White House Report Card: Biden stumbles show weakness

This week’s White House Report Card finds President Joe Biden firmly in Israel’s camp in their war with Hamas.

But between giving up the United States’s position as the longtime broker for Middle East peace and his uncertain show of force for Israel, our graders said that he revealed a weakness that could spark a wider conflict that might spill back home.

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The key event of the week was the president’s trip to Israel, spoiled at the last minute by a missile blast at a Gaza hospital. Hamas blamed Israel and claimed hundreds dead, sparking worldwide protests. But Israeli and Western intelligence said it was actually a bad Palestinian missile shot that fell short of Israel and hit the hospital parking lot.

Either way, it prompted key Middle East leaders to cancel meetings with Biden, and Biden declared that it wasn’t Israel but the other “team” that shot the missile. He later followed that up with an Oval Office speech in which he demanded more wartime spending.

Democratic pollster John Zogby graded the week a C+ and raised concerns that the U.S. has lost its leadership position in Middle East peace efforts. Conservative analyst Jed Babbin, pointing to Biden’s underwhelming appearance in Israel, said the week was a fumble at best. But, they noted, even Biden came off better than House Republicans who repeatedly failed to replace the speaker they fired.

John Zogby
Grade C+

As the Israel-Hamas war completes its second full week, Americans are getting a clear picture of the full extent of human suffering on both sides. The longer this goes on, the more the window is open to the world to see what life has been and continues to be for Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas, but that will take a heavy toll on civilians, military, and public opinion in Israel. Meanwhile, the brutality associated with Israel’s vow of total victory is leading to huge protests throughout the world, including the United States.

No doubt, President Biden’s trip to Israel may have come with a warning to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to slow down his plans for a full on-the-ground invasion, but it also placed the U.S. front and center on one side of the conflict and perhaps permanently forfeited any chance of being the broker for peace. Rapprochement with the Gulf States has been put on hold as Arab leaders worry about the breakdown of peace in their cities.

The potential of a wider war throughout the region seems closer each day. And China, Russia, and Iran not only tighten their relationships with each other but also increase their influence in the Middle East. During and after the president’s trip to Israel, there is little doubt that Biden is in charge. But has he ceded U.S. leadership in the process?

The travesty in the House of Representatives remains with no end in sight, which only makes Biden look better in comparison.

Jed Babbin
Grade D+

President Joe Biden went to Israel, gave a big speech on Thursday night about the essentiality of aid to Ukraine and Israel, and generally fumbled and bumbled his way through the week.

Biden seemed to be debating with himself in public statements. After sending two carrier battle groups near Israel, he said they would not be used in combat. Why remove the implied threat rather than keeping the enemy sweating? In a statement in Israel, he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “the other team” perpetrated the bombing of a Gazan hospital. (There are no “teams” in war. There are enemies and allies.) Several Middle East leaders refused to meet with Biden after the Israelis were falsely blamed for the hospital bombing.

U.S. forces shot down at least three missiles headed to Israel from Yemen’s Houthi tribe. U.S. and British special forces are almost certainly engaged with Israeli special forces in hostage rescue missions in the Gaza Strip. About a dozen of the more than two hundred hostages are Americans.

Biden knows bloody well that Iran is responsible for the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, yet he still refuses to even mention Iran in his speeches. He — meaning his staffers, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan — are still so delusional that they believe Iran will sign a nuclear weapons agreement. It’s bizarre.

Back home, some White House morons posted photos of Biden greeting some special operators without redacting the faces of the SOF guys. This endangers their lives and the lives of their families.

In his big Thursday speech — which he managed to read from the teleprompter without too many errors — Biden lumped the Ukraine and Israel wars together. He said he’d send another aid package to Congress at $100 billion or more. Republicans — who can’t seem to get out of their own way — will probably try to split Ukraine aid from Israel aid. Biden should be meeting with Republican skeptics to solve their problems with Ukraine aid, but he apparently would rather have an issue for which to blame them than actually try to solve the problem.

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John Zogby is the founder of the Zogby Survey and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His podcast with son and managing partner and pollster Jeremy Zogby can be heard here. Follow him on Twitter @ZogbyStrategies.

Jed Babbin is a Washington Examiner contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in the administration of former President George H.W. Bush. Follow him on Twitter @jedbabbin.