Biden Picks His 2024 Path -- Right Down The Middle

Washington, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Mar, 2023 ) :When President Joe Biden motorcades from the White House to an environmental protection event on Tuesday he will hear grumbling on the left and grumbling on the right. And the 80-year-old Washington veteran will be perfectly happy.

The country is still waiting for Biden to announce officially that he will seek a second term next year. But already the Democrat has made clear what path he intends to use to get there: down the center.

In an era of intense blacks and whites, Biden wants gray.

So when he addresses the environment forum at the Department of the Interior, he will highlight what his press office calls the administration's "historic investments to advance conservation, restoration, and stewardship." He may mention that he oversaw Congress' passing of the biggest green energy spending bill in history, the IRA. Or his raft of orders giving national monument protection to wild areas that Donald Trump -- whom he beat in 2020 and could face again in 2024 -- tried to open to development.

But Biden will also be speaking a week after approving a huge ConocoPhillips oil drilling project in the Alaskan wilderness that is projected to release the pollution equivalent of two million cars.

Biden has similarly baffled friends and wrong-footed enemies on his approach to the chaotic southern border with Mexico.

Last year, a constant flow of undocumented migrants and asylum-seekers left his administration looking near helpless. This year, strict new measures discouraging them from even trying have resulted in dramatic reductions.

Biden is even reportedly considering authorizing a revival of one of the most fiercely criticized policies under Trump -- detaining whole families if they cross the border illegally.

"The Biden administration has really turned a corner," said Bilala Askaryar, an activist in the group Welcome With Dignity, demonstrating outside the White House.