The Bidens and the Leaking
Don’t be like those millionaire and billionaire readers of Wide World of News who refuse to buy voluntary subscriptions.
This newsletter relies on the support of readers like you to kick in. Reader support is the only support.
As they say on the playground: If you read WWoN, pay for WWoN.
If you can afford to pay to subscribe, please do so today.
OTHER WAYS TO SUPPORT MY WORK ON WIDE WORLD OF NEWS
If you want to kick in ANY lower amount than the formal subscription rates by check, send a simple email to markhalperintalk@gmail.com and ask how you can do that.
You can also leave a tip in the amount of your choice via:
• PayPal. markhalperinnyc@gmail.com
• Venmo. Mark-Halperin-4 (telephone number ends in x3226)
• Zelle. markhalperinnyc@gmail.com
* Buying me a cocktail (at Gotham City prices….), tax and server tip included, by clicking here.
* Buying me a cup of coffee (or a week’s worth) by clicking here.
****
As Mickey Kaus recently observed:
The Biden White House is famously leak-proof (in sharp contrast to Trump’s White House). This deprives the public of valuable information, such as who is pushing Biden into foolish stridency. But the worst effect is probably on the White House itself. For one thing, leaks of policy changes can be badly-needed trial balloons. …In general, if everybody knew who was pushing what policy—and who were the internal opponents—it would be easier for influential non-insiders to weigh in and steer policy in more sane directions.
In fact, the Biden White House is relatively leak-proof compared not only to the immediate previous team, but compared to any administration of the modern era.
Some (Jill Biden, Xavier Becerra, Rochelle Walensky, Eric Lander, Tina Flournoy, Kamala Harris) might disagree with that premise, but the exceptions prove the rule. Even in the rare cases of loose lips, the stories revealed have been just the ounce, pinch, crumb, mite, straw, bit, and pin of the real, full story.
Are there divisions within Team Biden on how to handle the war with Putin? There are, but you wouldn’t know it from the press coverage.
How about the question of whether there is a thoughtful legal and PR plan to protect the president (and the presidency) and deal with ANY eventuality in the Hunter Biden matter – and what people think about the absence or presence (and details) of such a plan? Uhm, yeah.
Are there disagreements about how to adjust to the new and dangerous fissures in the various Team Biden-Harris-Klain-Pelosi-Schumer relationships? There are indeed but you don’t hear about those in the media.
One more key one: How about internal jousting over what the right plan is to get the president’s job approval numbers higher before the midterms?
You betcha. But all on the downlow.
Oh, and another: Are there quiet and/but heated debates over how to handle what is euphemistically referred to as “the president’s schedule”? History will record the miracle that these discussions were largely more quiet than heated (at least in the first 15 months of the administration), but they are there.
They just don’t leak.
It is hard to miss the irony that the chattiest president in American history has the most button-upped administration in living memory.
Even the best informed Beltway types outside the inner circle are only seeing through this important glass darkly – which is why the pessimists worry about the unseen.
And Team Biden counts its lucky stars.
****
Walter Russell Mead uses his Wall Street Journal column to brilliantly state the obvious:
[T]e Biden administration has three ugly options from which to choose.
The first option, helping Ukraine win, is the most emotionally appealing and would certainly be the most morally justifiable and politically beneficial, but the risks and costs are high. Russia won’t accept defeat before trying every tactic, however brutal, and perhaps every weapon, however murderous. To force Russia to accept failure in Ukraine, the Biden administration would likely have to shift to a wartime mentality, perhaps including the kind of nuclear brinkmanship not seen since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. With China and Iran both committed to weakening American power by any available means, a confrontation with the revisionist powers spearheaded by Russia may prove to be the most arduous challenge faced by an American administration since the height of the Cold War.
But the other two options are also bad. A Russian victory would inflict a massive blow to American prestige and the health of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, especially if the West were seen as forcing Ukraine to surrender to Russian demands. Freezing the conflict is also perilous, as this would presumably leave Russia holding even more Ukrainian territory than it did following the 2014 invasions of Crimea and the Donbas. It would be hard to spin this as anything but a partial victory for Russia—and Mr. Putin would remain free to renew hostilities at a time of his choosing.
The failure to deter Mr. Putin’s attack on Ukraine is more than a failure of the Biden administration. Donald Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bush must share the blame. This failure may prove to be even costlier than failing to prevent the 9/11 attacks, and President Biden’s place in history hangs on his ability to manage the consequences of this increasingly unspeakable and unpredictable war.
****
Two killer quotes in an essential-reading Politico story on the midterms define the competing intra-Democratic Party points of view:
1.
“We’ve had problems getting [Build Back Better] passed, but the fact is [Rick] Scott reinforced what we’ve been saying all the time in terms of what their priorities are. So, we’re gonna let people know about that,” said John Anzalone, the longtime pollster for Biden.
“Biden has laid out what he believes is tax fairness and then Scott comes along and apparently lays out what he believes is tax fairness, which is taxing low- and middle-income people,” he added. ”It doesn’t take a pollster or brain surgeon to understand where real people will be on that.”
2.
“Many political consultants and many White Houses have an exaggerated view of the extent to which messaging can counteract reality,” Galston said. “But if you look at what’s dominating people’s minds right now, it’s inflation. Survey after survey confirms that. And inflation is very much a product of direct experience and especially repeated direct experience.”
****
Can’t decide which of the FOUR (4!) New York Post stories on Hunter Biden you should read?
Let me help.
Come for the headline-grabbing detail of this one but stay for the last portion of the last sentence:
James Biden and Hunter Biden’s lawyer didn’t return emails and Bobulinski didn’t return a message left at a phone number listed in his name.
But give your full attention to Rich Lowry’s column, in which he rightly focuses on two threads: the role of the president’s brother and those Air Force Two journeys on which Hunter hitched a ride with his dad to do deals.
****