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The White House Hopes We Can All Forget Afghanistan (And The Press Will Help)
The Federalist ^ | September 1, 2021 | Christopher Bedford

Posted on 09/01/2021 11:56:02 AM PDT by Kaslin

The right people want to see this administration get back to the things they elected them to do -- and so they're going to. It's as simple as that.


“Look, we’ve closed the chapter on Afghanistan. And now we’re committed to America. We want to put the past behind us and are committed to build back better and infrastructure.”

“We want to focus on people, on jobs, on working-class Americans struggling to pay the bills.”

“We’re not dwelling on the past.”

None of these are quotes — yet. Already by the time you read this, that might have changed.

Because even while the frantic Kabul evacuation effort was ongoing the White House preferred to talk about anything at all other than their deadly and disastrous retreat. And we all heard Tuesday afternoon’s angry, 20-minute speech by the president: The retreat was a great success, a real Joe-Eagle example of this administration keeping its promises — and it’s all the fault of that dastardly Donald Trump and the cowardly Afghan government.

The White House will face some obstacles in changing the narrative. This, for instance, is the first story since Super Tuesday that’s seen a largely complicit corporate media really go after the administration for any of its numerous and demonstrable failures.

It’s the first story that’s seen the same corporate media that virtually propped up now-President Joe Biden’s limp and barely responsive person begin to wonder aloud if his public mental decay might be a sign of — shock — mental decay.

Finally, there are still hundreds of Americans and many more American-aligned Afghans stranded in the country — and likely hostages of a vengeful and merciless foe.

But in the end, there’s a high chance it will work.

Why? Let’s start with ability: The White House Press Corps, for instance, is largely made up of camera-ready vanity projects more interested in their Instagram followers and TV outfits than holding to account an administration they’re politically aligned with.

The brief glimpses the public was treated to over the past two weeks of, say, the Pentagon reporters asking real questions and demanding answers might have been an impetus to improve if the average pretty face at the White House had either the shame or the ability to do so. But they don’t, and they won’t.

Can’t be too hard on the White House press corps, though, they’re just doing their jobs, and despite what they might claim, for most that job is really just looking good on TV, making friends, and, when the cameras were rolling, yelling at Trump while he colored Easter eggs with little kids.

In reality, a lot of people in Washington and New York are just doing their jobs. Take the average news anchor — first in line to defend the tenacity of her journalism, to trumpet the sacred nature of his career. Their job isn’t easy — they have to read off a teleprompter for hours on end in between questioning random faces popping up on a screen for two minutes at a time — but it’s not exactly shoe-leather journalism.

Can’t be too hard on them, either: They’re far from the only ones. What do you think is going to happen to the editors of The New York Times if the Biden loyalists who make up their readership think they’ve focused a bit too long on those American hostages in Afghanistan? What do you think is going to happen if a Republican is elected because of it? We know what happened last time they felt responsible: A lot of long public confessions; a lot of tears; a lot of feelings.

Readers aside, it wouldn’t sit too well with the reporters editors answer to these days either. Those reporters, after all, have friendships to maintain, and above and beyond that, self-worth to uphold. When you don’t have religion, your status in the Resistance is nearly as crucial as your sexual identity in assessing your self-worth. What will your wife’s boyfriend think of you?

Laughs aside, this isn’t a joke: The American corporate press isn’t broken in the normal sense, it’s simply and grotesquely changed: It isn’t seeking truth, but views and clicks and, above even that, approval from the right people.

Those right people, in corporate media and elsewhere, want to see this administration get back to the things they elected them to do — and so they’re going to, and it’s as simple as that. The White House is so confident in this, they’ve already laid out their plan to Politico.

“The path forward for them in the fall remains Covid and infrastructure,” a chosen outside source explained. “The most important facts about Afghanistan remain that he got the U.S. out, in terms of what the public cares about.”

The administration — and its media friends — are going to do their best to make sure that happens. Nevermind the hundreds of Americans confirmed left behind. It’s essentially their own fault: you heard the president say it. And if the Taliban doesn’t start filming beheadings, it might even stay as quiet as the White House hopes.

When the Vietnam War ended, America was desperate to move on. The tumult at home, the dead abroad, the first real defeat in American history — all weighed on us, but rather than confront why we fought, how we fought — or even any of the people responsible for so much death and turmoil — we chose to forget.

There were casualties in this. The returning American G.I. was left alone and forsaken. Just as the military veteran suicide hotlines have been flooded these past two weeks, these men struggled desperately for closure and meaning in a country that seemed hellbent on denying them any.

Even more than those who came home, those who flew home to be buried or were left behind in rice paddies were forsaken by an America that chose willfully to forget. These men had answered, but back at home when we heard the call to simply clear our eyes, learn from our mistakes, and honor their sacrifice as we moved forward, we instead let its sound linger for decades.

We’d rather make movies about what a waste it all was; we called that real. And we made sure to thank every veteran who returned from Iraq and Afghanistan. How nice. If we really want to thank them, we’ll answer some hard questions.

Alex Plitsas is a decorated Army combat and intelligence veteran who, as a civilian in the final days of evacuation, worked day and night to help get as many Americans and green-card holders out of that country as he could. “This,” he wrote Monday, “is the question I keep getting from those who remain stranded in Afghanistan, ‘What’s next?'”

Sadly, we know what they want to come next.

“Look, we’ve closed the chapter on Afghanistan. And now we’re committed to America. We want to put the past behind us and are committed to build back better and infrastructure.”

“We want to focus on people, on jobs, on working-class Americans struggling to pay the bills.”

“We’re not dwelling on the past.”

They’ll almost sound patriotic.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: afghanistan; afghanwithdrawal; bidenadmin
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1 posted on 09/01/2021 11:56:02 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

OH NO they are going to tax us to death.


2 posted on 09/01/2021 11:58:56 AM PDT by IC Ken
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To: Kaslin
All it will take is one dead American who was stranded to bring this back to the forefront.

-PJ

3 posted on 09/01/2021 11:59:56 AM PDT by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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To: Kaslin

This is NOT gonna go quietly into the night, pedoJoe.
This will hang around your neck like a dead albatross....forever.


4 posted on 09/01/2021 12:01:02 PM PDT by lgjhn23 (Pray for America....)
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To: Kaslin

Oh look! A squirrel!.............and he’s holding a shiny object!...............and the Kardashians are on!.................


5 posted on 09/01/2021 12:01:30 PM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Kaslin

The Servpro MSM™ will bury the Afghanistan debacle “like it never even happened”.


6 posted on 09/01/2021 12:02:07 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: Kaslin

Not going to happen.
God knows what will occur on 9/11 either.


7 posted on 09/01/2021 12:07:12 PM PDT by EEGator
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To: IC Ken

We want to put the past behind us and are committed to build back better and infrastructure.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

These are the Assistant Democrats that enabled the latest assault on the USA

Dan Sullivan (R-AK) Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) Mike Crapo (R-ID) Roy Blunt (R-MO) Richard Burr (R-NC) Deb Fischer (R-NE) Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Rob Portman (R-OH) Thom Tillis (R-NC) Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) Jim Risch (R-ID) Chuck Grassley (R-IA) Bill Cassidy (R-LA) Kevin Cramer (R-ND) Roger Wicker (R-MS) Mitch McConnell (R-KY) John Hoeven (R-ND) Susan Collins (R-ME) Mitt Romney (R-UT)

They knew when they were voting for the $1.2 trillion they were enabling the bigger, worse one.


8 posted on 09/01/2021 12:07:16 PM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizens Are Born Here of Citizen Parents)(Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: Kaslin

“Let’s move on” was the phrase used to advance Bill Clinton’s power trip after his disgrace.

Biden recently “Hey, c’mon, that’s about 5 days ago. 4 or 5 days ago. why talk about that?” (deaths in Afghanistan). And it was 2 days ago.

So now it will be “Biden had a historic success in ending the problems that Trump had caused in Afghanistan but now we have important things like gun control, stopping the racist voter ID laws and making sure vaccine and mask edicts are fully enforced on all people.”


9 posted on 09/01/2021 12:09:27 PM PDT by frank ballenger (You have summoned up a thundercloud. You're gonna hear from me. Anthem by Leonard Cohen)
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To: Kaslin

Biden is Jimmy Carter 2.0

Biden is failing domestically across the board, he has failed overseas. He is a failed President all ready.

The economic and foreign policy disasters the Biden regime have set in motion are not going to magically go away no matter how hard the MSM wishes

A President can survive failing at domestic policy, a President can fail at foreign policy but no President has failed at both an won a 2nd term


10 posted on 09/01/2021 12:10:55 PM PDT by MNJohnnie (They would have abandon leftism to achieve sanity. Freeper Olog-hai)
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To: Red Badger

I’d much rather watch the Kardashians than some of this mess. Ignorance is bliss. I can veg out on blissful ignorance and watch the Kardashians.


11 posted on 09/01/2021 12:22:23 PM PDT by hoe_cake
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To: Kaslin

We won’t forget.


12 posted on 09/01/2021 12:30:57 PM PDT by beethovenfan (Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin)
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To: Kaslin; All

As a side note to this thread, when are we going to hear about Arizona 2020 election vote counting audit?


13 posted on 09/01/2021 12:44:48 PM PDT by Amendment10
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To: MNJohnnie

Senile Joe won’t even last until 2024, let alone run again.
He didn’t even campaign, he hid in his basement.
Joe is just a meat puppet for a regime that intends to finish the fundamental transformation.


14 posted on 09/01/2021 12:49:50 PM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizens Are Born Here of Citizen Parents)(Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: Amendment10

Good question, last I heard things were delayed due to key persons coming down with the Fauci/China virus.


15 posted on 09/01/2021 12:51:43 PM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizens Are Born Here of Citizen Parents)(Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: Kaslin

Won’t be long before Jen replies to a reporter with “Afghanistan? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”


16 posted on 09/01/2021 1:35:46 PM PDT by Sans-Culotte (11/3-11/4/2020 - The USA became a banana republic.)
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To: IC Ken

The war with China will drive it off the front pages. That or the NEW 9-11—this time with Poison Gas! That will do the trick. Or maybe a Mass shooting or big bomb? Maybe a NUKE to hit Texas and humble them? There is a lot Biden and his Cabal can do to change the narrative.


17 posted on 09/01/2021 1:42:02 PM PDT by Forward the Light Brigade ( ALWAYS GO FORWARD AND NEVER GO BACK.)
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To: Kaslin

We forgot 9/11 so quick we voted in a muzzy as POTUS.


18 posted on 09/01/2021 2:04:43 PM PDT by bgill (.Which came first, the vax or the virus?)
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To: Kaslin

That’s exactly what they’re hoping. After all, it was a few days ago…and then there’s that covid, ya know…


19 posted on 09/01/2021 2:15:06 PM PDT by livius
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To: Kaslin

THEY DID IT WITH BENGHAZI AND GOT AWAY WITH IT


20 posted on 09/01/2021 2:42:47 PM PDT by ronnie raygun
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