THE IMPERIAL PRESS CORPSE STRIKES AGAIN

If you’re someone who still believes what you read in the national press, or watch on the 24/7 cable news, then you’ve probably come to the conclusion that the past two weeks in Afghanistan are the worst evacuation ever - even worse than Dunkirk! - and totally show that President Biden is a failure.

Unfortunately, it would appear from recent polling that this is indeed what has happened. Public approval for President Biden has dropped as a result of this “reporting.” A CBS poll released over the weekend has it this way on the question of how removal of troops from Afghanistan has gone: Very Badly: 44%; Somewhat Badly: 30%; Somewhat Well: 21%; Very Well: 5%. In addition, the president’s job approval rating in the same poll is evenly divided on approve/disapprove at 50-50, down from 58-42 approve/disapprove a month ago.

Yes, most days last week things looked terrible at Hamid Karzai Airport in Kabul. However, by Friday, in the midst of all that, 38,000 people had been evacuated over those days of “total failure,” and over the weekend 8,000 were evacuated on Saturday - right in the middle of the 7-9,000/day potential evacuations that were put out at the beginning of the evacuation last Monday.

You likely missed it in all the “reporting,” but a major reason for the delays was that the evacuees were overwhelming the facilities prepared at the first stopover points in places like Qatar. The Pentagon announced over the weekend that they had activated the emergency airlift program to require U.S. air carriers to provide airliners to transport these people from the initial evacuation points on to Ramstein AFB in Germany and then on to the U.S. and other countries that are taking them in. Right now, it appears that the kinks in the pipeline have been straightened out to allow the flow to increase.

However, you wouldn’t know that from your newsfeed. When I opened my e-mail this morning, the header for the NYT read “Chaos Persists At Kabul Airport” for their top-of-the-list story.

You really have to dig around to find someone in the Press Corpse who takes note of the fact no Americans have died in all this. Matthew Dowd pointed out yesterday to CNN’s Brian Stelter, in a criticism of CNN coverage, "While this was going on, 5,000 people died of Covid in this country; 500 people died of gun violence in the last week in this country. And not a single American has died in the midst of this chaotic situation.” You wouldn’t know that if you were tuning in to the Cretin News Network for “news.”

Personally, I think there are a couple factors at work in this “coverage.”

First, the mainstream media is always in fear of being called out for “bias” by conservatives. While there was a lot of incompetence, criminal behavior and clear “evil-doing” to be reported during the previous administration, the Biden Administration is frustrating for them because there’s none of that to report - and they still get bashed for “lib’rul bias” by the White Wing Entertainment Complex. Thus, any perceived “failure” will get top billing as they revert to their traditional “bothsiderism.” And they’ll do it even when they have to manufacture it. Look back at 2016 and all the reports of the “terrible mistakes” made by Hillary Clinton and her campaign that were either nothing or incredibly petty when compared to the crimes being committed by her opponent. (“But her e-mails!”)

Second, it’s not hard for them to fall into this. Julia Ioffe pointed out some interesting points on why this is going on last week in her “Tomorrow Will Be Worse” e-mail newsletter (you should subscribe - it’s part of a new media company she and some other well-informed reporters have formed to present good analysis of the who/what/why/when/where of American power centers. They’re going behind a paywall after Labor Day - pay the writers! - but you can subscribe for a decent price now, and I think they are well worthwhile).

The D.C./New York press is filled with people who have been to Afghanistan over the years, who made friends there with the people they worked and served with. Unlike most of us, they have some "emotional skin in the game." So, when they see what's going on, they see people they know suffering. And like it or not, they realize also that things they reported on or said nothing about resulted in policies being carried out that now have their friends running for their lives. That’s a fair load of guilt for anyone. Unfortunately, rather than cry in their drink in some dark bar, they cry over their keyboard, and that goes out to the world.

As with most of us when we’re in less-than-optimal situations, be it a not-so-great marriage or a horrible job, denial is not - as they say - a river in Egypt. Any of us can convince ourselves for at least awhile that "things aren't that bad" when in fact things are indeed that bad. The longer the denial goes on, the worse the reaction when that denial runs up against Reality so hard that it can no longer be denied. The result is the kind of coverage that is happening.

The above isn't said to defend these people, but rather to look at trying to understand how this happens. That’s the historian in me looking at what I might be writing about five years from now. The more honest and self-aware among the Imperial Press Corpse would admit their actions - or lack thereof - over all this time contributed to what is going on today.

Personally, I wish this would all lead to some self-examination on their part over their complicity, and might result in some changes in the way they look at how to do their jobs - to the benefit of a country that is in desperate need of critical news coverage *before* the disaster happens.

Sadly, people being people, I won't hold my breath for large-scale change; as Orwell once pointed out, it is difficult to expect a man to see the truth when his paycheck depends on his not seeing that truth.

But I will celebrate any few of them who manage to do this.

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