On March 9th, less than two months after Biden’s inauguration, I posted “The Dog ate Biden’s Homework.” I warned the new administration’s capabilities weren’t as advertised. We already had an out-of-control Southern Border. A total misunderstanding of “Project Warp Speed” led to kids not being in school and an unneeded $2. 1 billion in additional spending. The vaccines combined with those naturally immune allowed a return to everyday life and a rapidly expanding economy. With substantial pent-up demand, the last thing we needed was additional relief. It all but guaranteed inflation. The administration appeared to be unaware of any of this.

At the time, I concluded, “Much of the new administration’s problems arise from the same flaw, lack of preparation. One of the primary reasons put forth for electing Biden was competence. Joe and those around him knew what they were doing. It appears they don’t.” 

In subsequent posts, I spelled continuing errors of judgment. It became clear the question wasn’t what the administration got wrong but could they get anything right. Gathering and understanding information and analyzing data was beyond their capabilities. They heard what they wanted to hear and expected the outcomes they desired.

If you’re surprised by the present Afghanistan debacle, you weren’t reading Detour on the Road.” The longer the inept stay in control, the greater the failures. On the other hand, the mainstream media willingly continued the myth of Biden competency. Further, the media bubble likely contributed to the resulting disaster.

Now we have the media suddenly aware the administration was ineffective. If I could see the flaws, they had to be visible to those with the big newsrooms. I and others questioned abandoning Bagram Airbase in the middle of the night. The slow extraction of Afghans was visible to all. They chose to ignore and cover-up.

When Hunter Biden’s laptop surfaced, they refused to cover it. Instead, they promoted a bogus Russian disinformation operation put forth by left-leaning former intelligence people. To date, no one has disputed the computer’s ownership or contents. Rather than alerting the public Joe Biden wasn’t up to the job, they covered -up the possibility he was corrupt as well.  

One of the favorite media tricks is the use of simple issue poll questions eliciting a one-word response. Sarah Isgur and Chris Stirewalt in the Dispatch understand how it contributed to the administration, and others misreading the situation. The question asked matters. On Afghanistan, “The Hill asked:

“Do you approve or disapprove of Biden’s plan to remove the troops from Afghanistan?” 73 percent of respondents approved; 27 percent disapproved. However,

Fox News asked: “Do you think the U.S. should remove all military troops from Afghanistan, or should some U.S. troops remain for counter-terrorism operations?” 50 percent answered that some troops should remain; 37 percent responded that we should remove all troops.

We endlessly heard 70+ percent approval figures from the administration and its media allies to justify the Biden withdrawal plan. President Trump used similar numbers to push his Afghan plans. I’ll bet you never were aware of Fox’s more nuanced results. Had we noticed, maybe we would’ve resisted this headlong dash to disaster? I’ve long decried the discarding of information not fitting one’s particular narrative.  

The narrative of an unpopular endless war fit both Trump’s and Biden’s objectives. Today former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Texas Representative Dan Crenshaw published articles in major publications refuting this idea. Only after we’re in crisis do we finally hear from those finding a false narrative. There is always a cost in excluding information from any discussion. We based our formative “Age of Reason” on the free exchange of ideas. It would’ve provided excellent service in this instance.

 We will never know how Trump would’ve handled his Afghan withdrawal. We know that if he did it the same as Biden, he would face impeachment again. The outrage would be deafening. Amazingly Biden still has media supporters.

When Donald Trump was elected President, many people, including myself, worried his inexperience and personality would lead to economic stress and loss of standing in the world. Surprisingly none of this came to pass. Only Covid derailed a solid economy, and world peace arguably was in a better place. Trump even led the way to the vaccines to get us in control of the pandemic.

His long history of poor judgment overlooked, experienced Washington hand, Joe Biden election is cheered as bringing “America Back.” Now, we’re looking at the highest inflation in decades and the worst foreign policy blunder, at least since the Iranian Hostage crisis. 

How ironic.