OPINION:
The complexification of the modern world requires the navigation skills of a leader with a special quality: common sense. Americans require their president to squint into the distance, read the signs of challenges ahead and react before they flash by and fade in the rear-view mirror. Possession of such capability is rare and, sadly, President Biden is not among the few who do.
In his first State of the Union address to Congress Tuesday night, Mr. Biden misstated the nature of the threat to the nation that is quickly replacing the fading COVID-19 pandemic as the most existential: the failure to secure affordable energy sufficient to power 21st-century civilization.
Referencing Russia’s brutal, ongoing invasion of Ukraine before the assembled U.S. Congress, Mr. Biden lamented, “Throughout our history, we’ve learned this lesson when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos. They keep moving. And the costs and the threats to America and the world keep rising.”
To be sure, the president touted his efforts to rally 27 nations of the European Union to counter Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demented attack on his Ukrainian neighbors. He also pledged to release 30 million barrels of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Seemingly a vast ocean of energy, the extra oil is only enough to power the nation for less than two days.
Taxpayers will be rightfully grateful if the move saves them a couple of cents at the fuel pump, but they are unlikely to forget that the president’s foolish energy policies will still cost them more than an extra grand this year.
Mr. Biden also reminded his audience that Ford and GM together are expected to invest $18 billion and create 14,000 jobs in the manufacturing of electric vehicles. These numbers, too, are gratifying, but the environmentally friendly cars and trucks must plug into the same electric grid that relies on fossil fuels for 60% of its wattage. The president’s favorite sources — solar and wind — barely account for 10%.
With his infatuation with “green” energy sources, Mr. Biden is not leading — but rather following — the example of Europeans, who have gone head over heels for new-age power and rely on Russia for much of the remainder. The United States also purchases oil from Russia, an unforgivable mistake owing to the president’s intentional efforts to deny his constituents access to their own bounty of natural resources.
Shocking images of the utter annihilation of Ukrainian cities wrought by Mr. Putin’s Russian war machine demonstrate, true to Mr. Biden’s words, that “when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos.” In a glaring misstatement of the Union, though, he failed to mention that the destruction is being fueled with U.S. petrodollars.
Americans can take no pleasure in observing that with his leadership, Mr. Biden demonstrates no more common sense than the ordinary Joe.
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