They’re Off And Running! Like A Herd Of Turtles.

A couple of hours ago, I had a little fun with a fantasy First day in office list that wasn’t as stuffy and sonorous as most of them are. In fact, most of those lists are meant seriously, and the President elect takes them seriously. And never more so than for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, being beset by a trio of national crises before they even walk in the door.

Actually, I personally feel that Biden has managed his list rather well. First of all, he didn’t overload it, and most of the things appearing on the list are actually things that can be done in the stroke of a pen, as long as Ron Klain has the leather folders with the executive orders and administrative changes in the proper order. second, as the crises expanded and mutated, Biden nimbly handled it by changing his First day in office list into a First 10 days in office list, and sorting them all out in order of importance. And third, Biden’s is stuffed with things that he’ll want to promote getting done, since most of them tie back to critical campaign promises.

But even if everything goes of optimally, we are going to have to be ready to cut Biden and Harris some serious slack here. because both their expectations, as well as ours, are based on the concept of a normal, predictable set of circumstances. And these circumstances are anything but normal.

Because Trump, his cabinet, and his entire senior administration have engaged in a fairly blatant sabotage operation to delay or derail the Biden administration. Just check the news. Biden transition team members are complaining bitterly that expected transition meetings are delayed, not taking place, or almost totally bereft of useful information. An administrative order can be signed in a minute or two, but if the administrator can’t find the paperwork, or if it’s punk paperwork, it’s going to take a lot of time to straighten out the original paperwork before you can institute the changes.

Here’s a perfect example. In the last few weeks, especially in sensitive intelligence and military positions, Trump has placed totally unqualified, but loyal political hacks, and he has done so using civil service protections. Now, while Biden may not be able to fire them on day one, he is certainly able to move them over to any lesser sensitive, civil service position. But that still leaves a Trump loyalist sitting around, making as much trouble as he can until he can finally be terminated.

I do believe that Donald Trump’s administration has set the Guinness world record for the highest number of cabinet ministers and administrative managers who have had to slink off in disgrace under scandal. If you’re going to have a bunch of cheating crooks run agencies and administrations, I don’t think it’s too far off to expect that they’ll run them like a criminal enterprise.

Which is not a good thing to have come out. As a result, whole files will have been disappeared, others will have gaping holes where various incriminatory documents have been shredded, and a bunch of lower level civil service employees who, when asked a question, can only shake their heads and say, I dunno. Nobody ever told me that. Add to that the number of transition meetings that have been ignored, or with incomplete materials, and you can see the kind of obstacle Biden and Harris’s team is starting behind.

If there’s a silver lining to any of this, it’s this. The one place where Biden wants to get off to the quickest start, and show the most progress the most quickly, the coronavirus, is quite likely to be one of the least affected of all administrative efforts, or the lack thereof. Basically because Trump never took the circus seriously. After setting up a largely ceremonial task force, and a vaccine acceleration program that would allow him to grab the credit, he paid the virus no mind. If there were no shenanigans going on, there is no reason to disappear or alter their records, such as they are.

Olivia Troye, who was a senior aide to VP Pence on the task force until she quit in protest in August, said that while slow, and not always particularly competent, was at least sincere. And it seems that the Biden Covid transition has been in regular contact with Pence’s team. And best of all, because there are so many outside drug companies and individual states involved in the crisis, there should be a mountain of data and information that the Biden team is already basing calculations and plans on. If anything is going to take off quickly, it will be the Covid response.

So there you have it. Joe Biden is dead serious about his first day list. And God knows, after the last 4 years of a Trump Himalayan orgy, it would be great to see something moving forward again, and at warp speed. But considering Trump’s last minute attempt to piss in the punch bowl in every department he could find, we’re going to have to be ready to cut them some slack, and give them a little time. Nothing about this is normal.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like to check out President Evil, and the sequel, President Evil II, A Clodwork Orange . They comprise a pretty much daily report from the front of the 2016 GOP primaries, as well as the general election

Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35

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