A week or so ago I pointed out, in relation to the Afghanistan withdrawal, that there’s a rush to judgment going on that’s quite unjustified, and suggested that Biden’s decision to leave Afghanistan might actually turn out to be a plus. Steve Benen on Maddowblog, as well as others, is beginning to think this may be true:
[David] Rothkopf’s argument is worth considering in detail, though there was one point of particular interest.
If anything, Americans should feel proud of what the U.S. government and military have accomplished in these past two weeks. President Biden deserves credit, not blame. … Unlike his three immediate predecessors in the Oval Office, all of whom also came to see the futility of the Afghan operation, Biden alone had the political courage to fully end America’s involvement.
It’s an important observation that has gone largely overlooked. The incumbent American president had a profoundly difficult call to make and dangerous circumstances in which to make it. But Biden had the courage to make the decision anyway.
Meanwhile, Erick Erickson, who I noted had already gotten into the swamp here, has elected to plunge in as deeply as he can go:
In 1990, after George H. W. Bush broke his “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge, House Republicans, guided by Ed Rollins, walked away from President Bush. They criticized him and distanced themselves from him. The ones who stayed with Bush lost. The ones who criticized him survived. A bloodbath is coming in the midterms for the Democrats even without redistricting. The ones who want to save themselves can and should now work with the GOP to hold Biden accountable for his broken promises.
I’m proud to be an American. But I’m ashamed of my government and demand Congress do its job instead of serving as chief apologist for the second branch.
There’s a lot wrong with Erickson’s reasoning, but propagandists’ reasoning does not have to be correct, it just has to appeal to the audience. But, just for fun: The Republican adherence to the religious tenet that there’s no such thing as a good tax has proven to be a false view of reality; additionally, it cost the Republicans the White House for eight years, and led to the prominence of Newt Gingrich, who has turned out to be a canker sore on the neck of the Republicans.
And only now he wants Congress to do its job. Before, it was Trump Derangement Syndrome this and that. He couldn’t shrug off the January 6th Insurrection, but give him time: he may yet come around to the viewpoint that those under arrest are, bizarrely, political prisoners rather than a pack of five-year olds petulantly demanding an election be reversed … because. Just because.
If post-analysis of the withdrawal doesn’t reveal any gaping mistakes, it’ll be no skin off Erickson’s nose, because he’ll just ignore it or denounce it as more evidence of the left’s degradation. But it may rescue the Democrats from disaster in 2022.
