Foot to Mouth: Open Wide
Another day, another example of rhetorical malpractice by the Biden Administration
The chapter headings of the unending tale of woe that is the Biden Administration are lifted from a long, dismal list of rhetorical gaffes.
Take liberal world order: It’s a term both banal and sinister, not only inadequate to explain America’s interest in the outcome of the Russo-Ukrainian War but juicy red meat for conspiracy theorists and critics of globalism.
So naturally, liberal world order is right there in the Biden Administration’s lexicon.
Look, I get what Brian Deese, the director of Biden’s National Economic Council, was trying to say when he used the term in an effort to explain why the American people must bear some economic pain for Ukraine’s sake. The one and only issue on which the Biden Administration and I are in agreement is support for Ukraine in its resistance to V. Putin’s unprovoked war of aggression. But you don’t build support for a controversial policy by barfing out some half-digested chunk of social sciences jargon like liberal world order. As a rule of thumb, I would advise that any term or phrase likely to be heard in a university faculty lounge or seminar room should never be uttered in public by a presidential spokesman.
All right then, some may ask. What should Deese have said? How about something along these lines?
The preservation of European peace and security is a long-standing, vital national interest of the United States. For more than half a century, the NATO alliance, with America in the lead, preserved the peace in Europe. But today we’re confronted with an aggressive Russian regime whose attack on Ukraine is the first step in a scheme of aggression that threatens other nations as well, many of whom are our NATO allies. By supporting Ukraine now, we and our NATO partners are making it far less likely that a wider war, directly involving the United States, will break out.
That’s probably what Deese meant when he said liberal world order—more or less. But I’m willing to bet serious money that it wasn’t what eight out of ten people heard.
Day in and day out, the Biden Administration screws up its messaging in this way, as when the President himself unsuccessfully attempted to rebrand the current energy crisis as a time of transition. Now of course Biden was not entirely wrong. The energy sector of our economy is indeed going through a transition—though to be sure, there are sharp disagreements over the specifics. But as a response to questions about what the Biden Administration proposes to do about gasoline prices right now, it’s a transparent evasion. Presidential jawboning about the transition to a new energy economy tends to confirm the well-founded suspicion that Biden and his minions really have no idea what to do about the price of gasoline. And for conspiracy theorists it’s just more red meat: See? See? They want gasoline prices to stay high, so we’ll all be forced to buy electric cars!
The people around the President seem to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking up words and terms they hope will impart a positive spin to bad news—for this administration, a full-time job. The Afghanistan skedaddle was the greatest airlift in history, inflation will be transitory, a recession is not inevitable, etc., etc. None of these assertions are false, exactly. But since they’re never placed in their context—which is usually unflattering—they never fail to strike a false, discordant note.
Sometimes, of course, we do get bare-faced lies, as when Biden and his surrogates insist that “the border is closed.” No, it isn’t. As anyone with eyes in his head can plainly see, the border is wide open. You don’t have a closed border when a semitrailer loaded with illegal immigrants, half of whom suffocated to death en route, makes it onto US soil. But the plain lies are few and far between compared with the unending torrent of half-truths, excuses, evasions, rebrandings and non sequitars that constitute the Biden Administration’s characteristic response to unwelcome inquiries.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has the dubious honor of introducing many of these rhetorical gaffes. And since she’s somewhat less than competent in her role, there’s often a “dog ate my homework” quality to her handling of the awkward questions that follow. For instance, when asked about the President’s plan to tackle inflation, her answer was that Biden's $2 trillion stimulus “has put us in a place where we can actually, uh, put us in a place where the American people feel, can, can — can actually — we can take on inflation.”
Say what? You fight inflation by dumping even more cash into an already overheated economy? But perhaps it’s unfair to criticize Jean-Pierre too harshly. What has she got to work with, after all?
At the time of his election to the presidency, I doubt that very many people had high expectations for Joe Biden personally. In his long, undistinguished political career he built a matchless reputation for ignorance, bad judgement, mendacity and blather. But they figured he’d surround himself with seasoned old hands and shrewd professionals who’d keep things humming along. Alas, though, as so often happens the organization has taken on the character of its boss. And that’s why we have a great big roaring rhetorical gaffe machine operating out of the White House.