In the news business, it is sometimes difficult to be sure what the most important story is. Equally, it’s easy on other occasions, for one story stands out. But also, somewhat rarely, there is really only one story, so huge that it eclipses all others.
Such is the case with President Joe Biden’s sacrifice of American honor and credibility in his cynical and unnecessary Afghanistan defeat and with the lies that have compounded his abject failure and our national disgrace. To take one recent example of his dishonesty, an American woman who escaped Kabul told the Washington Examiner that the president’s claim of having given citizens plenty of warning to get out was false, adding, “I had to go through the beatings, the gunfire, and being gassed so I could leave.”
Today is, par excellence, a moment when there is only one story — the collapse of American strength and leadership.
The biting gale of this reality has blown away the last wisps of admiration among allies and fear among enemies. All are rethinking their relationship with what used to be — the grim irony! — the world’s only superpower. NATO partners denounce Biden’s “betrayal,” the European Union ponders greater strategic independence, and Taiwan buys weapons knowing it’s on its own against Chinese aggression. A gleeful Beijing, meanwhile, threatens to send warships into U.S. territorial waters.
Has there ever been a more ludicrous articulation of naivete in U.S. foreign policy than Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s perplexity and “concern” that Afghanistan’s new terrorist masters failed to include women in their government? The statement was issued when Taliban thugs were in the streets whipping and beating Afghan women demonstrating for their rights.
Hard though Biden is trying, it is impossible for him to change the subject. As the Washington Examiner reported recently, he intends to roll out policy announcements that fit his “Build Back Better” agenda. He and his minions are flapping their arms and spending trillions of your dollars to distract you and buy back your good opinion in time to avoid electoral disaster.
But the very act of trying to “move on” refocuses attention on what Biden wants you to forget. Every other news story flows like a tributary into the roaring river of this Democratic presidency’s strategic and moral implosion.
Take the plan to spend yet another $3.5 trillion. It used to be merely — merely — the linchpin of a plan to jolt America in a socialist direction. Now, it’s also a massive bribe to make you forget that you’re being governed by a hollow man who has betrayed our nation’s finest values.
Thus, for the third week in a row, the cover of the Washington Examiner magazine focuses on Afghanistan. Under the headline “How Biden Blew It,” the president and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sit in the smoldering ruin of an American Humvee, their faces askance with defeat and surprise. Noah Rothman, in our cover story, shreds the president’s claims and says withdrawal from Afghanistan did not have to be a shambolic humiliation.
