All those media analyses last year praising President Joe Biden’s supposed empathy look pretty stupid right now.
The president this week casually dismissed questions regarding the horrific images coming out of the White House-created humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, including images of Afghans falling from the sky after clinging to planes evacuating Hamid Karzai International Airport.
“We’ve all seen the pictures,” ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos said in an interview on Wednesday. “We’ve seen those hundreds of people packed into a C-17, we’ve seen Afghans falling — ”
Biden, the supposed champion of empathy, bristled.
“That was four days ago! Five days ago!” he interjected indignantly.
First, so what if it was? What does this have to do with the fact Afghans are literally dying to escape Taliban rule? What does this have to do with the fact thousands of frantic U.S. nationals and Afghan allies are scrambling to evacuate as the Taliban consolidates control? They’re scrambling, by the way, because the Biden administration had the bright idea to shutter Bagram Airfield, evacuate U.S. military before civilians and allies, and designate an international airport surrounded by the Taliban as the sole evacuation point for the entire country.
Second, it was actually only two days ago. The photos Stephanopoulos referenced are from two days ago. Biden’s interview took place on Wednesday. The photos circulated widely on Monday.
Lastly, two, three, five days ago, a month ago — it doesn’t matter. Biden had not taken a single question regarding his horror show in Afghanistan at the time Stephanopoulos asked. Because Biden has been hiding from the press, this is still a relevant question.
“What did you think when you first saw those pictures?” Stephanopoulos continued.
“What I thought was we have to gain control of this,” Biden said. “We have to move this more quickly. We have to move in a way which we can take control of that airport. And we did!”
If by that he means, “We now have U.S. military bottlenecked in an airport surrounded by Taliban hostiles, all while thousands of terrified Afghans beg to be let in and Taliban patrols block U.S. citizens from reaching the evacuation point,” then, yes, the Biden administration has indeed taken “control” of the airport.
“So, you don’t think this could be handled better in any way?” Stephanopoulos asked. “No mistakes?”
“No,” responded Biden, “I don’t think it could have been handled in a way that — we’re going to go back in hindsight and look — but the idea that somehow, there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how that happens. I don’t know how that happened.”
That’s funny. I seem to remember a certain president assuring everyone his withdrawal from Afghanistan would be “responsible, deliberate, and safe.”
“The jury is still out,” Biden said last month. “But the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”
He added, “There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of the embassy of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.”
He’s right — it’s not comparable. The jury is now in, and it is worse.
