in Congress, are you sure that you want to run again?ā Pelley asked, according to the transcript.
The answer wasnāt exactly reassuring for Bidenās fans.
āYes, because Iām sure ā¦ā There was a suspicious change in the camera angle there, giving the very strong impression that CBS producers were covering for the fact that the president needed time to gather his thoughts.
āLook, when I ran, I said, āThe worldās at an inflection point,'ā Biden said.
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āThe worldās changing, but we have an opportunity to make it ā so, imagine if we were able to succeed in getting the Middle East put in place where we have normalization of relations. I think we can do that. Imagine what happens if we, in fact, unite all of Europe and Putin is finally put down where he cannot cause the kind of trouble heās been causing. We have enormous opportunities, enormous opportunities to make it a better world.ā
Actually, that world sounds a lot like the world Trump had achieved before Biden darkened the Oval Office in 2021. Biden might as well have promised to restore order and security to the southern border, free up American energy production, get the economy humming and have a gorgeous former model as his first lady.
It was the Abraham Accords achieved under Trumpās watch that showed the first signs of ānormalizationā of relations in the Middle East since the Israel-Egypt peace agreement in 1979.
Four Arab nations ā the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco ā had established diplomatic relations with the Jewish state by the end of Trumpās term.
An Israeli rapprochement with Saudi Arabia appeared possible, and the Palestinian questionās long domination of Middle EastPolitics appeared to have receded.
With Bidenās accession to power, his administrationās determination to undo all things Trump has led the U.S. into appeasement with Iran ā the worldās chief state sponsor of terrorism and, according to The Wall Street Journal, the power behind the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
(Bidenās āno clear evidenceā line was clearly a craven fudge. Admitting Iranās role in the atrocity would require him to do something about it.)
When Donald Trump was the president, Russia didnāt invade Ukraine. And itās impossible to imagine Trump essentially greenlighting the invasion the way Biden did.
In other words, itās not āEurope,ā united or otherwise, that keeps dictators like Vladimir Putin in line. Itās a strong American presidency ā the kind that keeps order in the world without having to keep order.
Itās an axiom of conservative belief that the United States is not responsible for the behavior of other countries, and itās not responsible for guaranteeing the peace of the world. Only God can do that.
But itās also simply a matter of reality that the worldās only superpower dictates the behavior of other countries the way a planet dictates the behavior of the moons around it. And itās another matter of reality that nature abhors a vacuum.
A world in which the United States is led by a doddering, almost certainly corrupt octagenarian whose moral compass has failed badly (if he ever had one) is a world where a power vacuum is being filled by the worst players on the international scene. Itās regression on all fronts.
By contrast, the world that was a-building under Donald Trump had a Middle East that was showing clear signs of progress. It was a world where Europe was at peace. And, amazingly enough, more than 1,000 Jews werenāt slaughtered in a day in the worst single anti-Semitic atrocity since the Holocaust.
If China was growing increasingly bellicose, at least it knew there was an American president in charge who was willing to confront it. (Most Americans have already forgotten how easily a Chinese spy balloon violated American airspace and spent a leisurely week overfly the countryās heartland. Itās a rock-solid bet that the hard men in Beijing havenāt forgotten at all.)
Biden didnāt give an argument for his own re-election on Sunday night. He gave an argument for why he should never have been elected in the first place.
Americans need to remember that in 2024.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.