Joe Biden’s memory fails him
When Joe Biden wasn’t fumbling through his answers to softball questions, he was “forgetting” his dismal track record on dealing with Russia and Vladimir Putin.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane:
Biden was a leading cheerleader for the failed Russia “reset,” a set of policies deemed to be such a failure, they were panned by Hillary Clinton who deliberately distanced herself from them as she prepared for her failed run for president.
In the Obama-Biden admin’s “first major foreign policy address,” Biden said, “It’s time to press the reset button” with Russia.
In March 2011, “Biden hailed the successful ‘reset’ of U.S.-Russian relations and reiterated his call for broader economic cooperation between the two countries.”
During the Obama/Biden administration, when the Russians engaged in a “sweeping and systemic” interference campaign in the United States Obama/Biden failed to act and “choked” in their handling of the Russian hacking, issuing only a “largely symbolic” and “modest” response.
As Bloomberg’s Eli Lake observed, this was part of a systemic problem with the Obama/Biden administration: “Why did Putin believe he could treat America like it was Estonia? The answer is that Obama spent the first six years of his presidency turning a blind eye to Russian aggression.”
On Obama/Biden’s watch, Russia also ran roughshod with the annexation of Crimea.
Furthermore, Biden himself has no shortage of hair-brained ideas on how to work with Vladimir Putin.
Ahead of the Iraq War, Biden tried to buy off Putin with the promise to give them oil money.
As The Federalist points out, Joe Biden has no ground to stand on to discuss another set of anonymous Russia related leaks: “Iran reportedly offered the Taliban $1,000 bounties in 2010 for American soldiers’ deaths in Afghanistan. Not only was no action taken by President Obama at the time, six years later, he authorized the payment of $1.7 billion to the regime.”
Bottom Line: One of the cognitive tests Biden should be taking is to recall how President Trump has consistently confronted Russia from leveling punishing sanctions to strengthening NATO. What the American people will see after an examination of Biden’s record is that he is full of hot air.