Wrote Monica Showalter in American Thinker, 19 Aug. '21:

CNN's sudden about-face on Joe Biden's performance in Afghanistan … wasn't half-hearted stuff. The Trump-hating news site ran a devastating analysis pinning the blame for the Afghanistan fiasco squarely on Joe Biden. ...

Now it's The Atlantic's turn. ... [T]hey ran three bam, bam, bam commentaries that also pinned the blame for the fiasco squarely where it belonged — not on President Trump, but on wretched Joe Biden.

The piling on was so bad that you almost felt sorry for Gropin' Joe.  But then, Friday, the scutter comes out talking tough and sounding as though he won after all — we're monitoring them closely, they know we're watching, we'll hold them accountable, the full might of the United States, on and on like that in stentorian tones — all so disconnected from what actually did happen that it took a few minutes to credit that Joe was actually mouthing such stuff.

That was bad enough, but then the scene shifted to the Pentagon, where mouthpiece John Kirby and 2-star Marine Hank Taylor took turns playing deer-in-the-headlights, running to and from a single, shared podium.  Kirby vaguely resembles Howdy Doody, such that you tend to watch his jaw and lose track of what he's saying.  Taylor's furrowed unibrow makes him look stern until, without warning, his eyebrows shoot up and reveal a completely different man.  That's nothing compared to SecDef Lloyd Austin, who mercifully didn't speak.  A 4-star general in another life, this dude comes off like a Waffle House cook filling in while the real guy takes a smoke break.

A few years ago, George Will dropped a new word on us: gravitas.  Instantly, it gained traction.  Everyone worked it into speeches, essays, talk show appearances, graduation ceremonies, talks with their sons.  The absence of that word is notable in Joe Biden and team.  All of them lack gravitas, from plebe-looking national security adviser Jake Sullivan and faculty-lounge janitor SecState Antony Blinken to Vice President "Giggles" Harris.  They not only look uneasy and lost; they sound like it, too.

No wonder the Taliban don't take America seriously.  And they don't even watch cartoons.

Image via Picryl.

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