Biden’s lightweight White House

OPINION:

Watching the Biden team at work these past months - especially on critical national security matters – reminds me of the poem “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod” by Eugene Field, which we have most likely read to our children at bedtime. Remember that “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night - sailed off in a wooden shoe” - and “Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes, and Nod is a little head.”

In my construct, these characters have a rather apparent current political identity. Let’s see who they are:

• “Wynken” has got to be Susan Rice, and we remember her for the ridiculous spin she put on the 9/11 attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi – which was almost as good as Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State: Remember the “what difference does it make” comment? This is also the “real Susan Rice,” and it’s a matter of time before we get the same goofy spin on some other disaster – and believe me, there will be other disasters with this “crew in the shoe.”
• “Blynken” has got to be Tony Blinken, our overwhelmed Secretary of State, who will likely say stuff as silly as Hillary did when he is called to testify on the current debacle, whatever it might be. Many of us thought Tony would be far more competent than he has been – but sadly, he went right back into the phony policy mold that Hillary left at the State Department. And the Chinese, it seems, just love to beat on “Blynken.”
• “Nod” - with the “little head” – could only be our spatially disoriented President, the “look man” himself. I call him that because when he says “look,” it usually means he has said his one-liner and must walk away. Just watch him - he can’t help himself - he is genuinely Nod with the “little head.”

These lightweights have truly “sailed off in a wooden shoe” and have put our great nation at significant risk in both the short and long term, primarily because of their collective ignorance of critical national security matters and preferred obsession with big-city politics.

And our big cities? Imagine anyplace you would rather live than, say, Chicago, with several gang-style murders every day. Just look at the daily death toll, courtesy of the Chicago Sun-Times, and you can search with whatever combinations of age, race, sex, and ethnicity you choose. And our big cities are run chiefly by liberal Democrats who run for office with promises of “free stuff.” 

Last year “Nod” somehow won the U.S. presidency and is now in charge of sailing the wooden shoe of government. With less than a year of watching him screw up, the American public now realizes they’ve made a horrible mistake. Far worse than that, we have to endure three more years of incompetence before we can send W, B and N back into the closet, where they belong. 

I did not intend to leave our goofy Vice President out of this sad matrix, so I have given her the name “Cackler” and found a special 25th Amendment seat for her in the White House shoe, right next to President Nod – and she loves it!

If you are President Xi Jinping in China and/or Vladimir Putin in Russia and have observed and dealt with W, B and N – and Cackler for almost a year, what is your plan for the next three years and what are your objectives? To begin with, it’s probably an excellent idea for the two countries to coordinate with one another to increase their ability to take down the U.S. a notch – or three.

What specific plans and goals could Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin have? Here are just a few:

• Russia invades Ukraine to “rescue” their sympathizers therein – much as they did in Crimea.
• China begins military operations against Taiwan – may be by first taking some small islands. Look for this after the Beijing Winter Olympics.
• China dramatically increases the scale of military operations and presence in the South China Sea.
• China encourages and supports North Korea’s and Kim’s regime as it transitions to become a “legitimate” nuclear power.
• Iran’s nuclear weapon program comes out of the closet.
• China proceeds with military basing projects throughout the world as it complements its “road and belt” programs.
• China and Russia continue their effort to control the world’s media and information systems and to access/influence all means of communication.
• China and Russia continue to add to their array of new weapons and delivery systems, both nuclear and conventional.
• China and Russia seek to take over space operations and their control of space-based assets of all kinds.

If I haven’t suggested something here that troubles you, then Wynken, Blynken, Nod – and Cackler – will sail on with their central message of incompetence. And the sad reality is that they will be doing this for three more years and may just help accomplish what the Soviet Union and China failed to achieve in the Cold War.

In many ways, it’s as if “we” have forgotten all “we” learned the hard way over the last 30 years. Wynken, Blynken, Nod - and Cackler - never learned it anyway, so it’s not a big deal to them. And just like Hillary, they are asking us now, “what difference does it make?” 

• Daniel Gallington served in a series of senior national security policy, intelligence and arms control positions.