Ted Rall for April 21, 2021

Certainly one of the smartest… if only because he actually pays attention to his advisors — and has… intelligently… chosen good ones. And effective, because he’s enough of a pragmatist to do what’s needed not letting what the liberals think is fair, right and proper divert him from that.

Actually, America’s Longest War is still going on as it has since 1971. The “War on Drugs” will not end any time soon.

I think that’s called a backhanded compliment.

I’m not happy with the presidents over the last half century, and I’d like to see an end to the trend. Was Vietnam the beginning of this trend of interfering for the worse?

He’s certainly old, but demonstratively not senile. The typical *FRN ranters, on the other hand, are hardly old but clearly deluded.

Saying Joe Biden is intelligent is like saying Jeffrey Dahmer was a gourmet cook.

Philosophically President Obama should have been the one to withdraw all troops but, while he was in office, there was still a forelorn hope that the U.S. could win in Afghanistan.s

Past president tried.. but were thwarted.. It’s not yet a done deal.

I haven’t commented on Rall for a while, because of a really nasty cartoon about Biden he drew some months ago. He seems committed to the idea that Biden is senile. I just don’t see that. I think he’s done a very good job so far. He has shown a lot of political intelligence at a very difficult moment. I’m pretty far to the left of Biden, and I expect to disagree with him down the road, and I will not hesitate to criticize him, but so far he has done better than I expected. No, he hasn’t instituted a socialist utopia, but could any reasonable person expect that he would? Generally he’s been pretty progressive, and he has been able to work with the progressive wing of the party. As for this particular cartoon, well, the last two decades were Bush, Obama, and Trump. Bush was a very bad president, and not smart; the invasion of Iraq was a truly disastrous decision; I also opposed to the invasion of Afghanistan, and I think history has demonstrated it was a bad idea. Trump was probably the worst president ever, and though he had a certain cunning, he wasn’t smart. Obama was (and is) very smart. I was overall disappointed by his presidency, but intelligence wasn’t the problem. He’s just more of a centrist that we expected. A lot goes into what makes a good president. A certain level of intelligence is necessary, but a good temperament is even more important. FDR was the best president (except Lincoln) ever, and he was smart enough, but he wasn’t the smartest.

yep

Banker Joe is none of the three although he is getting old and as far as withdrawing from Afghanistan, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Could Rall be any less predictable – taking a harsh dig at Biden when he’s doing something Rall supports?

BWAWHAWHAWHAW! HAW! It’s funny because Theodore has damned Biden with faint praise!

Well, for that matter, Trump completely unrealistically planned to withdraw by May 1, which is in 10-ish days. Doesn’t make him smart.

Withdrawing with a plan on your own terms is smart, though. The Afghans might miss all of the tiny increase in human rights they had with the US occupation. We shouldn’t forget that the Taliban is horrible.

Biden is like an experienced captain of the Ship of State righting the ship that the republicans turned sideways and almost sank the US in the canal of history.