by John Kass

Watching President Joe Biden on Sunday struggle to spin away from his disastrous and inept withdrawal from Afghanistan—leaving thousands of Americans on the ground at the mercy of the Taliban—what worried me most isn’t what he said.

What he says isn’t believable. He’s known to all in Washington, even to the Democratic Media Complex that protects him, as a fabulist bag of wind. And on Afghanistan, the president has flip-flopped and lied far too often for anyone to believe anything he says.

What worries me in addition to his incompetence is his style, the way he presents the presidency to the world, with those watery and unfocused blue eyes, Biden babbling softly while reading his teleprompter in the White House.

Such is the President of the United States of America.

It was like watching some foreign film actor who can’t speak a word of English reciting his lines phonetically for Hollywood, issuing pleasant sounds devoid of meaning in place of cold, hard ideas and realities.

Bela Lugosi, the Hungarian refugee who became world-famous as “Dracula” knew no English when he arrived in America. According to his son, Lugosi memorized his lines phonetically in the Broadway play “The Red Poppy” to rave reviews.

And Yoko Shimada, the accomplished and lovely Japanese actress who starred in the old mini-series “Shogun” was another, making sounds without knowing exactly what they were saying. There have been other such actors speaking phonetically to their audience.

But none of these were President of the United States.

To some of you, Biden’s soft-throated teleprompter speech may have sounded soothing. But I doubt it. It’s clear now that most other Americans are rightly, and acutely concerned, perhaps frightened. Many of us hope that our president stays strong. And count me in on that because Joe Biden is my president, too.

Yet now, as the congenital liars and Kemalist toads among the military brass and federal bureaucracy point fingers at the unmoored Biden/Harris White House—after they themselves lied and lied about Afghanistan to the American people for 20 years—the inevitable is happening.

Many professional Democrats are weighing whether to walk away or distance themselves from the president as the 2022 mid-term Congressional elections approach, as his approval ratings drop, and Americans wonder if he’s competent and focused enough for the job.

And to predatory nations like China, Russia, and Iran, the sound of Biden reading his teleprompter must be delicious, like the painful bleating of a damaged antelope having just escaped the mouth of a crocodile at the waterhole. It limps away, with the hyenas trotting behind.

After Sunday’s robotic teleprompter address, Biden stumbled through a short mini-news conference and took a handful of questions.

“Let’s be clear,” said Biden, who wasn’t, “the evacuation of thousands of people from Kabul is going to be hard and painful no matter when it started and when we began…. We have a long way to go, and a lot could still go wrong.”

Clearly.

The useful idiots among the president’s media supporters willingly devour the road apples that the Biden White House throws in their path—that Biden was bound to withdraw from Afghanistan in a rush because of a negotiated settlement with the Taliban by former President Donald Trump.

Lefist pundits are welcome to eat as many road apples as they wish. The spirit animal and mascot of the Democratic Party is a jackass, after all, and so there is an endless supply of such treats. But they demand their readers, viewers and listening audience also eat them too.

A question: Since when has Biden been obligated to follow Trump policy?

Never.

Biden switched Trump policy on Iran. He ended Trump policy on what is now a wide-open Southern border, allowing who knows how many hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to waltz into America, many who are sick with Covid.

And how many among them will be Afghan Taliban fighters?

Former President George W. Bush sent Americans to war in Afghanistan after terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Bush allowed himself to become captive to the neoconservative “endless wars” and “nation building” wing of the Republican Party, that led us to more war in Iraq and destabilized the Middle East.

Bush’s successor, former President Barack Obama was in office when the terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden was killed, though it was Obama’s then vice president, Joe Biden, who opposed taking out Bin Laden.

And it was President Biden who pushed this catastrophic and hurried withdrawal from Afghanistan so he could score political points on the 20^th anniversary of Sept. 11. He put American lives, and those of our allies in jeopardy, to satisfy his desire for political glory.

As I wrote just days ago, this catastrophic withdrawal is Biden’s disaster.

He owns it.

I support withdrawing American troops from the endless wars hatched by the neoconservatives, Republicans and Washington insiders of all parties, including among them the generals with visions of defense contractor sugarplums dancing in their heads as reward for their lies about Afghanistan, that victory and stability were within reach.

 But it was Biden, not Trump, who closed the Bagram airfield first, though it could have been used to evacuate thousands of Americans and other allies the president left behind. They are now forced to make it past Taliban checkpoints to the airport in Kabul, making them, in effect, Taliban hostages.

Biden has always been a fabulist. On the campaign trail, he boasted of his epic battles as a pool lifeguard with the mythical thug “Corn Pop” who was a “bad dude.”

And he bragged repeatedly of being arrested when he tried to visit Nelson Mandela in prison. That too, was a lie.

But now the images coming out of Afghanistan undercut Mr. Biden’s fantasies. Americans see the panic on the streets of Kabul on TV.

They see the Taliban mocking America in what has been reported to be a propaganda photo, Taliban fighters in American battle gear raising the Taliban flag in the way U.S. Marines raised the American flag on Mount Suribachi after the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Even pollsters are now asking openly, publicly if Americans consider the president to be competent and focused enough for the job. Asked about it Sunday, the president tried to laugh it off, as noted by Miranda Devine in The New York Post.

But there is one thing that keeps Biden afloat. It isn’t his political donors on Wall Street, or titans of leftist corporate America who have become partners with the Democrats and Big Government. What keeps Biden afloat isn’t the teachers unions or Democratic politicians playing race cards.

And it’s not Dr. Jill playing the role of Edith Wilson in the Biden White House.

What keeps Joe Biden afloat for now, is that the American people understand who would replace him:

President Kamala Harris

 

(Copyright 2021 John Kass)

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