President Joe Biden made a show of his promotion of two female generals to full four-star rankings, charging them with oversight of the U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Transportation Command on International Women’s Day.
The day was filled with missteps, bumbling, and Joe Biden’s typical forgetfulness.
Much has been made in the right-leaning press of Biden’s gaffes, a prominent feature of his campaign and presidency, and they were center stage on Monday during the announcement.
Biden forgot his secretary of defense’s name as well as the name of where he works, reducing Lloyd J. Austin III and the Pentagon to “the guy who runs that outfit over there.” The fumbling and bumbling were made worse by the fact that the secretary of defense was in the room and, in fact, had just introduced the honorees.
The mainstream media completely ignored the day’s embarrassing gaffes but they were delighted with the woke stagecraft: a black Pentagon chief, a black/east Asian vice president, and two women. On International Women’s Day. You could practically see the heat waves emanating from the tingling legs of those in the audience, to the limited extent there was one.
ABC reported the scene.
Austin announced the promotions of Army Lt. Gen. Laura Richardson and Air Force Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost on Saturday, and both women flanked Biden at Monday’s event.
Richardson will be given her fourth star as she leaves her commanding role at U.S. Army North, in San Antonio, Texas, to lead U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) in Doral, Florida.
These are big jobs for only the most competent, of which there’s little doubt these women are.
Indeed, something far more interesting was going on Monday and it pointed to more secret moves behind the scenes by entrenched lifers – deep-staters if you prefer – during the Trump administration.
In nearly every story about Monday’s promotion, there was the attendant storyline that the promotions were “delayed under the Trump administration.” Trump was “expected to snub” the two women. It was reported there was fear that “Trump would reject them.”
Considering that Trump made female advancement a feature of his administration – his campaign and communications were filled with women, for example – the unsaid conclusion was that Trump didn’t promote these women because, well, they’re women.
But it turns out that Trump’s secretary of defense held back their promotions.
ABC News reported that Trump sec-def Mark Esper believed, and probably rightly so, that the president wouldn’t trust his recommendations. Trump fired and replaced Esper right after the election.
In short, Trump didn’t promote them because wasn’t asked to. And Esper didn’t put their names up because Esper didn’t want Trump, the commander-in-chief, to get the idea to put his own choice of candidates into the jobs.
The New York Times reported last month that the Pentagon’s most senior leaders agreed these two women should be promoted to elite, four-star commands, but that then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, worried that if they even raised their names the Trump White House would replace them with its own candidates before leaving office. The newspaper reported their recommendations were held until after the November elections.
“They were chosen because they were the best officers for the jobs, and I didn’t want their promotions derailed because someone in the Trump White House saw that I recommended them or thought DOD was playing politics,” Esper told The New York Times. “This was not the case. They were the best qualified. We were doing the right thing.”
After the show for the cameras on International Women’s Day, Biden turned and gazed on his generals, flailed a bit with his hands, and mumbled – as if to apologize for not being able to shake hands because – COVID!! – and apparently a dearth in hand sanitizer at the White House. Kamala Harris held her hands to her chest as a gesture of appreciation.
But the commander-in-chief, you know, “the guy who runs that outfit over there” you might say, did have a way to pay homage to his two generals he’d just held a media woke show to put on display.
He could have saluted them. He’s not required to, but considering he was unwilling to do anything else except shuffle, grunt, and play with his hands, he could have.
Don’t worry, though. Without reporting Biden’s confused response, The New York Times, perhaps sensing the gaffe, used a photo of Joe Biden saluting … someone else.
President Biden nominated two female generals to elite, four-star commands after the Pentagon delayed their promotions for months out of fear Donald Trump would reject them because they are women. https://t.co/plzaW9Ll7R
— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 7, 2021
While the clip below doesn’t show that particular gaffe, you can see it here.
Victoria Taft is the host of “The Adult in the Room Podcast With Victoria Taft” where you can hear her series on “Antifa Versus Mike Strickland.” Find it here. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Parler, MeWe, Minds @VictoriaTaft
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