The Klain Problem

Ron Klain is not a name that is known by most Americans. He is Joe Biden’s White House Chief of Staff. Look at that as the real number two position in government. He is with Joe Biden basically every moment of every day. He gives Biden his opinion on how things are and how things should be done. And a lot of people both inside and outside of the administration, say that Ron Klain is the guy that is controlling the puppet strings that seem to be tied to Joe Biden.

And Ron Klain is going to be leaving soon.

There are several reasons for this. Chiefs of Staff typically don’t last throughout the term of a presidency. Donald Trump went through four of them in four years. Obama had three. Klain has been on board for two years. That’s an eternity as far as Chiefs of Staff are concerned!

And the reason Klain is leaving now probably doesn’t have much to do with his wanting to get back to private life, or having to do with wanting to spend “more time with the family”, which is always a great line to use if you’re leaving government work. It’s the fact that he sees the handwriting on the wall when it comes to the Biden presidency and he doesn’t want to be anywhere near it when the dog poo hits the proverbial fan.

Klain has caused the mess the country is in, as much if not more than Biden. But he had little to nothing to do with the latest scandal. Biden is the one that took classified documents, which is a federal crime, and stored them unsecured in his Washington DC office after leaving as Vice President, and in his garage and throughout his home in Wilmington Delaware. In neither location were the classified documents stored in what could be considered a secure manner.

Ron Klain has called the shots in the Biden White House since he got there. And don’t think for a minute that Biden has come up with anything on his own. Klain is the guy that has had to clean up a lot of Biden’s mis-steps, gaffes, foibles, and out and out lies. He and the whole communications department have had to work overtime to clean up Joe Biden’s loose lips. And I’m sure he’s thinking that he can’t keep doing this. It’s time he leaves, and that could very well mean that Biden’s ship sinks. Because that ship has been called so far, the USS Klain.

Now, having said that, I will readily admit that everyone on the face of this earth is replaceable. There isn’t one of us that can’t be replaced. And Ron Klain is no different. The question is, Biden has chosen Jeff Zients, someone with a lot of budget experience to replace Kalin. Is Zients going to let Biden call the shots? Or, as Klain, is he determined to be the shadow president?

I find it interesting that Biden has used the “hire by their gender, race, creed, color, sexual orientation” method for his Vice President, his current press secretary, and an appointment to the Supreme Court. Yet when it comes time to hire another Chief of Staff, the person he works closest with, he chooses to stay away from the above criteria. Interesting!

That is going to be what sets the tone for the Biden agenda moving into the second half of his term. And that is also going to say a lot as to how Biden approaches a House of Representatives controlled by the Republican party. To date, he hasn’t done much, if anything to negotiate his agenda with the GOP. We can blame Klain for that one. But we’ll have to wait and see if he digs in his heals, or if he relents and becomes the Joe Biden he said during the campaign can work across the aisle. Only time will tell.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

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