Twenty-five confirmed dead Americans and “[a]t least 17 Americans are missing.” This much the White House is revealing in the aftermath of Hamas’ unexpected terrorist attack on Israel last Saturday. How the President intends to ultimately respond to these American losses, beyond the already promised military and intelligence support to Israel, at this point is anybody’s guess.

Strangely, however, there is one White House response to such a national tragedy which might normally be expected but that Biden hasn’t yet taken -- that the nation’s flags be flown at half-staff in the murdered American’s honor.

During a so-called Roundtable with Jewish Community Leaders held at the White House on Wednesday, President Biden was asked about his planned response to the terrorist attacks. "There's a lot we're doing, a lot we're doing… But the idea that I'm going to stand here before you and tell you what I'm doing is bizarre,” responded Biden.

That Joe Biden should find this question to be “bizarre” may seem a little ironic, if not more than a little, well, bizarre, coming from a man who rarely says or does anything as president that isn’t utterly bizarre, but this may be beside the point. However, Biden not yet ordering the nation’s flags to be flown at half-staff is indeed bizarre.

To be sure, several U.S. governors, of Florida, South Carolina, Pennsylvania among others, have issued their own orders for flags in their respective states to be lowered half-staff in honor of the 25 murdered Americans. But no such nationwide order has come from Joe Biden.

This is especially odd considering the approximate 32 times Biden has ordered flags flown at half-staff since taking office in 2021. Biden’s most recent order for this honor came just a little over a week before the October 7^th attacks, on September 29, at the death of Sen. Diane Feinstein.

Furthermore, although the individuals and groups of persons given this honor by Biden may be no less deserving, it seems not only a slight but a real dishonor that they should be remembered by flag lowering, while the 25 Americans murdered by Hamas last weekend have not yet.

Left without an official explanation why the president hasn’t ordered flags lowered in this latest tragic instance, Americans are left to wonder and to speculate. Has flag lowering become so frequent during Biden’s presidency as to have made it become almost a trivial new method of virtue signaling? Has its trivialization made it now too easily ignored or overlooked, even by the White House?

Or is this presidential slight a signal of something much more cynical, more sinister, and more politically motivated? Have these 25 murdered Americans not been honored with lowered flags to offend neither Muslims at home and abroad, nor Biden’s political base of progressives who largely are in support of the Palestinians and hostile toward Israel?

In closing, no one would expect Biden to reveal beforehand his planned response to the murder and hostage taking of innocent Americans. But Americans may certainly expect Joe Biden to respond in part by honoring the confirmed 25 dead Americans in the same manner he saw fit to honor others 32 times since taking office -- by ordering the nation’s flags to be lowered to half-staff. Anything short of this would indeed be bizarre, not to mention a dishonor to their memories.

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