“The complacent, the self-indulgent, the soft societies are about to be swept away with the debris of history,” said President John Kennedy on April 20, 1961. “Only the strong, only the industrious, only the determined, only the courageous, only the visionary who determine the real nature of our struggle can possibly survive.”

On that fateful April day, Kennedy honored his commitment to speak to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Many presidents would have ducked it. Three days before, with Kennedy’s authorization and the CIA’s guidance, thousands of Cuban-Americans launched a disastrous landing at what we know as the Bay of Pigs. While Kennedy spoke, the final act of this sad drama was still unfolding.

Today, can anyone imagine President Joe Biden facing a roomful of skeptical editors and owning up to his disastrous blunders in Ukraine. This is no more likely than him learning anything, as JFK did, from the mistakes he has made.

Honesty has never been part of Biden’s nature. For years, America tolerated his lies because he and they seemed inconsequential. He was just one vote out of 100 in the U.S. Senate. And as vice president, a position predecessor John Nance Garner described as “not worth a bucket of warm piss,” Biden remained more or less harmless.

America should have been more alarmed when Biden launched his presidential campaign in April 2019 with a lie, claiming that President Donald Trump’s racism motivated him to run. Biden spoke specifically of Trump’s comments about a 2017 clash in Charlottesville, Virginia, and twisted them grossly out of context. “We are in the battle for the soul of this nation,” said Biden, warning that if Trump were reelected, “He will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation, who we are, and I cannot stand by and watch that happen.”

On the world stage, Trump had established what the character of the nation was. Not unlike President Teddy Roosevelt, Trump projected strength. He backed North Korea down, checkmated China, and froze Russia in place. For all his misgivings about Trump, leftist comedian Trevor Noah joked uneasily last week that the Saudis would never have defied Trump the way they did Biden.

Biden set himself up for the fall. On day one of his administration, he shut down the Keystone pipeline. From that day forward, his White House did all in its power to limit the domestic production of fossil fuels. Russia’s Vladimir Putin had to watch in wonder as the world’s one energy-independent superpower rendered itself as vulnerable to Putin’s energy whims as its weak sisters in the European Union.

Putin had to watch in wonder, too, as the world’s mightiest military focused not on improving its fighting strength, but on making life more comfortable for transgender recruits, on hectoring the existing troops with divisive critical race theory, and terminating those troops who refused to sacrifice their bodies to unproven science.

Image: Joe Biden (edited). YouTube screen grab.

In transforming the military as he did, Biden drove away the strong, the industrious, the determined, and the courageous. If a compliant American media chose not to notice, the rest of the world did, including many of the world’s bad actors, Putin prominent among them. The consequences of this purge were obvious to all when Afghanistan fell almost as quickly as did the lost brigade at the Bay of Pigs.

In either case, the failure was due to American vacillation and confusion. The difference is that Kennedy faced up to his mistakes and learned from them. He got rid of the people who led the nation astray. Biden fired no one. He has not, will not, and cannot face up to his mistakes.

The big lie about his administration, one that the media has perpetrated, is that Biden is sufficiently competent mentally to lead a world in crisis. It was obvious to anyone looking during the 2020 campaign that he was nowhere close to being competent. The media shielded the American people from this obvious truth, and today we are paying the price for their mendacity.

Biden’s condition—and it is that, a “condition”—will only grow worse. Were there a vice-president waiting in the wings with even a hint of wisdom or intelligence, the Democrats would be preparing a graceful exit for the one man bland enough to stop Donald Trump. But in Kamala Harris, chosen only based on race and gender, they have a vice president who embarrasses even them.

Those who have chosen to remain silent include congressional Republican leaders. I get it. They are playing the long game. They think that if they remain calm and cooperative, Americans will see them as the sane party and reward them with control of both House and Senate. There would be more wisdom in that strategy if the election were to be held in April, but it is not, and November is a long eight months away. A lot of things can happen in eight months, few of them good.

Eighteen months after the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy was given another chance to show his skills as a leader. The stakes were as high as they could be. During the Cuban missile crisis, a miscalculation could have led to nuclear war. This time, Kennedy did things right. He showed enough public backbone to impress the Soviets and enough wisdom to allow a backchannel deal amenable to both parties.

“For I am convinced that we in this country and in the free world possess the necessary resource, and the skill, and the added strength that comes from a belief in the freedom of man,” said Kennedy during his speech to the newspaper editors. I think we as a people still possess that skill and strength. I am just not sure the occupants of the White House do.

Dr. Mark Christian is an MD and the President of The Truth and Freedom Foundation, an educational platform dedicated to America's founding principles. His new book is The Apostate: My Search for Truth.