NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE A s the nation headed out for the Easter holiday last week, President Biden sent his National Security Council spokesman to the White House podium to roll out a newly released report shifting blame for his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. In refusing to defend his own record on the pullout, Biden continued a pattern of hiding behind handlers who embarrass both themselves and the White House.
In any other administration, the secretaries of state and defense, if not the president himself, would release such an important review, not a White House flack. Yet it was radio silence from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin Thursday afternoon. And President Biden left the White House for a weekend at Camp David without comment. So John Kirby was left to walk the plank in front of reporters about the twelve-page report.
Kirby’s embarrassing defense of the withdrawal channeled Saddam Hussein’s own mouthpiece, the infamous “Baghdad Bob,” who 20 years ago this weekend insisted at a press briefing that “there are no American troops in Baghdad” as U.S. tanks rolled into the city in the background. For his part, Kirby said Biden was “proud” of the pullout that cost 13 brave American servicemen and women their lives and left the Taliban with billions in NATO-supplied military hardware, including Black Hawk helicopters and thousands of armored vehicles. Downplaying images of Afghans clinging to military jets scrambling out of Kabul airport in the hasty withdrawal, Kirby said, “For all this talk of chaos, I just didn’t see it, not from my perch.” About any failings, he pointed to the report and reverted to the shopworn dodge of blaming President Trump.
Biden’s hiding behind spokespeople is nothing new. Compared with his most recent predecessors, he has held the fewest number of media interviews by far. In the rare times when he does talk to the press, he generally reads from a teleprompter without taking questions.
Even when he was in the Senate, Biden was known as a weak communicator. When he first ran for president 36 years ago, Senator Biden deflected and reverted to exaggerations when questioned by reporters on his qualifications for office. Four years later, he dropped the ball in a clear media layup as chairman of the Judiciary Committee during the Clarence Thomas–Anita Hill dustup. Now, Biden’s problem is worsened by the simple fact that he has little or no good news to communicate, especially on foreign policy. As a result, he punts any defense of his wanting record to mouthpieces, diminishing them and the power of the White House podium in the process.
Like him or not, Donald Trump never hid behind spokespeople — just the opposite. A former reality-show TV host, Trump talked routinely to the press, taking questions almost every time, and sparred openly with a famously hostile media. If anything, some argue at times he over-communicated. But on every issue of consequence, from the al-Baghdadi raid to China to the pandemic, Trump was at the podium.
Biden’s spokespeople admittedly have a tough client. Yet they forfeit their own credibility — and that of the White House podium — when they fail to acknowledge clear missteps in defending the president’s record. Biden demonstrates his own lack of leadership by putting them in that position.