“You want answers? … I want the truth! … You can’t handle the truth.”

–from A Few Good Men

President Biden spent the lion’s share of the presidential campaign bunkered in his basement and castigating Mr. Trump for his management of the Covid pandemic. Give him credit: it worked.

When he won the election, I was at least hopeful that a moderate president with a less inflammatory personality would help put our country in a better place. Now, I’m not so optimistic.

As President Biden is learning, governing and campaigning are two different things. Now, Biden has caught the Covid bear and he must wrestle it. By his own pre-election criteria(not ours), every death from here on out is on him, and a failure to stem the Covid tide is a failure of his leadership.

Last weekend, however, he actually admitted that we can’t do anything to curb the trajectory of the virus over the next several months. He is a victim of his own campaign hyperbole. So…Round One to the bear.

He does have one option that would be an easy win: put Amazon in charge of vaccine shipment and Chick-Fil-A in charge of vaccine distribution. Seems like a no-brainer, right?!

Listen; I want President Biden to succeed. His success will be America’s success. By all reports, he’s a good man. As a father, he’s had to bury two of his children, a tragedy from which most parents are mercifully spared. I believe he loves America, and he will fight for what he believes. But being a nice guy isn’t enough. If it were, Mr. Rogers would have been president.

But, President Biden has to level with us. As expected, his Inaugural Address was a call for unity, in which he promised he would be a president for all Americans–even those who didn’t vote for him. Then, it seemed he couldn’t wait to get to the Oval Office that same day and sign fourteen executive orders reversing policies of the Trump Administration.

He had every right as president to sign those orders. But it seemed like he couldn’t wait to poke a finger in the eyes of over 74 million people who voted in support of those policies. That does not promote confidence in his call for unity.

In an ABC TV interview less than one month before the election, then-candidate Biden was asked about his style of governing. He stated dictators govern by executive orders, but the USA is a democracy and we don’t do it that way. Again, he’s a victim of his own words. (By the way, ABC will NEVER re-play that video clip.)

As I’ve said in earlier posts, I hope Biden can withstand the extremist forces in his party that push for a more progressive, less recognizable America. He needs our prayers.

The single best thing he could have done initially would have been to call off the “Congressional dogs” regarding impeachment. That would have shown backbone and promoted unity. It didn’t happen.

The president is a seasoned politician who has had almost a half-century to hone his skill at saying one thing and doing another. Such dishonesty is rampant in Washington, D.C.

And, while we’re on that subject, the following are just some examples of what seem to me to be, at best, inconsistencies and, at worst, duplicitous political calculations:

1. People are praised for kneeling for the National Anthem, but ridiculed for standing for all the freedoms in the Bill of Rights.
2. In some states, big box stores have been open for months, but some small businesses are still closed.
3. A baker can be forced to bake a product that violates his religious beliefs, but tech giants can ban someone who professes beliefs that disagree with theirs.
4. Social networks allow the posting of how to build a bomb but disallow postings that point out inconsistencies in the election and call for a bipartisan investigation into voting irregularities.
5. Pre-January 20, 2021, certain governors and mayors said businesses had to remain closed; post-January 20, 2021, these same politicians now say we can’t afford to keep businesses closed.
6. It’s fine to build a fence topped with razor wire to keep Americans from illegally entering the Capitol grounds, but it’s immoral to build a wall to keep people from illegally entering our country.
7. Trump was chastised last summer for sending the National Guard to protect federal property in cities where people were “peacefully” burning buildings and destroying property, but members of Congress are happy to have 25,000 National Guard troops present to protect them.
8. Politicians rightfully celebrated their first female vice president, after wasting time and energy in the House to pass a senseless resolution that all language on the House floor would be gender-neutral.
9. Some of the same politicians who have favored keeping houses of worship closed since March 2020 flocked to St. Matthew Cathedral on Inauguration Day to join President-elect Biden for a prayer service.
10. Governors and mayors followed the science to justify shuttering restaurants, bars, and gyms, but are ignoring the science that says schools can safely re-open.

Here’s my point. Our elected officials, Democrat and Republican, need to level with us. Americans are not stupid and don’t need to be re-programmed (a new and bizarre media concept). Tell us what you’re going to do and then do it. Don’t pander to your base and don’t lie to any of us. We are not fools and, yes, we actually can handle the truth. If we don’t like what you do, we’ll vote you out of office. After all, that’s the American way.