Are You Serious, Mr. President?

The former number-one tennis player in the world, John McEnroe, was famous for his angry outbursts at numerous judges at the matches where he competed.  His most famous missive, directed repeatedly at the judges, was:  You cannot be serious!  Watching and listening to President Biden’s first State of the Union speech, one finds oneself making the same exclamation: “Mr. President, you cannot be serious!”  Or perhaps, “Mr. President, are you serious?”  This question and exclamation are in no way meant to be disrespectful.  The times are too serious and the respected office of the President too important to be cute, insensitive, or unreasonably critical of Joe Biden.

However, the speech—while admittedly somewhat rambling and uninspiring—contained so many glaring inconsistencies and non sequiturs that it begs the question, “Are you serious?”

Biden’s words of support for Ukraine were appropriate and needed.  The new sanctions imposed on Russia are also much needed and unprecedented.  However, the one huge loophole in the sanctions is Russia’s gas and oil industry.  We are still buying 672,000 barrels of oil and other petroleum products from Russia each day. Per day!  Sixty percent of Russia’s economy is produced by its sale of oil and other carbon energies. If the U.S. and our allies around the world put a moratorium on buying any Russian gas, oil, and coal, it would literally bring the Russian economy to its knees—and quickly.  We would pay a short-term price of higher prices.  But isn’t that preferable to starting World War III?  Would not that be better than witnessing the continued suffering of the Ukrainian people and the fall of that nation?

In the State of the Union speech, many hoped that considering the ongoing crisis in Ukraine that our President would announce (at least temporarily) a change in our own energy policy.  In the last few years, until President Biden took office, the U.S. enjoyed energy independence.  We actually sold energy to the rest of the world.  Biden began dismantling that on his first day in office, literally.  To bring prices down at the pumps and to deprive Russia of U.S. purchases of its energy—wouldn’t it make sense to open our own pipelines and remove Biden-imposed restrictions on oil leases, and so forth?  It would benefit U.S. citizens and punish Russia.  But it was not to be.  Biden never even mentioned it.

He did promise to release oil from the U.S. Strategic Oil Reserve.  Two concerns:  One, that reserve is supposed to be used only in national emergencies—like a war.  Secondly, Biden’s release of this oil equates to the amount of oil used in approximately two days in the U.S.  This will not significantly impact prices at the pumps at all.  It is worth repeating that we import over 600,000 barrels of Russian oil per day.  The canceled Keystone XL pipeline would produce 830,000 barrels of oil each day.  Think about that for a moment.  One wants to shout:  You cannot be serious!

Biden deplored runaway inflation in his speech.  His answer?  It was directed to businesses and producers:  Just lower the prices.  If only it were that simple.  If only our President were not that simplistic.  A freshman business administration minor knows better. In the same breath Biden deplored inflation, he promoted another two trillion dollars in federal spending.  The trillions already injected into the U.S. economy is why inflation is at its highest rate in 40 years.  Besides that, businesses are raising prices because it not only costs more to make goods—it also costs more to transport goods thanks to the high fuel prices brought on by Biden’s energy policies.  Is all of this lost on the Administration?  Apparently so.  Again:  You cannot be serious!

Biden railed at the need for border security.  This was one of the most incredulous moments in a fairly incredulous speech.  This is the President and an Administration that refuses to provide border security, will not enforce the existing immigration laws, and sends tens of thousands of illegal immigrants into the interior of the country on clandestine flights.  These are the leaders who look the other way at drug cartels, human traffickers, and the sex trade that literally bombard our southern border.  This is an essentially open-border Administration that is calling for a secure border.  You cannot be serious!

Which leads to one final critique of President Biden’s State of the Union speech.  At the end, Biden lamented the scourge of illegal drugs and the opioid crisis in America.  News Flash:  Most of the drugs that are the bane of life in the U.S. and were the cause of over 100,000 drug overdose deaths last year come across the southern border.  If Biden wants to begin to address the drug problem in America, he might begin by making it more difficult for China to send the drugs to Mexico, and then make it more difficult for the drug cartels to send the drugs across our very porous southern border.

Are you serious, Mr. President?  We really need you to be.

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