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Biden’s “C-Team” Administration

Posted on Wednesday, September 29, 2021
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AMAC Exclusive – by Daniel Roman

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Karl Marx once observed that history often repeats, first as tragedy, then as farce. He did not ascribe this to some great mystical force, but rather to the common desire of resentful mediocrities to imitate the heroes of their youth. At the time, he was referring to the effort of Napoleon III, the nephew of the great Napoleon, to ape the pomp of his uncle when he could not match the authentic article. But for Marx, it also applied to the politicians of the left who tried to imitate Robespierre without one tenth of the substance.

If the Obama administration’s foreign policy team produced more than its share of tragedies on the world stage–Benghazi, the collapse of the Arab Spring into chaos, the rise of ISIS through a premature withdrawal from Iraq–the Biden Administration is now reproducing them in the form of farce. Obama’s foreign policy had many defects, but lack of ambition was not among them. Obama’s vision was a poor one which proved tragically incorrect, but Obama’s policies were carried out by individuals who believed in them. The speech Obama gave in Cairo in 2009 was the speech of a man who genuinely believed in a struggle between Islam and America which was based upon misunderstandings, not differing interests or the ambitions of local actors. Obama’s policies in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, and toward Israel were those of someone who genuinely believed that America was the problem. That American support for dictators caused unrest, except in cases such as Iraq, where American intervention against dictators triggered chaos. In either case America was the problem.

Obama’s vision was one that leading figures in his administration had advocated for years. Samantha Power, Susan Rice, and others all had substantial profiles and a clear agenda by the time they took office. They were wrong, and the consequences of their failures were catastrophic, but they did take office with the ambition of doing something. It was a tragedy that what they sought to do turned out to be wrong.

If Obama’s team was motivated by the ambition to do something, then Biden’s team appears to be driven by a burning desire to be someone.

Anthony Blinken and Jake Sullivan were not well known for strategic or policy brilliance before their elevation to the top of the American National Security apparatus. Lloyd Austin was a general, but a largely unknown one.

The burden of anonymity hangs heavy over Biden’s team whenever they address the press. It is obvious in their prickliness when challenged, their quick resort to blaming their predecessors, their desperate efforts to claim no one could have done better. It is almost as if they need to reassure not just others, but themselves that they belong where they are.

While Republicans today lambast the incompetence of Biden’s team, Republicans weren’t the first to recognize the ineptitude of those now charged with ensuring our national security. Barack Obama and his team effectively said as much years ago. Jake Sullivan and Anthony Blinken were unknown in the policy community not because the public never had a chance to meet them, but because Barack Obama refused to make them somebodies. Both have long histories with Biden. Vice Presidents empire-build—they try to get their allies appointed to powerful posts in the administration to expand the influence they don’t have by virtue of the powers of their office. Both Blinken and Sullivan, given Biden’s elevation to the Vice Presidency, most likely should have expected the incoming Vice President to push them heavily for senior national security positions in 2009. Failing that, they should have expected to benefit from the turnover in Obama’s second term.

Where was Sullivan then? On the sidelines of power. Anthony Blinken, meanwhile, was National Security Adviser to the Vice President from 2009 to 2013, which is far from being among the most coveted positions in the national security hierarchy. This implies not only that Biden was unable to get Blinken a job anywhere on the actual President’s national security team, but that after four years as the Vice President’s National Security Adviser, he was unable to get Blinken a new post at the NSC or State Department in Obama’s second term. Not only did Hillary Clinton apparently find Blinken unworthy of a serious appointment, but so evidently did John Kerry, Susan Rice, Robert Gates and others.

Unlike Blinken, a mediocrity whose rise stalled just when it should have begun in 2009, Sullivan was a young man in a hurry. But he was in a hurry not to promote any sort of vision for foreign policy or America’s role in the world. He has barely published his thoughts on anything. His career is one of pure politics, and politics of associating with the second-tier. Clinton in 2008 and 2016, Biden in between, never breaking into Obama’s circle.

At 30, he was a foreign policy adviser to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, followed her to the State Department as deputy chief of staff, and then became Director of Planning Staff. But Sullivan failed to make the transition into Obama’s team, or the center of Democratic policymaking. When Clinton departed the State Department in 2013, Sullivan was neither promoted at State nor given a perch on Obama’s own team at the NSC. Instead, he found himself succeeding Blinken as Biden’s National Security Adviser.  

Perhaps Obama found his judgment or discretion lacking. It now appears that Sullivan did take part in one operational project—reportedly an effort to use hearsay and rumor mongering from former intelligence officials to try and sell the media on links between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia. What is striking is not that Sullivan would undertake such a function, but he did so in such a ham-fisted way that the CIA “picked up chatter” from Russian sources about “a senior Clinton foreign policy adviser” attempting to fabricate connections between Trump and Russia. Former CIA Director John Brennan apparently even warned Obama that Sullivan was engaged in such an effort on Hillary’s behalf.

This can only have reinforced the notion that Sullivan was a political operator who had no place in a role of responsibility over America’s national security. Biden must not have been in the loop.

U.S. Foreign Policy under Biden then is not being run by either the Obama team, or even the Obama “B team.” It is run by the C team.

Blinken and Sullivan carry themselves with the air of men who have been vindicated by events in a nominal sense, but who nevertheless feel uncomfortably aware that it was external forces like COVID-19 and the surprising ascendency of a thoroughly bland and uninspiring candidate in Joe Biden which transformed them from individuals who would likely never work in government again in 2016 to Secretary of State and National Security Adviser in 2021. Their vindication, such as it was, was entirely dependent on the unlikeliest series of events: Donald Trump’s victory in the primaries and then general election in 2016; Joe Biden’s narrow victory in the primaries and then general election in 2020. Kamala Harris’ elevation to Vice President over someone who might have had their own foreign policy team such as Susan Rice, or close links with Obama.

Their career resurrection to the center of global power is farcical, and, they seem to understand, somewhat absurd. The problem is, the American people – and the world – are paying for it. During the botched evacuation from Afghanistan, both Blinken and Sullivan seemed determined to take center stage in the media coverage to give the impression they were central to what was going on, flooding the Sunday talk shows and giving daily press conferences.

This came at the cost of actually doing anything real to fix the situation. In those appearances, their comments largely focused not on defending or justifying U.S. policy, but on justifying their own occupation of their respective positions. Their claim that Biden’s Afghanistan policy was determined by the Trump administration was the claim of someone hopelessly insecure in their own decisions. The conflicting arguments that the withdrawal was both perfect and inevitably chaotic also amounted to another defensive claim that no one would or could have done better, especially the people Sullivan and Blinken worked under during the Obama administration. The members of Biden’s team act like individuals who suspect they do not belong in their jobs.

In this characteristic insecurity, the Biden team reflects Biden himself. If the resurrection of Anthony Blinken is an inexplicable twist of fate, nothing is more farcical than the process by which Joseph Biden, who barely managed 4% in the 2008 Iowa caucuses in his second run for President, coming well behind Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards, ended up in the White House. It required Barack Obama to defeat Hillary Clinton in an upset in 2008, John Edwards’ political career to explode in scandal, eliminating him from consideration for Vice President. It also took Obama’s subsequent selection of Biden, and then the defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016—followed by the almost tragicomic fiascos of the Democratic contests in Iowa and New Hampshire with no clear victor between Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg. That allowed Biden, who came in fourth, to make a come-from-behind bid for the nomination. COVID-19 and the chaos it installed in the electoral system then allowed Biden to become President by the narrowest of margins.

Someone who if but for that most unlikely combination of factors would be on the doorstep of a long-term care facility rather than President is unsurprisingly determined to remind everyone he is President. But Biden, like Blinken and Sullivan, seems deeply uncertain what he wanted to be President for. A man who opposed school bussing for integration and voted for the Iraq War now champions Black Lives Matter and unilateral withdrawal from abroad. But like his cronies, Biden is committed to reminding everyone every day he is President through assertions of his own importance. He wanted to be president as personal vindication—vindication over those for whom, in 1988 and 2008 and 2016, he was “not good enough.”

The problem, as with Blinken and Sullivan, is that those who believed Biden was not fit to be president, including figures as diverse as Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden, were right. Biden understands the presidency only in terms of wielding power. Afghanistan was arbitrary and capricious. His mandate for employers was arbitrary and capricious. His recent decision to ration antibody treatments to the states was arbitrary and capricious. His response to criticism is to remind critics that he is President and can do what he wants.

In fact, that is the unifying message from this entire “C Team” administration. Sullivan, Blinken, and Biden all want the press and media to know that they are in office. Those who bemoan the far-left agenda of the Biden administration confuse farce for tragedy. The Afghan people and the American people would be enormously lucky to have Obama 2.0 rather than this group. Instead, we are getting those who never made the cut. Their farcical efforts to win personal vindication at the expense of the American people and the world itself have already proved a disaster beyond measure.

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PaulE
PaulE
3 years ago

The Biden administration is compromised chiefly of second and third string Obama era retreads or wannabes. They were not selected for any particular level of competence or expertise, but rather for their shared commitment to the ideology of socialism and the desire to remake the United States in that model of governance. They are NOT there to build America up and advance classic American values and norms on the national or international stage, but rather to tear the country down, brick by brick, to achieve the goal of a transformed and much weaker United States. Seen in that context, they are succeeding quite well.

We are no longer energy independent and are now back to be subject to the whims of OPEC. Gasoline prices are already up on average of 40 percent over this time last year, with higher energy costs overall coming down the road. Our domestic economy is being systematically strangled by a wave of new oppressive regulations and mandates that make us less competitive and thus weaker on the global stage. With many more regulations being keyed up in Congress on the way in both so-called infrastructure bills.

We have a non-existent southern border and are on pace to import 2 million illiterate and thus completely government dependent illegals per year into this country, as far as the eye can see to sway future elections in the Democrat party’s favor.

We just surrendered in Afghanistan to a force of no more than 70,000 illiterate Taliban goat herders with machine guns and handed them enough weaponry, aircraft and explosives to arm the world-wide Islamic terrorist movement for decades to come. While also at the same time abandoning hundreds of American citizens to the tender mercies of the Taliban to be either held hostage or killed. We also just completely alienated almost all our allies and shown that the United States can no longer be relied on to either keep its word or afford protection for their enemies. Our military leadership is more focused on being woke and destroying unit cohesion and mission readiness, than being able to win any military action they are tasked to fight.

We are bending over backwards to Iran to re-enter the badly one-sided Iran nuclear deal, that the incompetent Obama administration foolishly agreed to in order to give Obama a foreign policy “win”. We have returned to business as usual with China in almost all aspects and ignoring the growing threats from Russia, Iran and North Korea, who now all no longer fear us.

So seen through the lens of an administration focused on promoting a transformation to socialism as both and economic and governance model and tearing down the republic that is the United States of America, the Biden administration should be graded a solid “A” to date.

jocko
jocko
3 years ago

libs = CANCER AND ARE THE ENEMY OF OUR NATION, THE united states of latin america

Diana Collins
Diana Collins
3 years ago

Mediocrity has truly risen to the top to be pupeteered by George Soros and other Global elitist minions of evil. They know how to manipulate these “want a be” but never will be of their own abilities faux important people. The worst of these is Joe Biden. His arrogance, ignorance of reality and egomaniacal Hitleristic lack of personality made him perfect for this puppet-position. What a pathetic, incompetent fool!!

Lois Wright
Lois Wright
3 years ago

Why give them a “C” when they have failed miserably in EVERY respect?

BwaHa
BwaHa
3 years ago

obumma via biden is having an additional term as POTUS. Don’t think for a minute biden’s not being puppet-ted by his loyal puppeteer Barry HUSSEIN obummer. Biden’s not the POTUS! But then again, most of us already know this…

IMHO

MAGA2024! TRUMP2024!

MariaRose
MariaRose
3 years ago

They are all narcissists who do not hear anything but their attitude. In their mindset they are right and it is everyone else who is at fault. Hey, look at whose is in charge of putting these individuals in their positions and we have 3 more years of this nonsense to deal with it, besides throwing out all the stuck in place politicians until death because they “need “ more pocket lining.

RRJ
RRJ
3 years ago

The article title is an insult to 3rd steamers everywhere. “F Troup” is a more accurate term for Biden’s team.

Judy
Judy
3 years ago

This guy lost me at; “Joe Biden’s narrow victory in the primaries, and then in the general election in 2020.”

“REALLY??” Geez AMAC, guess it really is true that even your organization has sold out to the Left’s lies!!! And it’s sickening!
Everyone who has significant brain activity knows OUR ELECTION was stolen!! I’m so disappointed that AMAC is now just a common MSM organization. AND IF YOU’RE NOT, THEN PROVE IT, BEFORE I GIVE ONE MORE DIME AS A MEMBER!!

May you seek God’s will and not trust in your own concerted and misguided judgment.

Hal
Hal
3 years ago

When I read the title of the article, I was wondering if “C-Team” meant “Communist” or “China” or “Crazy” or “Crooked” or “Corrupt”!!! Probably a typo that omitted a “5” in front of the “C”!!!!!

J. Farley
J. Farley
3 years ago

They are more like the Z team on steroids, with this bunch, and the Fake News Media, what could go wrong. Heaven help Us!
If someone told you before 9-11 that America would be in such a great decline you would have told them that the Christmas Goose had nothing over on them, and now this crap is a daily occurrence from these S##T for Brains.

STEPHEN GORDON
STEPHEN GORDON
3 years ago

WE NEED TO BE READY TO DEFEND OUR HOMES, LIVES AND FREEDOM! THEY ARE GOING TO TRY AND TAKE AMERICA AWAY AND WE MUST STOP THEM WITH FORCE IF NECESSARY!!

Paul W
Paul W
3 years ago

Yeah…”C-Team”. “C” as in “C”ompletely lacking any “C”omptetence. “C” as in hard-“C”ore “C”ommunists. “C” as in “C”atastrophic…”C”ausing the “C”ollapse of this “C”ountry.

Davidme
Davidme
3 years ago

The GOP and Republican (Lackey/Rino) Party in now over four (4) years late for Work!!!! There were No Charges and/or Prosecution brought against Omam, The Clinton Klan, The O’Biden Family Corruption, George Soros and all the others !!!!
This was condoned on the basis of “Political Correctness” !!!!! Now look at what you left us with, a Fraudulent and Criminal Presidential Regime !!!! It is now long past the proper time to Aggressively Act. Better Late Then Never !!! Please For Our True America Find The Courage and Fortitude to Act !!! Like Article 5 !!!! If You do Not Do So Our True America will Be Lost to These Unethical Tyrants !!!!
This ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION is being UN-Lawfully Allowed By the Radicalized Far Left Fraudulent and Criminal “President” O’Biden Regime !!!! They are using this to Bring Down and Destroy Our Economy, Our National and Personal Security, Our Health Care System and Our Educational System !!!! They will Likely be Allowed To Vote “As Non Citizens” !!!! With No Means Of Support they will be Subsidized at Tax Payer Expense !!!
Then we have the Recent Afghanistan Serious Issues !!!! Before Afghanistan Fell China, O’Biden’s Ally, moved to offer support To The Taliban. Then The O’Biden Regime Just Up And Left Afghanistan with Our Citizens, Our 51 Service Dogs and Billions of Dollars Worth Of State of The Art Military Hardware, Supplies and Owe Base Facilities for China and The Taliban !!!! Just Connect The Dots to See How Our True America Was and Is Being Destroyed By this Evil Fraudulent O’Biden Regime !!!!
Wake Up America, We Are In Very, Very Serious, Grave and Dire Danger “From Within” and From China !!!!

Rik
Rik
3 years ago

Comrade President Jackass Joe Biden, our Liar in Chief, WILL GO DOWN IN AMERICAN HISTORY AS OUR WORST PRESIDENT EVER! ! !

Sharon Ormsby
Sharon Ormsby
3 years ago

I think it’s more like the F team as in failing in all they do.

johnh
johnh
3 years ago

GOOGLE will put up $10 Billion to fight Cybersecurity attacks according to news today. Hats off to Google, but where is Biden administration? This should be led by the Fed. Govt. and not just by companies & states, as Cyberattacks can shut down USA if allowed to happen. This is much more important to America than climate change at current time —

Stephen Russell
Stephen Russell
3 years ago

C Team is correct: Comedy Team

johnh
johnh
3 years ago

The Biden team is very weak, but also Biden talks almost every day & walks off without answering questions. He does not allow his team to talk about current issues — but does it as one person and is a monlogue that appears to be controlled by some other person/groups . And how can Biden stand in front of a mike & say his proposed + $3 Trillion will cost zero dollars to taxpayers?? If that is true, then that means Fed Debt will not grow during his term who will agree with that except people in his admin and his daily WH person.

Grace
Grace
3 years ago

Joe Biden who ‘s ambition to be a politician was only for the money has proven true. For fifty years he lied, cheated, bluffed his way Always the con, guy, never the nice guy. Even one of his own declared-“Joe is the kind of guy, when you see him coming down the hall toward you, you take the next exit.” During those fifty lucky years there is not one thing you can point to that Joe Biden did for the people. An angel on his shoulder? You might think so, but for America it was the dark angel?

Rick
Rick
3 years ago

Best analysis I’ve read of this debacle! You put substance to what I’ve been suspicious of for a long time. Thanks

edgar fletcher
edgar fletcher
3 years ago

Wow, I’ve been enlightened. What a sad indictment of Joe Biden, he truly is an idiot.

Sean Richman
Sean Richman
3 years ago

First there was Jimmy Carter,a good man,but a poor president,then they elected nonobamba,a president that really disliked AMERICA.Now we have biden,harris,screwmer,peeloosli and many,many more and all of a sudden Carter doesn’t seem so bad.

HocasPocas
HocasPocas
3 years ago

I don’t believe that the c team will be in the position that they are in much longer. It’s going to be a long hard road for every American citizen in the fight to not lose everything including our freedom

Winston Bela
Winston Bela
3 years ago

C Team? You give the Biden Administration too much credit.

Henry Miller
Henry Miller
3 years ago

The Peter Principle in action–people tend to rise to their level of incometence. They’re just competent enough to rise in the ranks for a while, but their competence is limited. They get that one last promotion–into positions where their competence is insufficient and then proceed to do an incompetent job. That’s what we’re seeing in the Biden Administration–and in Biden himself.

Mike Lowry
Mike Lowry
3 years ago

It’s long been a business axiom that “A” players hire other “A” players, while “B” players hire “C” players. I’m wondering what kind of players a “Z” player hires.

We are governed by idiots because half of the citizens don’t spend any time learning about the issues.

Lawrence Jones
Lawrence Jones
3 years ago

Every official was chosen based on the typical leftist checklist. Woman? Check. Gay? Check. Black? Check. Hispanic? Check. Where Trump’s officials were chosen based on ability and competence, Biden’s were chosen by checklist. And, it shows!

Fgdtr
Fgdtr
3 years ago

Biden the commander and chief ass-wipe and his yellow belly generals.

Kay
Kay
3 years ago

Biden doesn’t have a clue what is going on, the question is who is pulling his strings and making the decisions that is destroying our Constitution .All of these people were chosen by someone else not biden

Garye
Garye
3 years ago

More like an F troop clown show team!
joebama,commie Harris, useless schummer and pelosi, EVERY Democrat and all their supporting cast – ABJECT FAILURES!!
Worst EVER!

mrrand
mrrand
3 years ago

Sullivan, Blinken, and Biden are political animals of the left gaining prominence in our political processes. The left has been ascending for decades looking for a foot hold, and now it has one. The one notable thing of the left success in making policy is the total absence of the successes of all those things the left has done. The left has turned our public government educational process into an education of and in mediocrity. What we have today is a major decline in the education of our population who lack abilities in math, thinking and reasoning, employable skills, general knowledge and an understanding of our governance. The education shortcomings allow for our political candidates to win elections based upon how well they are coached and managed at personality projection and not their knowledge, skills and abilities to accomplish the tasks and needs of national leadership.office. So now we, the electorate, have saddled our selves with leardes such as these, and become the international laughing stock of the whole wide world. We are now iminently posed to fall from the position of the leading world country, where so many want to come, to a thrid rate nation state that essentially can not govern itself.

Karen
Karen
3 years ago

There is a large percentage of people in the USA that are not even aware of what is going on. How can we teach them? Can they be taught? I’m not too sure. Since our Reps are doing nothing, we should tell them to get off their fat butts and get out to talk to the people. Are we leaving everything up to FOX and Newsmax? The far left does not watch those stations.

A P
A P
3 years ago

I don’t think Dementia Joe will even last to the Midterms. Either he will stroke out or COVID will get him. At his age and condition, the virus will surely kill him regardless of how many booster shots he gets – and he knows it. Then his “C-team” will be replaced by Cacklin’ Kamala’s own C-team.

jim carlyle
jim carlyle
3 years ago

Really good article.

PIDL
PIDL
3 years ago

Sullivan is the man who started the 4 years of relentless attack of Donald Trump with the Russian collusion. If one looks at the history of his involvement with Hillary Clinton and Putin, one can see that these same techniques were used by Putin during his re-election campaign saying Hillary was trying to influence the Russian elections. It worked for Putin. He was re-elected. An article written by the New York Post asks “Did Jake Sullivan commit perjury? Emails reveal ‘lie’ on Trump” explains how he was involved. He is now Biden’s team member. But as usual, the Democrats are held to a different standard. And Blinken is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, as are many of the Biden crew!!!
Also, this is why Hillary did not want her e-mails revealed. It would show all of the deception and lies she has been fomenting for years.

BoK
BoK
3 years ago

Fix 2020 and we’ll be on our way out of this nightmare !
HOW ?? Go to frank speech dot com and send your states AG the letter to sign the complaint to the Supreme Court.
Read it and spread the word. Also for your knowledge Start watching Lindell tv dot com

Syria Flag
New U.S. citizens recite the pledge of allegiance during a special naturalization ceremony on the Hollywood Sign Terrace at historic Griffith Observatory on October 21, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) ceremony was the first naturalization ceremony held on the grounds of the iconic Griffith Observatory which opened to the public in 1935.
Trump Supporters on Jan. 6 2021. Trump Supporters were marching to the Capitol Hill on January 6th in 2021 in Washington DC USA.

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