Scott Kamps
I have six kids, so I may deal with more finger-pointing than most.
It’s shown itself early and often in all the children I’ve raised. From the kid who bites his sibling in the butt because his brother “mooned him,” to the sibling who didn’t finish schoolwork because their brother didn’t help them, to the boy who didn’t do his daily chores because no one reminded him, there’s no shortage of examples.
Part of raising kids is helping them understand they’re responsible for their actions. Blaming siblings (or society, temperament, etc.) is a sad way to surrender your ability to change.
Super Bowl-winning coach Don Shula said, “The superior man blames himself. The inferior man blames others.”
Even the toking philosopher/songwriter Willie Nelson wrote, “You’ll never get ahead by blaming your problems on other people.”
Even a lot of herbal smoke didn’t obscure this basic reality from Willie.
Consider one of the worst moments in Biden’s presidency: the Afghanistan withdrawal of 2021. Biden assured Americans that withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan would proceed “in a secure and orderly way, prioritizing the safety of our troops as they depart.”
He further (wrongly) assured us it would be nothing like the chaos of Vietnam.
In the hasty Afghanistan exit, billions of dollars of the most technologically advanced military weapons were left behind, falling into the hands of the Taliban.
The international consequences were significant. The Saudi’s lost confidence in the U.S. and moved closer to China. And Russia, no doubt, considered it when deciding to invade Ukraine.
Thirteen U.S. service members and 170 Afghan allies needlessly lost their lives.
This nightmare occurred because Biden reversed the Trump administration’s earlier commitment to a conditions-based withdrawal, by instead announcing a hasty, unconditioned withdrawal. Biden ignored advice of his top military advisor and commanders on the ground. Many argued that anyone who knew anything about Afghanistan saw the chaos Biden was creating coming and warned about it!
April 6 – right before a holiday weekend – the White House dropped a report giving their assessment of this situation. It spent 4-of-12 pages saying the withdrawal fiasco was largely Trump’s fault. Even the “state-affiliated media source” NPR reported the White House review “blames the Trump administration for the lack of preparedness.”
The blame-shifting we see in Biden isn’t just childish; it’s been our inclination since Adam took the fruit and blamed Eve. From kids to the President of the United States, human nature is to blame others for our own sins/failures.
It’s been said that a bad workman always blames his tools; what does it mean when Biden always blames his predecessor?
Scott Kamps writes a bi-weekly column for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, thestableguy@frontier.com.