After nearly a week of radio silence while the Taliban were undoing 20 years of American investment in Afghanistan, Joe Biden returned to the White House to read from a teleprompter for under 20 minutes. Given the predictable straw man he presented of an all-or-nothing binary choice between “forever war” and immediate abandonment, it was par for the course to see Biden try to blame his predecessor.

Biden’s tactless defense consisted of impugning Afghans. It was followed by his hasty departure without taking a single question from a group of reporters he hand-picked under the guise of “social distancing.” (Washington, D.C.’s total COVID-19 death toll this month: one.) This leaves only the ghastly conclusion Biden has no idea what the hell happened in the last week.