Josh Kovensky talks with the Georgia couple whose property was raided by the FBI last week as part of the Jan. 6 investigation.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who has distinguished himself with his incredibly lax approach to handling the COVID-19 outbreak in his state, has tested positive for COVID-19.
JoinA few of you have asked why we’re doing our Prime Ad Free (AF) trial. So I wanted to explain. In this drive we need at least 1,000 Prime members to upgrade to Prime AF. We know there are at least a thousand who – once they try it – will want to upgrade just because they prefer it. Believe me, it’s a lot better. So our two week free trial is really just a diabolical plan to figure out who those 1000+ members are.
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A new bonus episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! Today, Josh and Kate discuss the end of the nearly 20-year war in Afghanistan.
Watch below and email us your questions for next week’s episode.
You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.
If nothing else for media watchers there’s a fascinating dynamic developing over the last day or so in trying to define the US exit from Afghanistan. It’s not a new dynamic. In fact, it’s one I first saw a quarter century ago when DC’s establishment press got really, really upset that not only Bill Clinton but more importantly most of the country didn’t agree with their take on impeachment in 1998. Official DC was baffled when Democrats actually managed to pick up a few seats in the 1998 midterm that was entirely about impeachment. The specifics of the case are of course pretty radically different. But the dynamic of establishment DC press escalation is not. Politico’s morning newsletter this morning captures the dynamic. It starts quoting David Axelrod making clear that Biden messed up and has to admit he messed up but then notes that Biden didn’t get the message and said he had made the right decision. A sort of primal scream of “WTF, JOE BIDEN?!?!?!!?!” virtually bleeds through the copy.
The Republican Party wants you to forget that just a few months ago the GOP agreed that the move to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, which Biden is now being criticized for, was sound foreign policy.
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If you weren’t around over the weekend I did a series of posts on the unfolding situation in Afghanistan. In succession, “A Few Thoughts on Afghanistan,” “Vindication and the Fall of Kabul,” “After Sunday It’s Even More Clear Biden Was Right.” The titles give you the gist of my views: for all the chaos and horror, the rapidity of the collapse not only of the Afghan military but the Afghan state itself made me even more convinced the decision to leave was correct and more impressed that Biden had the courage to do it.
Biden is speaking to the American public this afternoon about the unfolding situation. It is the correct decision to do so. I think the entirety of what he needs to do is not second-guess the decision or chase after the emotions or hyperbole of the moment. The most important reason not to do that is that the decision was and is the correct one. But equivocation signals weakness. At a moment of uncertainty and chaotic images, the most important thing a leader can do is to be clear that he has a plan, that it is the right plan, and that because it is the right plan he will stick to that plan regardless of the political consequences and even if it is painful to do so.
Americans, or at least the commentating classes, are watching aghast as events unfold in Afghanistan. Some are second-guessing the wisdom of withdrawal – after all, how hard is it to maintain a few thousand soldiers there permanently? Others are taking the more comfortable position of saying yes, we had to leave but this just wasn’t the right way. I must be the only person in America who is having exactly the opposite reaction. The more I see the more I’m convinced this was the right decision – both what I see on the ground in Afghanistan and perhaps even more the reaction here in the United States.
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I think this is right. From TPM Reader JB …
Just a note here about the ongoing US bugout from Afghanistan, that I suspect we’ll hear more about in the months to come.
President Biden has a long memory; the events of 2009-10, when then-President Obama was jammed by the military leadership into what proved to be an aimless, futile surge of US forces into Afghanistan, have to be a major factor in his thinking. A more deliberate, better planned withdrawal would have been preferable to what we are seeing now in many respects — notably, to get more of America’s Afghan friends out of the country.
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Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) has a statement out that is at least semi-critical of the Biden administration’s handling of Afghanistan. I’ll print the whole thing below. But it’s this statement that caught my eye: “We also need to determine what intelligence failures led to underestimating the ease and speed of the Taliban’s advancement and work to ensure that we prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a safe haven for terrorists.”