When You've Lost the New York Times....

This comes to us from The New York Times. Yes, that New York Times. It was printed on the front page and authored by Peter Baker, one of the better Times reporters. In truth, I have been reading Baker’s biography of his namesake, James Baker, co-authored with his wife, Susan Glasser. Its title is: The Man Who Ran Washington. I find it to be excellent and recommend it highly. 

Baker’s judgment of Biden’s Afghanistan policy does not mince words. Since I did not have to subscribe to the Times to find it, I quote the portion that I found on MRC Newsbusters.

As the saying goes, when you’ve lost the New York Times...

For most of the last week, in the fires of the worst foreign policy crisis of his young administration, the president who won the White House on a promise of competence and compassion has had trouble demonstrating much of either.

The chaos in Kabul and his own conflicting messages have left President Biden struggling to assert command over world events and seemingly more intent on washing his hands of Afghanistan than expressing concern over the humanitarian tragedy unfolding on the ground.

As he has all week, Mr. Biden made assertions seemingly at odds with reality. His description of a smoother evacuation contrasted with the continuing confusion at the Kabul airport, where flights were halted for hours on Friday until they resumed late in the day. His claim that there was “no question of our credibility” with NATO allies belied the deep frustration in European capitals. And while Mr. Biden hailed the “degree of precision” of the operation, he could not say how many Americans were still in danger.

Those comments came after other suspect statements earlier in the week….

At points, the president has evinced little sense of the human toll as the Taliban swept back to power. Asked about pictures of fleeing Afghans packed into planes and some even falling to their death after trying to sneak aboard, Mr. Biden interrupted. “That was four days ago, five days ago,” he said, when in fact it was two days earlier and hardly made less horrific by the passage of a couple of sunsets.