The central Republican attack line on Joe Biden has always been that he is not in charge of his own administration. “They’re surrounded by vicious, smart people, radical left people, but they’re very smart, and they’re very vicious,” said Donald Trump. “It’s not him.”
The Trump version of this attack is a characteristically deranged conspiracy theory, in which some other person, either Barack Obama or Kamala Harris, is actually running the presidency while decrepit Joe Biden is being spooned mouthfuls of apple sauce.
Meanwhile, less-deranged conservatives have made a more plausible version of this charge. The real power in the administration is the left-wing staff that makes all the policy decisions and has relegated Biden to the role of front man, reassuring the public he is sane and moderate while actually carrying out a radical agenda he only vaguely comprehends. “The reason Republicans have the talking point that Joe Biden is not fully in command of his White House is because Joe Biden is not fully in command of his White House,” wrote National Review’s Jim Geraghty. The headline of another National Review story column captures this assumption: “Biden Is Incapable of Resisting the Left.”
But Biden’s hawkish policy on Israel proves clearly that he is in control of his administration and is very capable of resisting the left.
Put aside the merits of Biden’s policy. (I consider his blend of publicly hugging Israelis while privately warning them against overreach very shrewd, but time will tell.) The point simply is that Biden himself is the primary, if not sole, author of this policy.
From the very beginning, Biden disregarded staff input and designed his first remarks to send an unambiguous message of sympathy for Israel. “The early drafts of the speech were far less clear,” reported Politico. “It was Biden himself who banished any wishy-washy language, which included more inter-agency input that struck a muddled tone to Biden’s ears … The speech that came into speech prep and the speech that came out were vastly different,” said one knowledgeable source. ‘Whenever an aide tried to water it down or both-sides it, Biden angrily and forcefully shot it down.’”
Perhaps you suspect this report, which obviously came from an administration source, was spin designed to make Biden look strong. But in the days that have followed, it has become even clearer that Biden’s policy has run directly against the wishes of large, vocal segments of his own staff.
Leaks have sprung everywhere in the administration as dismayed staffers complain about the president’s position. Progressive media have reported staffers expressing “shame” at Biden’s stance and that “there’s basically a mutiny brewing within State at all levels.”
The grain of truth in the attacks on Biden as puppet of the left is that his administration really has been largely staffed by younger, more progressive staffers who overwhelmingly voted for Elizabeth Warren or other more left-wing candidates in the primaries. The Democratic Party’s young, college-educated staff reflects a demographic that is far more progressive than its voters, leading to conflicts like the spectacle of more than 400 Democratic congressional staffers signing a letter disagreeing with the members who employ them.
It’s obviously true that the ideological character of a staff has an effect. A Biden administration that was staffed entirely by people who voted for Biden in the primary would look noticeably different.
At the same time, there are limits to what a staff can do, as the Democratic Party’s staff revolt over Israel reveals. Staff can help shape policy, but they can’t run it as long as the president has his own preferences and the managerial capacity to have them prevail. In his Middle East policy, Biden has proven decisively that he does.
