By Charles C. W.
Cooke
Monday, August
16, 2021
Mistakes tend to hurt politicians
most when they play into the public’s preconceptions. A man who is regarded as
intelligent but aloof will be able to say something truly dumb and get away
with it, but will likely be damaged if he seems detached. A man who is considered
stupid but kind can sound blunt without consequence, but may be damaged by
appearing inadequate. It is reinforcement, not surprise, that remains the
politician’s greatest foe.
Given his carefully crafted image, the
biggest political risk to Joe Biden posed by the Afghanistan fiasco is that it
will make him seem incompetent — or perhaps, given his peculiar absence during
the crisis, truant. But his party? That’s a whole ’nother
kettle of fish. The Democrats in 2021 have a reputation for being a bunch of
out-of-touch scolds who believe that reality conforms to language and who tend
to leverage the same tone and vocabulary when discussing agrarian warlords as
they would during a Harvard symposium on intersectionality. And boy does
their reaction to the fall of Kabul confirm that conceit. Last week, as its
soldiers were sweeping across Afghanistan, Jen Psaki told the press that “the Taliban also has to make an assessment about what they
want their role to be in the international community.” (Yeah, and I guess
Charles Manson needs to decide whether he really wants to stay
a member of this church.) On Saturday, Nancy Pelosi clucked that “the Taliban
must know that the world is watching its actions.” (It knows: it’s
live-streaming them.) It will not be too long, one suspects, before Senate
majority leader Schumer gravely lowers his glasses to explain that, for some
strange reason, the arc of history seems now to be bending the
wrong way.
Those wondering why spokesmen for the
Taliban end up sounding like Robin DiAngelo when talking to the Associated
Press — a representative promised the outlet this weekend that his team was hoping to form an “open,
inclusive Islamic government” — need look no further than to the Democratic Party
for their explanation. Our enemies talk like this because our politicians talk
like this. They’re beating us at our own, wildly inappropriate game.
And well they might, given our fatal
incoherence. There was a fair case for the United States’ finally getting out
of Afghanistan, albeit not in this manner. There was a fair case, too, for the
United States’ electing to stay. There was no case whatsoever for indulging in
this rhetorical guff while botching the hard details of a withdrawal on the
ground. A realist foreign policy could plausibly require us to say, “enough is
enough,” to abandon the area, and to accept the inevitable consequences. But it
could never require us to abandon the area while pretending that we are handing
it over to the Audubon Society. “Mommy is watching, and she’s very disappointed
in you” is a tactic for keeping children in line, not seventh-century
theocrats. They know we hate them. They hate us, too. And they
ain’t exactly hiding it.
Rhetorically, Joe Biden’s party is trying
to have it both ways. Leaving because it’s time to put “America First” is a
coherent course — albeit not one I would have counseled. Staying while talking
about the importance of universal human rights is too. But leaving while
talking about the importance of universal human rights? That’s a bad joke.
Nancy Pelosi said on Saturday that she was “deeply concerned about reports
regarding the Taliban’s brutal treatment of all Afghans, especially women and
girls,” while praising Biden for his “clarity” and “wisdom” in taking a series
of actions that will lead directly to that brutal treatment. This makes no
sense. As of today, it is simply not possible to say that you think the United
States should leave and that you hope it will all work out. The United
States is leaving, and it is not working out.
The British comedian Jack Dee has a good
bit about the misuse of the British phrase, “Cheer up, might never happen.”
“Thanks,” he says, “but I think you can tell by the knife sticking out of my
arm that it did, in fact, happen.” This has happened, too; the Afghans have the
stab wound to prove it. And those whose choices allowed it to happen must own
the results.
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