USA Politics (redux)

[arpeggio]

I'd say both are past their prime and both give word-salad interviews.

But I'd take Biden's moral compass as leadership over Trump's complete lack any day, obviously.


Perhaps its just the coverage I get out my way, but I keep wondering why Harris isn't more visible, and they're not getting people used to seeing her as part of top-level strategy.

Here Here.

Reminds me of the old joke.  A guy came up to me and asked me what my mother-in-law was like and I responded compared to what.

[71 dB]

There's no reasoning the MAGAzoids out of anything.

I believe it is possible to get some MAGAs reasoned out of their beliefs with hard work and patience, but it is a huge uphill fight and it might be next to impossible to de-program enough MAGAs to make a societal difference.

[Karl Henning]

As to Biden's alleged "word salad" ...

Biden escalates his efforts to puncture the Fox News bubble

By Philip Bump Yesterday at 9:50 a.m. EDT

In a sense, Peter Doocy's arrival in the White House press briefing room has been to his employer's detriment. It used to be that Fox News could spend days condemning Democratic presidents for not responding to whatever controversy its hosts had been tumbling around in their rhetorical rock polishers. Now, though, there's Doocy, who is regularly selected by White House press secretary Jen Psaki to ask questions probably in part so that the familiar process can be beheaded early. Her exchanges with Doocy drop into the political conversation like bang snaps, crackling with life for an instant before being forgotten, the gotcha almost always redirected to the junkyard.

That's at least in part because the questions often reflect a network or right-wing consensus that hasn't been exposed to any significant scrutiny. Little grains of ice snowball into scandals, with Sean Hannity, Dan Bongino and whoever else packing on more and more — and then they get removed from the cooler and placed on the sidewalk. It often doesn't take long for it to melt.

At other times, the inflection of Doocy's question itself gets at the point. As was the case Thursday evening, when President Biden called on Doocy after brief remarks about the suicide bombing outside the airport in Kabul.

"Let me take the one question," Biden said, "from the most interesting guy that I know in the press."

This was not really meant as a compliment.

"Mr. President, there had not been a U.S. service member killed in combat in Afghanistan since February of 2020," Doocy said. "You set a deadline. You pulled troops out. You sent troops back in. And now 12 Marines are dead. You said the buck stops with you. Do you bear any responsibility for the way that things have unfolded in the last two weeks?"

When Donald Trump was asked a similar question in March 2020 about the failure of coronavirus testing, he answered like Donald Trump: "No, I don't take responsibility at all, because we were given a — a set of circumstances, and we were given rules, regulations, and specifications from a different time." Rejection of the idea that he deserved blame and a pivot to his predecessor.

Biden's been doing this longer, so he accepted blame — and then pivoted to his predecessor.

"I bear responsibility for, fundamentally, all that's happened of late," Biden said. "But here's the deal: You know — I wish you'd one day say these things — you know as well as I do that the former president made a deal with the Taliban that he would get all American forces out of Afghanistan by May 1. In return, the commitment was made — and that was a year before — in return, he was given a commitment that the Taliban would continue to attack others, but would not attack any American forces."

This is a fair description. A deal struck between the U.S. government and the Taliban in February 2020 included the trade-off outlined by Biden.

At that point, though, Biden went in a different direction: He challenged Doocy to admit that he knew that his own framing of the question was unsound.

"Remember that? I'm being serious," Biden said to Doocy.

Doocy tried to interject that Trump was no longer the president, but Biden kept at it.

"Now wait a minute," he said. "I'm asking you a question. Is that — is that accurate, to the best of your knowledge?"

"I know what you're talking about," Doocy conceded, before then trying to get Biden to opine on why Americans might be frustrated with the situation in the country. Biden, after resting his head on his hands in apparent frustration, replied that Americans "have an issue that people are likely to get hurt" as they had that day.

He then returned to the prior point: that U.S. forces had avoided attack thanks to the deal made by Trump that had included a withdrawal pledge. This was the case, he said, "whether my friend will acknowledge it" or not — his friend being Doocy.

Fundamentally, that was Biden's point. Doocy and his network often don't provide or consider the context that would subject their theories to heat from the outset. As New York magazine's Jonathan Chait pointed out Thursday, Fox viewers often aren't really tuning in to the network's offerings for a considered debate on the news of the day. What keeps them engaged and watching is the diaspora of voices and range of volumes fuming at the day's outrage.

For all of the right's focus on Biden's mental acuity, he's sufficiently adept at the sort of exchange seen Thursday to be able to put Doocy on the defensive. Not that this friction between Fox News and a Democratic White House is newly emergent. Biden's willingness to engage offensively with Doocy echoes the disparagement and criticisms that were a frequent feature of Barack Obama's administration.

What's different now are the stakes. Fox News is powerful, capturing an audience of millions of viewers a night. It shifted during the Trump administration in part out of an effort to retain the attention of Trump's more fervent supporters. In 2013, Fox News's prime-time lineup flowed from Greta Van Susteren to Bill O'Reilly to Megyn Kelly to what was then its populist anchor, Hannity. Now, the channel is hosting a rotating slot of right-wing personalities in the 7 p.m. hour, before handing things over to Tucker Carlson, Hannity and Laura Ingraham. If those names aren't intimately familiar to you, trust me when I say it's a significant move away from the center.

The network (and Carlson in particular) remains a lodestone for much of the often-self-contained conversation on the political right. In November, after it became obvious that Biden had won the election, I pointed out that with Trump vanquished, Biden's main opponent — misinformation from the right — remained potent. (Right-wing misinformation, driven by Trump, then spent months claiming that no such vanquishing had occurred.) Biden and his team clearly recognize this threat, as evidenced by their willingness to engage with Doocy.

There's an overly neat analogy that could be drawn here about the White House entertaining a representative of a hostile power, but it's not entirely wrong. Doocy gives the White House a way into the often-sealed discourse on the right, a way to draw those snowballs into the sunlight. Psaki and Biden are confident in their ability to handle Doocy's questions and eager to reframe them. It's a bit like doing an interview with a local television station in rural Texas: You're pretty much guaranteed airtime that you wouldn't otherwise get.

Not that it seems to be having much effect.

[Karl Henning]

David Von Drehle:

[...]

To prepare prudently before bugging out would only have made things worse, they tell us. Simple steps, such as collecting the names and locations of Americans in the country into the best possible database, might have upset people. Expediting paperwork for loyal and endangered Afghans could have created a panic. Threatening some deterrent bombing to slow the overeager Taliban might only have dragged us back in. Squeezing Pakistan to pour less gas on the fire — it has been cashing U.S. checks for two decades while sustaining the Taliban at the same time — well, maybe it was tried. The New York Times reported in June that CIA Director William J. Burns had recently been in Islamabad to discuss the impending withdrawal, but I'd feel better if I knew he was there in January.

Not to pick on Burns. Where's the evidence of any senior official foreseeing the calamity of recent weeks and moving urgently last winter to prepare for worst cases? Did anyone say: "This could be even trickier than wooing Joe Manchin; maybe we ought to make it a priority"?

So Biden owns this, just as Bush owned the accumulated intelligence failures that led to 9/11; just as Jimmy Carter owned the Iranian revolution that was 30 years in the making; just as Gerald Ford owned the last chopper out of Saigon a generation after Harry S. Truman sent the first Americans in.

Even so, it is unseemly for veterans of past administrations to fan the flames roasting Biden after failing in their own time to resolve this mess. In their excesses, many are misleading the public as to the situation in Afghanistan when Biden took office — perhaps they don't know it themselves. The country was not secure. The conflict was not stable. The skeleton force of 2,500 remaining U.S. troops was neither safe nor sufficient to repel the Taliban's promised spring offensive.

The Taliban controlled the entire Afghan countryside, including its network of roads. Military posts intended to defend the cities could be supplied only by airlift, and the lifts conducted by Afghan government forces were so completely corrupted that few supplies got through. Morale among Afghan troops was generally poor. Atop this sad heap sat President Ashraf Ghani, moony-eyed, aloof and ineffective.

Under Obama, the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan surged to more than 100,000 — and even that enormous number did not defeat the Taliban, who simply melted into the populace or slipped through mountain passes to wait us out in Pakistan. We can now see with brutal clarity that the wispy force of a few thousand in place as Trump left office was not even enough to keep an airport secure, much less the whole country.

Biden inherited the strongest Taliban and the smallest U.S. force in the war's history. That was a very poor hand to play. That he has played his poor hand so poorly is now part of his presidential legacy. Sometimes, it's hell to be chief.

[Karl Henning]

David Von Drehle:

[...]

To prepare prudently before bugging out would only have made things worse, they tell us. Simple steps, such as collecting the names and locations of Americans in the country into the best possible database, might have upset people. Expediting paperwork for loyal and endangered Afghans could have created a panic. Threatening some deterrent bombing to slow the overeager Taliban might only have dragged us back in. Squeezing Pakistan to pour less gas on the fire — it has been cashing U.S. checks for two decades while sustaining the Taliban at the same time — well, maybe it was tried. The New York Times reported in June that CIA Director William J. Burns had recently been in Islamabad to discuss the impending withdrawal, but I'd feel better if I knew he was there in January.

Not to pick on Burns. Where's the evidence of any senior official foreseeing the calamity of recent weeks and moving urgently last winter to prepare for worst cases? Did anyone say: "This could be even trickier than wooing Joe Manchin; maybe we ought to make it a priority"?

So Biden owns this, just as Bush owned the accumulated intelligence failures that led to 9/11; just as Jimmy Carter owned the Iranian revolution that was 30 years in the making; just as Gerald Ford owned the last chopper out of Saigon a generation after Harry S. Truman sent the first Americans in.

Even so, it is unseemly for veterans of past administrations to fan the flames roasting Biden after failing in their own time to resolve this mess. In their excesses, many are misleading the public as to the situation in Afghanistan when Biden took office — perhaps they don't know it themselves. The country was not secure. The conflict was not stable. The skeleton force of 2,500 remaining U.S. troops was neither safe nor sufficient to repel the Taliban's promised spring offensive.

The Taliban controlled the entire Afghan countryside, including its network of roads. Military posts intended to defend the cities could be supplied only by airlift, and the lifts conducted by Afghan government forces were so completely corrupted that few supplies got through. Morale among Afghan troops was generally poor. Atop this sad heap sat President Ashraf Ghani, moony-eyed, aloof and ineffective.

Under Obama, the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan surged to more than 100,000 — and even that enormous number did not defeat the Taliban, who simply melted into the populace or slipped through mountain passes to wait us out in Pakistan. We can now see with brutal clarity that the wispy force of a few thousand in place as Trump left office was not even enough to keep an airport secure, much less the whole country.

Biden inherited the strongest Taliban and the smallest U.S. force in the war's history. That was a very poor hand to play. That he has played his poor hand so poorly is now part of his presidential legacy. Sometimes, it's hell to be chief.

I'll go ahead and point out that if the wankmaggot dotard were still president, he would likely have spet this week on the golf course. He certainly would not have faced the press.

[Karl Henning]

WH official says 6,800 people evacuated from Kabul in 24 hours ending at 3 am today

total evacuated by US/coalition partners since Aug 14: 111,900

context: when effort began, US officials estimated there were 6,000 Americans and up to 65,000 Afghan allies they wanted to get out

[VonStupp]

As to Biden's alleged "word salad" ...

Biden escalates his efforts to puncture the Fox News bubble

By Philip Bump Yesterday at 9:50 a.m. EDT

In a sense, Peter Doocy's arrival in the White House press briefing room has been to his employer's detriment. It used to be that Fox News could spend days condemning Democratic presidents for not responding to whatever controversy its hosts had been tumbling around in their rhetorical rock polishers. Now, though, there's Doocy, who is regularly selected by White House press secretary Jen Psaki to ask questions probably in part so that the familiar process can be beheaded early. Her exchanges with Doocy drop into the political conversation like bang snaps, crackling with life for an instant before being forgotten, the gotcha almost always redirected to the junkyard.

That's at least in part because the questions often reflect a network or right-wing consensus that hasn't been exposed to any significant scrutiny. Little grains of ice snowball into scandals, with Sean Hannity, Dan Bongino and whoever else packing on more and more — and then they get removed from the cooler and placed on the sidewalk. It often doesn't take long for it to melt.

At other times, the inflection of Doocy's question itself gets at the point. As was the case Thursday evening, when President Biden called on Doocy after brief remarks about the suicide bombing outside the airport in Kabul.

"Let me take the one question," Biden said, "from the most interesting guy that I know in the press."

This was not really meant as a compliment.

"Mr. President, there had not been a U.S. service member killed in combat in Afghanistan since February of 2020," Doocy said. "You set a deadline. You pulled troops out. You sent troops back in. And now 12 Marines are dead. You said the buck stops with you. Do you bear any responsibility for the way that things have unfolded in the last two weeks?"

When Donald Trump was asked a similar question in March 2020 about the failure of coronavirus testing, he answered like Donald Trump: "No, I don't take responsibility at all, because we were given a — a set of circumstances, and we were given rules, regulations, and specifications from a different time." Rejection of the idea that he deserved blame and a pivot to his predecessor.

Biden's been doing this longer, so he accepted blame — and then pivoted to his predecessor.

"I bear responsibility for, fundamentally, all that's happened of late," Biden said. "But here's the deal: You know — I wish you'd one day say these things — you know as well as I do that the former president made a deal with the Taliban that he would get all American forces out of Afghanistan by May 1. In return, the commitment was made — and that was a year before — in return, he was given a commitment that the Taliban would continue to attack others, but would not attack any American forces."

This is a fair description. A deal struck between the U.S. government and the Taliban in February 2020 included the trade-off outlined by Biden.

At that point, though, Biden went in a different direction: He challenged Doocy to admit that he knew that his own framing of the question was unsound.

"Remember that? I'm being serious," Biden said to Doocy.

Doocy tried to interject that Trump was no longer the president, but Biden kept at it.

"Now wait a minute," he said. "I'm asking you a question. Is that — is that accurate, to the best of your knowledge?"

"I know what you're talking about," Doocy conceded, before then trying to get Biden to opine on why Americans might be frustrated with the situation in the country. Biden, after resting his head on his hands in apparent frustration, replied that Americans "have an issue that people are likely to get hurt" as they had that day.

He then returned to the prior point: that U.S. forces had avoided attack thanks to the deal made by Trump that had included a withdrawal pledge. This was the case, he said, "whether my friend will acknowledge it" or not — his friend being Doocy.

Fundamentally, that was Biden's point. Doocy and his network often don't provide or consider the context that would subject their theories to heat from the outset. As New York magazine's Jonathan Chait pointed out Thursday, Fox viewers often aren't really tuning in to the network's offerings for a considered debate on the news of the day. What keeps them engaged and watching is the diaspora of voices and range of volumes fuming at the day's outrage.

For all of the right's focus on Biden's mental acuity, he's sufficiently adept at the sort of exchange seen Thursday to be able to put Doocy on the defensive. Not that this friction between Fox News and a Democratic White House is newly emergent. Biden's willingness to engage offensively with Doocy echoes the disparagement and criticisms that were a frequent feature of Barack Obama's administration.

What's different now are the stakes. Fox News is powerful, capturing an audience of millions of viewers a night. It shifted during the Trump administration in part out of an effort to retain the attention of Trump's more fervent supporters. In 2013, Fox News's prime-time lineup flowed from Greta Van Susteren to Bill O'Reilly to Megyn Kelly to what was then its populist anchor, Hannity. Now, the channel is hosting a rotating slot of right-wing personalities in the 7 p.m. hour, before handing things over to Tucker Carlson, Hannity and Laura Ingraham. If those names aren't intimately familiar to you, trust me when I say it's a significant move away from the center.

The network (and Carlson in particular) remains a lodestone for much of the often-self-contained conversation on the political right. In November, after it became obvious that Biden had won the election, I pointed out that with Trump vanquished, Biden's main opponent — misinformation from the right — remained potent. (Right-wing misinformation, driven by Trump, then spent months claiming that no such vanquishing had occurred.) Biden and his team clearly recognize this threat, as evidenced by their willingness to engage with Doocy.

There's an overly neat analogy that could be drawn here about the White House entertaining a representative of a hostile power, but it's not entirely wrong. Doocy gives the White House a way into the often-sealed discourse on the right, a way to draw those snowballs into the sunlight. Psaki and Biden are confident in their ability to handle Doocy's questions and eager to reframe them. It's a bit like doing an interview with a local television station in rural Texas: You're pretty much guaranteed airtime that you wouldn't otherwise get.

Not that it seems to be having much effect.

This is why I view news more as entertainment now. It seems news is a vehicle to support ones political viewpoint (from both sides) instead of merely informing me; there always has to be a motive. Some days The Onion is just as helpful as the main news outlets.

[milk]

I can see how they might fear that. But on the other hand they should have expected that when she was chosen as running mate and it seems like bad short term thinking rather than beginning to elevate her now as someone who has shown her worth "in the room".

If Biden runs again and performs like he did last time around, he can win again. Harris is an awful politician and a flimsy person. I don't believe she can win. If Biden is out, Dems will have to come up with someone else to have a chance.

Re Afghanistan: the military and situation on the ground is what it is. Losing the war is losing the war. A president is either going to follow the timetable trump set, or dither. I agree with the "rip the bandaid" analogy.

[Spotted Horses]

Re Afghanistan: the military and situation on the ground is what it is. Losing the war is losing the war. A president is either going to follow the timetable trump set, or dither. I agree with the "rip the bandaid" analogy.

I'm really tired of this statement that we "lost" the war. There is more nuance to military science than "we won" or "we lost." After WWII Japan was in ruins and it was occupied and controlled by it a foreign power. The same for Germany. That's losing a war. The U.S. entered Afghanistan and achieved its immediate military objectives. It ran Al Qaeda and Bin Laden out of the country, it put the Taliban out of power during the interval we were engaged. Then what? We hung around for another 20 years as an occupying power and proped up a corrupt puppet regime. We finally decided that was a waste of effort and left. We did not achieve our unrealistic geopolitical objectives. That and sustaining 13 casualties during a complex withdrawal does not constitute "losing the war." If I walked outside and saw the Taliban forcing women in Texas to wear Burkas, then I'd say we lost the war.

[Gurn Blanston]

I'm really tired of this statement that we "lost" the war. There is more nuance to military science than "we won" or "we lost." After WWII Japan was in ruins and it was occupied and controlled by it a foreign power. The same for Germany. That's losing a war. The U.S. entered Afghanistan and achieved its immediate military objectives. It ran Al Qaeda and Bin Laden out of the country, it put the Taliban out of power during the interval we were engaged. Then what? We hung around for another 20 years as an occupying power and proped up a corrupt puppet regime. We finally decided that was a waste of effort and left. We did not achieve our unrealistic geopolitical objectives. That and sustaining 13 casualties during a complex withdrawal does not constitute "losing the war." If I walked outside and saw the Taliban forcing women in Texas to wear Burkas, then I'd say we lost the war.

Thank you for being the person who finally said this. In terms of achieving our objectives for going there, the war was won (handily) the minute Bin Laden's corpse dropped into the ocean. As I have maintained for many years now, Obama's failure to declare victory and totally withdraw us from there in 2011 while we were riding the crest of the wave generated by that event was but one of the many opportunities we failed to take advantage of and get the hell out. If it had ever been a 'war for hearts and minds', then it was lost before it ever began.

[Fëanor]

I'm really tired of this statement that we "lost" the war. There is more nuance to military science than "we won" or "we lost." After WWII Japan was in ruins and it was occupied and controlled by it a foreign power. The same for Germany. That's losing a war. The U.S. entered Afghanistan and achieved its immediate military objectives. It ran Al Qaeda and Bin Laden out of the country, it put the Taliban out of power during the interval we were engaged. Then what? We hung around for another 20 years as an occupying power and proped up a corrupt puppet regime. We finally decided that was a waste of effort and left. We did not achieve our unrealistic geopolitical objectives. That and sustaining 13 casualties during a complex withdrawal does not constitute "losing the war." If I walked outside and saw the Taliban forcing women in Texas to wear Burkas, then I'd say we lost the war.

I think the distinction between losing and failing to meet any major objectives is overly fine.  The USA and allies not only failed a "nation building" but even as recent events involving ISIS-K seem to indicate, failed to drive out terrorists.

As I said earlier in this thread, the USA and allies ought to have bailed on Afghanistan a decade ago, IMHO.  Granted, I ascribed the failure to tribal disunity and Afghan leadership and not so much allied ineptitude.

[Gurn Blanston]

I think the distinction between losing and failing to meet any major objectives is overly fine.  The USA and allies not only failed a "nation building" but even as recent events involving ISIS-K seem to indicate, failed to drive out terrorists.

As I said earlier in this thread, the USA and allies ought to have bailed on Afghanistan a decade ago, IMHO.  Granted, I ascribed the failure to tribal disunity and Afghan leadership and not so much allied ineptitude.

Whenever was 'nation-building' part of the original objectives of that conflict? The original objective was to make Afghanistan inhospitable to Al Qaeda as a safe haven and training ground and to kill Bin Laden. Period. There never was any nation-building in the plan, it was an add-on in order to justify staying. That was a mistake, as Biden openly said the other day in his remarks. Afg has never been, and will never be, a united democratic country and efforts to make it one are doomed to fail. That is why I said, and maintain, that we should have left the day after Bin Laden was killed. Mission accomplished.

[Karl Henning]

Whenever was 'nation-building' part of the original objectives of that conflict? The original objective was to make Afghanistan inhospitable to Al Qaeda as a safe haven and training ground and to kill Bin Laden. Period. There never was any nation-building in the plan, it was an add-on in order to justify staying. That was a mistake, as Biden openly said the other day in his remarks. Afg has never been, and will never be, a united democratic country and efforts to make it one are doomed to fail. That is why I said, and maintain, that we should have left the day after Bin Laden was killed. Mission accomplished.

Agreed.

[SimonNZ]

Harris is an awful politician and a flimsy person.

That's not at all my assessment of her from this distance.

What makes you say this?

[arpeggio]

That's not at all my assessment of her from this distance.

What makes you say this?

She is a Democrat.  As far as most Republicans think all Democrats suck.  The reason I know this is because up to the age of fifty I was a conservative Republican and that is the way I use to think.  One of the many reasons I am no longer a Republican is that I got to know Democrats and I discovered that they were not the jerks they were made out to be.

[Fëanor]

Whenever was 'nation-building' part of the original objectives of that conflict? The original objective was to make Afghanistan inhospitable to Al Qaeda as a safe haven and training ground and to kill Bin Laden. Period. There never was any nation-building in the plan, it was an add-on in order to justify staying. ...

Quite correct.  "Nation building" became an object, albeit it wasn't an originals object, at least not one publicly stated.  In any case the USA failed in original object too given that terrorists are active today in Afghanistan though they my be ISIS-K rather than Al Qaeda.

[Fëanor]

If Biden runs again and performs like he did last time around, he can win again. Harris is an awful politician and a flimsy person. I don't believe she can win. If Biden is out, Dems will have to come up with someone else to have a chance.

In as much as Harris doesn't strike me as having the least sympathetic charisma, I agree.

[SimonNZ]

The Former Guy, Mr Presumptive Nominee:

"And we took out the founder of ISIS, al-Baghdadi, and then of course Soleimani. Now just so you understand, Soleimani is bigger by many, many times than Osama bin Laden. The founder of ISIS is bigger by many, many times, al-Baghdadi, than Osama bin Laden.

Osama bin Laden had one hit, and it was a bad one, in New York City, the World Trade Center. But these other two guys were monsters. They were monsters."

[Gurn Blanston]

Quite correct.  "Nation building" became an object, albeit it wasn't an originals object, at least not one publicly stated.  In any case the USA failed in original object too given that terrorists are active today in Afghanistan though they my be ISIS-K rather than Al Qaeda.

It would have been nice to have coopted the Afghan government, but there again, the hearts and minds battle was unwinnable. When Trump excluded the duly constituted government from the negotiations in Doha last year, he effectively eliminated our last option for influencing events after withdrawal. I am 100% in favor of Biden's actions so far, although I freely admit that is based on my absolute belief that getting out of there is absolutely the right thing to do.

[arpeggio]

I am 100% in favor of Biden's actions so far, although I freely admit that is based on my absolute belief that getting out of there is absolutely the right thing to do.

I agree.

Any withdrawal would have been a mess, whether is was six months ago or six months from now.

Biden made the decision that it was about time to cut our losses and withdraw.  Whether he deserves it or not he will have to take the heat for it.