Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. It\u2019s an oft-cited quote, but one that is easily forgotten. It seems that the mainstream media is doing to Joe Biden what they did to Jimmy Carter. They are holding Biden to a standard of perfection, rather than what it is reasonable to expect of a well-intentioned human being.<\/p>\n
The same holds true for many of the American people. Democrats and Independents alike are characterizing Biden\u2019s first year in the presidency as a failure. This, despite the fact that he has returned civility and level-headedness to the White House and the American economy is rebounding.<\/p>\n
When Biden assumed office, he had a favorable rating of over 60%. As he convinced Congress to pass the American Rescue P<\/a>lan<\/a>, his popularity remained high. But things changed in August. He decided that he would follow through on Donald Trump\u2019s commitment to pull all American troops out of Afghanistan the end of the year.<\/p>\n Things did not go smoothly. The military of the Afghani government was of little assistance in helping American and other foreign troops and civilians leave the country. This was in spite of the nearly twenty years of training that they had received from the allies.<\/p>\n The final departure was chaotic and involved casualties. Regrettably, that is most of what the media currently reports.<\/p>\n It seems that most of the media quickly forgot what Joe Biden said when he announced that the United States would be withdrawing from Afghanistan. He reminded the press, the American people and the world that he was the fourth president who had presided over America\u2019s presence in Afghanistan. He did not want to hand it over to a fifth president.<\/p>\n Equally important is that Biden was able to leave Afghanistan without declaring victory. Since Vietnam, the United States has been mired in numerous wars where it had little or no chance of actually winning, but that was never officially stated.<\/p>\n Lyndon Johnson was remarkably effective and popular with his civil rights legislation and Great Society. But as the number of troops in Vietnam escalated on his watch from 50,000 to over 500,000, he thoroughly undermined his credibility and effectiveness. He left office partially disgraced and he turned the war over to his successor, Richard Nixon, who was equally ineffective in extricating the United States.<\/p>\n After Nine-Eleven, President George W. Bush led America into Afghanistan. There was a justifiable reason for doing so because the Saudi mastermind of the attacks on the United States, Osama bin Laden, was hiding out in Afghanistan. The United States wanted to bring him to justice.<\/p>\n Bin Laden was finally killed in 2011 in the administration of Barack Obama. But the U.S. did not leave Afghanistan.<\/p>\n Back in 2003, Bush had invaded Iraq for no reason related to Nine-Eleven. He said that there were weapons of mass destruction there, but they were never found. Nonetheless, Bush declared victory. America still has a military presence in Iraq.<\/p>\n