For a guy who ran on competency, Biden fails to demonstrate it

 Los Angeles Times:

President Biden's virtual meeting Wednesday with industry executives in the South Court Auditorium, a soundstage in the hulking office building adjacent to the White House, was held to highlight the administration's response to the ongoing infant formula shortage.

But it backfired. The scripted event ended up highlighting just how slow the White House was to recognize the problem and underscoring persistent questions about how such a veteran administration has mismanaged major crises, not to mention the president's public appearances.

Whether it is the last-minute scramble to avoid a diplomatically embarrassing boycott at next week's Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles or its faulty projections about inflation and struggles to control rising costs, the administration's rocky responses to various challenges have given rise to new doubts about Biden's promise to restore competency and stability to government.

The White House has been working to rebuild its credibility for nearly a year, ever since the botched U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan shattered the public's confidence in Biden. But a relentless pandemic, the influx of migrants at the southern border and the president's stalled legislative agenda have served to further calcify the public's negative perceptions.

The trouble on Wednesday started when Biden said he didn't "think anyone anticipated the impact of the shutdown of one facility." He was then forced to concede that the company executives had just said they realized the potential for supply issues in February when Abbott shuttered its Michigan plant.

"They did, but I didn't," Biden said, betraying his frustration that the crisis, which the Food and Drug Administration reacted to immediately, wasn't escalated to him until April — a glaring communication breakdown.
...

"Voters expected the world would calm down when Biden became president, that the chaos would be replaced with competence. If you look at the last year and a half, the world is still upside down," said Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster in Washington. "Trump's chaos was personal chaos. This is mostly world chaos. But [Biden's] ratings are low, and there's not a sense that this is an administration in command. They're a reactive administration instead of a proactive administration."
...

It is unfair to blame Trump for chaos when it was foisted on him by a massive political fraud perpetrated by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats along with a compliant media.  He managed to do better despite the political fraud he had to deal with. 

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