The thankless task of cleaning up after Joe Biden Opinion by Noah Rothman - Yesterday

Joe Biden is frustrated. As NBC News revealed under the headline “Inside a Biden White House adrift,” the president is beset on all sides by irritations: his sagging poll numbers, the persistence of inflation, the public’s dissatisfaction with the state of the economy and, of course, the general opposition to his agenda from Republican lawmakers. But externalities aren’t the only conditions Biden is contending with. The president is also reportedly vexed by his own staff.

Save for employing their powers of observatioWhite House aides who ride in to clarify Joe Biden’s remarks aren’t doing so to serve their own interests.“He makes a clear and succinct statement — only to have aides rush to explain that he actually meant something else,” the NBC News dispatch read. “The so-called clean-up campaign, he has told advisers, undermines him and smothers the authenticity that fueled his rise. Worse, it feeds a Republican talking point that he’s not fully in command.”n, Republicans have little to do with Biden’s predicament. White House aides and communications staffers who ride in to clarify and contextualize Biden’s remarks aren’t doing so to serve their own interests. Often, they’re not even doing so behind the president’s back.For example, on Tuesday, the same day NBC News published its account of the president’s annoyance with his own staff, 

Biden’s byline graced a New York Times op-ed announcing America’s intention to “provide the Ukrainians with more advanced rocket systems and munitions that will enable them to more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield in Ukraine.” Subsequent reporting revealed that the U.S. will send highly mobile and quick-loading artillery rocket systems and long-range ordnance that can strike targets precisely at up to 70 kilometers (about 44 miles) away. to blame but himself.

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