"... Biden’s decisions on withdrawal were mostly buttressed by his long-held belief that, when al-Qaeda was driven out of Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden killed, America’s strategic needs had been met."

"Despite his deep convictions about the correctness of his decisions, Biden brought trouble on himself by offering cheery predictions – such as that the Afghan government wouldn’t fall any time soon. When that proved unrealistic, Biden became defensive, even belligerent, which dented his reputation as a nice guy. Another factor that may have played a role in shaping Biden’s Afghan policy is the striking difference in the nature of the president’s foreign and defense policy team and his domestic policy advisers. The latter is comprised of former mayors, governors, members of congress, and at least one business executive – people of independent standing. But Biden’s national security team is dominated by former aides. The soft-spoken Secretary of State Antony Blinken is a loyal, longtime Biden adviser. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, a youthful-looking 44, was Biden’s national security adviser as vice president. Biden often cites the concurrence of his advisers as confirmation of the wisdom of his decisions, but one gets the strong impression that he makes clear to them what advice he wants."

Writes Elizabeth Drew in "Joe Biden's Afghan Nightmare" (Project Syndicate).

ADDED: Rereading this, I laughed at "dented his reputation as a nice guy."

I knew this was coming, and I'm expecting a lot more of this: "Let’s Scrap the Presidential Debates."

That particular example is by Elizabeth Drew and appears in the NYT today. I haven't read this yet, but I anticipate that it will not admit to a motivation to shield Biden from a test of his mental acuity:

The debates have never made sense as a test for presidential leadership. In fact, one could argue that they reward precisely the opposite of what we want in a president. When we were serious about the presidency, we wanted intelligence, thoughtfulness, knowledge, empathy and, to be sure, likability. It should also without saying, dignity....

This, by the way, isn’t written out of any concern that Donald Trump will prevail over Joe Biden in the debates; Mr. Biden has done just fine in a long string of such contests. The point is that “winning” a debate, however assessed, should be irrelevant, as are the debates themselves....

Ridiculous. How can you read that and not laugh? Not written out of any concern that Trump will do better than Biden?!

I am truly disgusted by this effort help Biden avoid debating. I've been writing about this for a while. Back on June 25th, I showed you a WaPo column by Karen Tumulty, "It’s time to rethink the presidential debates" and I said I expected "a push to eliminate the debates."

On July 8, I wrote, "The effort to rescue Biden from the demand to debate continues apace." That was based on a Thomas Friedman column, "Biden Should Not Debate Trump Unless …/Here are two conditions the Democrat should set." I said "It's not an outright argument to keep Biden out of the debates, but that's where it's headed." And: "[W]e need to see Joe perform in real time, on his feet, intensely challenged. He cannot weasel out."