What is potentially so damaging for President Biden and Democrats isn’t so much the substance of the decision to pull out of Afghanistan. After all, any chance of the conflict turning out well ended about 15 years ago. It was the shambolic execution of it. The intelligence community, Pentagon officials, […] Read more »
Why Biden’s Afghanistan exit wasn’t about good politics
In ending America’s longest war, President Joe Biden did something popular. It was never going to help him politically. That was true before damaging images of chaos and desperation filled American television screens last week. The reason is that public opinion about the Afghanistan conflict, as with most overseas events […] Read more »
Why Americans may ultimately not care about Biden’s Afghanistan performance
… Americans have given their initial reaction to how Biden handled the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, and it seems to be negative. Whether or not it remains that way is yet to be seen. The events of the last week demonstrate that how Americans see a politician’s leadership still […] Read more »
More US adults want booster shots than are unvaccinated
This week, US health officials announced plans to offer booster Covid-19 shots to all qualifying adults starting on September 20. If the FDA authorizes them and the CDC recommends them, the shots will be available eight months after a person received their second dose of either the Moderna or Pfizer […] Read more »
Cruel Summer
President Biden is having a pretty miserable first summer in office, with challenges coming from all sides: the Delta variant, a record number of illegal crossings at the southern border, and now, of course, the disastrous pull-out from Afghanistan. House Democratic leaders, meanwhile, are struggling to keep their narrow majority […] Read more »
How NYT columnist Ross Douthat used ambiguous poll results to create a “public opinion” that conforms to his world view
In July 2020, the Cato Institute, described as a Libertarian think tank, released the results of its own poll focusing on the issue of self-censorship. In an article this month comparing life in Hungary to the U.S., New York Times columnist Ross Douthat used those year-old results to support his […] Read more »