Opinion: Starting to have Cold War concerns

Next month I will turn 80. An octogenarian. In my head, I’m still 30 years old, lean, mean and suntanned. No male member of my immediate family lived to make it to 59 besides me. If I had known that I would last this long, I would have taken a lot better care of myself.

I’ve never considered myself an optimist nor a pessimist. More like a realist, or a pragmatist. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. That seemed like a good plan for everyone. In my advanced years I’m afraid I’ve become more cynical.

Generally, if you need something done, and you can’t or don’t have time to do it yourself, you try to find the best person available who can perform the task. How well the individual selected performs the given chore will determine whether or not you employ that individual again for a similar or more difficult mission.

Shortly after the current administration was sworn into office it became evident that the southern border was out of control. The president assigned his vice president to the task of “fixing” the border. A tough job for anyone, requiring a lot of study and hard work. Unfortunately, the vice president has done little to solve the problem, and can only be considered to have failed in the performance of her assigned duties. I can’t say for certain that she has even visited the southern border at this late date.

The border remains out of control today and some states are trying to take matters into their own hands to solve the problem. It remains to be seen how this will play itself out in the courts.

Recently, the president has seen fit to dispatch Vice President Harris to Ukraine to assist in solving what has been acknowledged to be the major existential crisis for the U.S. at this time. It is unusual at best and inconceivable at worst to assign someone to another major challenge who has performed so poorly in finding and implementing an acceptable solution to a prior problem. Does it really make sense to put someone in charge of an even greater crisis when they have failed so miserably in handling the first?

While prior performance is no guarantee of future results, it remains a substantial indicator, and sometimes the only available indicator of outcomes.

Of course, with the choice of Vice President Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Harris may be the least blind of the three mice available.

Have we reignited the Cold War, for another sequence of extended crisis situations? Are we being slowly drawn into a quagmire that could end up in a shooting war? Am I being cynical, or just pragmatic?

Rube Render is a former Clovis city commissioner and former chair of the Curry County Republican Party. Contact  him:

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