This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Words matter.

I have written about that notion before.  It is one that served as a foundation for my life’s work, which was to write, whether I was a reporter for a daily newspaper, a state government official, or a lobbyist.

I like words more than numbers, graphs or charts, though I suppose those “others” can help provide a stronger foundation for words.

Washington Post media analyst Margaret Sullivan made the “words matter” point in a piece she wrote this week.  It appeared under this headline:

Words matter. So these journalists refuse to call GOP election meddling an “audit.”

Here are a few excerpts from her column:

“There’s a simple but powerful idea behind the Philadelphia Inquirer’s recent decision not to use the word ‘audit’ when referring to an effort by the state GOP to investigate the 2020 election:

“Words matter.

“The words that a news organization chooses to tell a story make a difference.  If a journalist calls something a ‘lie,’ that’s a deliberate choice. So is ‘racially tinged.’  Or ‘pro-life.’  Or torture.’

“Such decisions carry weight.  They have power.

Acknowledging this power and being transparent about those choices is exactly what the Inquirer did the other day when it embedded within a news story a bit of explanatory text, under the headline:  ‘Why we’re not calling it an audit.

“In clear language, the paper explained that it’s because ‘there’s no indication’ that this effort, which follows months of demands from Donald Trump alleging baselessly that the election was rigged, ‘would follow the best practices or the common understanding of an audit among nonpartisan experts.’

“How so?  The Inquirer noted that when it asked how the review would work, how ballots and election equipment would be secured, who would be involved, and so on, the leaders of this effort did not explain.”

Excellent points by Sullivan to oppose strenuously the use of the word “audit” to describe something only in Trump’s stupid mind.

On a different plane, I often thought of the “words matter “point when I was writing for a daily newspaper many years ago.  Think, for just a moment, about the word “admit,” as in a sentence such as this – “The member of the City Council admitted that he had talked with constituents about the issue before the Council.”

Would the word “said” have been better than the word “admitted.”?  I say yes because “admitted” carries the connotation of some kind of wrongdoing.  In the sentence, there should be no such impression.

Dan Hirschhorn, senior politics editor at the Inquirer, told the commentator Sullivan, “These are not ‘he said/she said’ stories — there is clear, objective truth here.”

Hirschhorn and Sullivan are right.  And, I add immodestly, so am I.

There is a word that describes conduct by the Philadelphia Inquirer.  Integrity.  A model for all of us as we use words and are careful to contemplate their meaning.

This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

On the day after the 9/11 anniversary, there is no more fitting way to commemorate the memory than to cite comments made by the president at the time of 9/11, George W. Bush.

He spoke yesterday in Shanksville, Pennsylvania where Flight 93 went down on the day of the attacks.

Here is what Bush said:

“He warned that dangers to the country now come not only across borders ‘but from violence that gathers from within.’  It was an apparent and obvious reference to the attack on the Capitol on January 6.

“’There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home,”’ he said.  ‘But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit.  And it is our continuing duty to confront them.”

It is possible to criticize Bush for some of his leadership decisions, including entering the Iraq War.  But it is not logical to oppose his comments in Shanksville.

He makes the excellent point that dangers to the U.S. come, not just from external forces, but also internal ones.

Footnote:  If you want to read a solid account of what has happened in the U.S. since 9/11, Washington Post writer, Dan Balz, one of the country’s best commentators going, has a great piede today in the Post.  Worth reading.

This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

So, we have arrived at the day – the day the Twin Towers in New York came crashing down due to a terrorist attack which shocked us, not to mention took thousands of lives on our own soil.

You don’t have to go far today to read about that “day of infamy” in 2001.

But, what has happened in the intervening 20 years?  Have we learned anything as a result of the attack?  Have we found a way to be a better country for the learning?

Many commentators are answering “no” to those questions.

So it was that I read a commentary this morning written by former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman.  It appeared in Friday’s Wall Street Journal under this headline:

Jewish Tradition and National Unity

The high holidays offer lessons that can be helpful to all Americans.

As I have done several times in the past, I devote my blog this morning to a full transcript of Lieberman’s piece, with appropriate attribution to him.  It is well written and worth reading.  So read and reflect.

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The ram’s horn, or shofar, is sounded throughout the Jewish high holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as a call for Jews to reflect, reform and repent. Many of us are doing exactly that this month. The lessons associated with these holidays, which both happen in September this year, are more relevant than ever to all Americans.

The U.S. today is less unified and secure, less law-abiding, less respectful of government, and less confident in the future than at any point in my life. It needs to be jolted from its current course by the sound of the ram’s horn to find a better way forward.

The path Jewish tradition offers is through repentance, but not only in the way it is commonly understood. As Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks taught, the root of the Hebrew word for repentance, teshuvah, means to return. For a nation, he explained, it means to return “to our roots, our faith, our history.” This is the best first step the American people can take to overcome division, because it will show how far we have strayed from the source of our national values, unity and purpose.

As the Declaration of Independence says: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” These words—some of the most important ever written in the English language—are about more than the Founders’ call for independence from England. They are an American covenant entered into by succeeding generations. Too many Americans today have been distracted from the faith and values in the Declaration, causing the nation to suffer greatly.

Alexis de Tocqueville concluded after his tour of America in the 19th century that “liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.” The American ideal that all of us are created equal has been the source of our national unity. But in our time, that faith has been overwhelmed by forces that divide our government, politics, and people.

If we all are created equally, we are all children of the same God, all members of the same national family. If we could once again see our fellow Americans that way, it would be harder to treat each other as enemies because we disagree on political issues or belong to different demographic groups. Those differences would yield to the unifying bond and great values we share as fellow citizens of the U.S. In that event, civility might return to society. Reasonable discussions full of negotiation, compromise and problem-solving could follow.

Throughout American history, national crises have brought us together. However, Covid-19 prompted us to be suspicious of one another and to disagree vehemently along partisan lines. But the pandemic also produced some remarkable examples of what we can do when we work together—from healthcare workers caring for the sick, to scientists, supported by businesses and government, who produced the miraculous vaccines that have saved millions of lives.

America still has the dynamism and courage to revive national unity. And that unity can best be achieved again by returning to our shared faith, as President Kennedy once said, that “the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.” That is why I pray that the American people hear the sound of the shofar and are moved to return to our past values so that we can secure a better future for this country.

A great 18th century rabbi known as the Baal Shem Tov, or Master of the Good Name, told this parable: “A man got lost in the forest and wandered for several days trying to find a way out until he finally saw another man walking toward him. ‘I have been lost for days in the forest,’ he said to the stranger. ‘Can you show me the way out?’ ”

The other man answered, “I am lost myself. But I know the path you are on now is not the right one: Let’s try together to find our way out.”

“So it is with us,” concluded the Baal Shem Tov. “I know that the road we are on now will only lead us further astray. But if we join together, we can find the right way forward.” And so it is with America.

This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The headline in this blog underscores a solid reality – workers’ compensation rates for Oregon businesses have been doing down and will continue the downward path for next year.

The good news comes from a solid source, Salem Reporter, which is carving out for itself a positive reputation for news in and around the Salem-Keizer area. 

That’s good because of the continuing decline of the Salem Statesman-Journal.

But back to workers’ comp.

Here is a summary of the news reported by Salem Reporter:

“For the ninth year in a row, Oregon employers on average will spend less in 2022 on workers’ compensation, the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services said in a Wednesday news release.

“The agency projected that employers next year will pay 97 cents for every $100 of payroll for workers’ compensation costs on average. That’s down from the current figure of $1.02 per $100 in payroll costs.

“The trend follows a decline in frequency of lost-time claims, claim costs and medical costs.

“Oregon has been among the lowest-ranked states ‘for many years’ in workers’ compensation premium rates, the base rate by which insurers set medical costs and lost wages paid by employers, the agency said.  In 2020, the state recorded the seventh-least expansive rates in the country.”

The state agency news release didn’t report this – it probably couldn’t remember – but this good news about workers’ comp started during the Administration of former Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt.

Of course, he tarnished his own image by his conduct before serving as governor, but the leadership he took on workers’comp deserves to be remembered accurately.

He brought both sides – business and labor – together at the bargaining table until they agreed on a resolution.  It was one that, (a) cut business costs, which, of course, benefitted workers as well as managers, and (b) protected important medical services for workers.

It was a solid solution all around and has, for one thing, stood the test of time, illustrating that tough issues don’t have to be a win for one side and a loss for other.

I always thought the consensus represented one of the best examples in Oregon of finding what I like to call “the smart middle ground.”  I only wish there were more examples of this kind of good government today instead of what we have nationally and in Oregon, which is political antagonism and one-upsmanship.

As for the Department of Consumer and Business Services, which runs worker’ comp in Oregon, it also attributed “the continued decline in costs to state workplace safety agencies, including the Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, injured worker and small business advocacy services, and the Workers’ Compensation Board that settles disputes related to state laws for workers’ compensation and workplace safety.

Fine.  Give the state agencies credit.  Just know that, at one point in the pasts, a governor laid the groundwork for what today is a selling point for Oregon, not a debit for business, workers and the economy.

This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

That’s an age-old question that many of us ask in relation to major events.  We also tend to know the answer.

We know where we were when:

• The attack on Pearl Harbor occurred (though, for this, I relied on my parents because I was not born yet).

• The day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

• The day Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.

And, in the case that prompts this blog, the day the Twin Towers in New York came crashing down due to a terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland.

I remember what I was doing on that fateful day – September 11, 2001, now only a couple days away from the 20-year mark.

I was over in Central Oregon to play in a political fundraiser golf tournament at Eagle Crest.  At one point before playing, I walked into the pro shop and wondered why so many people were crowded around a TV.   Soon I knew.

With others, I saw the calamitous site of the Twin Towers on fire and coming down, even as some in the towers were jumping to their deaths.

I had no idea what was happening.  No one else did either.  No idea about the Twin Towers attack, the attack on the Pentagon, or the crash of Flight 93 in a remote piece of Pennsylvania land.

At one point, some of us thought an airplane might have crashed into the Towers in an accident.  But soon it became evident that something else far worse was under way – a direct attack on the U.S. by terrorists bent on exacting a huge price.

I was in Central Oregon with a lobbyist friend whose wife was home in Salem functioning as a principal in a grade school.  My friend called his wife and she asked him to come home immediately to help her deal with the tragedy.

So, immediately, we got in a car and headed back West for a two-hour drive where we talked about what we had seen but did not yet understand.

All of this, 20 years after it happened, comes roaring back in my mind.  And it leaves an indelible impression – we were not safe then and are not safe now from terrorists who hate the United States enough to give up their own lives just has happened again recently in Afghanistan.

What should these memories conjure up for us?  Who knows?  But just this – remember and value the lives lost in the tragedy and recognize that none of us is immune from this kind of tragedy, whatever the specific cause.

Finally, here is a quote I read on-line:  “Remembering is not merely a state of mind.  As those who beseech us to never forget the Holocaust have long insisted, it is an act. And when loss and trauma are visited upon human beings,” it is important to remember the reality and mourn those who were lost.

This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

This blog question arises in my mind because of the trials and tribulations America – and the world – are facing these days with the rise of the Covid 19 Delta Variant virus.

I am not a doctor, far from it.  But I remember the Hippocratic Oath as one many doctors not only took, but lived by.

I thought of this when I read a column by Ruth Marcus, deputy editorial page editor of the Washington Post. 

Her basic premise appeared under this headline:

Doctors should be allowed to give priority to vaccinated patients when resources are scarce

Further, she wrote:

“I’m going to come right out and say it:  In situations where hospitals are overwhelmed and resources such as intensive care beds or ventilators are scarce, vaccinated patients should be given priority over those who have refused vaccination without a legitimate medical or religious reason.

“This conflicts radically with accepted medical ethics, I recognize.  And under ordinary circumstances, I agree with those rules.  The lung cancer patient who’s been smoking two packs a day for decades is entitled to the same treatment as the one who never took a puff.  The drunk driver who kills a family gets a team doing its utmost to save him — although, not perhaps, a liver transplant if he needs one.  Doctors are healers, not judges.

“But the coronavirus pandemic, the development of a highly effective vaccine, and the emergence of a core of vaccine resisters along with an infectious new variant have combined to change the ethical calculus. Those who insist on refusing the vaccine for no reason are not in the same moral position of the smoker with lung cancer or the drunk driver.

“In situations where resources are scarce and hard choices must be made, they are not entitled to the same no-questions-asked, no-holds-barred medical care as others who behaved more responsibly.”

Marcus makes great points.  Plus, I agree with her.  Anti-vaxxers should pay a price for their abhorrent conduct and the rest of us should benefit with better access to health care.

I thought of this as Salem Health, the main hospital where I live, went on record saying that it is out of hospital beds for patients, including intensive care beds.  One reason?  The unvaccinated are taking a number of those beds.

Consider the Hippocratic Oath, the one most doctors take to verify their intent to provide quality care for patients.  What it says, in sum, in this:

“Treat the sick to the best of one’s ability, preserve patient privacy, teach the secrets of medicine to the next generation, and so on.”

Agreed.  But, today, anti-vaxxers, I submit, have given up their right to “in line” medical care because of their conduct…they deserve to suffer the fate their obstinance requires. 

I decided to ask one of my friends, a medical doctor, what she thought of this conundrum – an oath exists, likely has been taken, and governs care for decades, but then potentially is overcome by an unforeseen circumstance – Covid 19.

While I wait for her response, I post this blog.

This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

A couple examples of selfishness have come to mind in the last couple days.

First, there is this obvious one.  Persons who decline to get the Covid 19 virus not only hurt themselves, but they hurt everyone else.  Of course, it’s these same selfish persons who refuse to accommodate government advice to wear masks.

The problem is that we don’t know who has been vaccinated and who has not.  With masks – at least not wearing one – you know that someone is being selfish.

Look only so are as the extremity Salem Health faces these days as non-vaccinated persons take beds which should be available for others.

Second, there is this example of selfishness, which came to my mind as we spent a few days at Black Butte Ranch in Central Oregon, which meant we traveled East over the Santiam Pass devastated by last year’s fires and threatened by more fires this year.

My wife read this from a local newspaper where we were:

Persons who refuse orders from emergency personnel to evacuate as fires draw closer endanger not only themselves, but also the firefighters.

We all can be selfish from time to time, but, for me, there is no excuse for the two examples cited above.  The more I think about those who choose to be unvaccinated the more angry I get.  Fires?  Another story, but not as close to home, at least not yet this year as it was last year.

I suppose someone could say that “it’s my right to act and behave as I choose.”  Okay, act that way and behave that way as long as you don’t adversely affect others by your so-called independent action.

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And this postscript to the blog I wrote under the title, “You Can’t Fix Stupid:”  This comes from a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal.

“I would like to add one more element to Lance Morrow’s “Unified Field Theory of Stupidity”: the demise of debate.  I used to engage, via email, in polite yet spirited debates with my leftist friends.  Those debates no longer happen. Somehow name-calling replaced logical argument, and if you wanted your long-term friendships to survive, it was better to avoid politics altogether. You realized that because you lost a good friend during the George W. Bush years and another during the Obama administration and, God knows, a couple more with Donald Trump.

“If a nation cannot bear the conflict and recriminations generated by a spirited debate of the ideology and proposals of its opposing parties, then insular stupidity is inevitable.”

I agree with the letter writer.  Unfortunately, we have lost the ability to engage in vigorous, though friendly, debates about politics.

This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

First, a warning.  This blog will be longer than most I post.

Second, I have been struck latelyabout how impotent I feel to grasp and  understand, not to mention influence, current events.

Consider the issues.  The Afghanistan war and withdrawal.  The Covid 19 virus.  Hurricane Ida.  Climate change generally.  The increasing polarity of American politics.

You name it.  Beyond me.

So it was this morning that I read two columns on Afghanistan – one by Karl Rove that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, and one by E. J. Dionne that appeared in the Washington Post.

Rove and Dionne wouldn’t recognize each other.

Here are their divergent assessments of the country’s longest war and especially President Joe Biden’s role in it.

Opinion: It was time to end the long wars. Now, Biden must make a new era work.

Opinion by

E.J. Dionne Jr.

It will go down in history as one of the most unabashedly antiwar speeches ever given by an American president.

We are accustomed to martial rhetoric from commanders in chief, soaring words and calls for sacrifice on behalf of causes larger than any of us.

President Biden broke with all that on Tuesday in explaining and justifying his decision to pull U.S. troops from Afghanistan. One simple sentence summarized his gut instinct and his historical judgment: “We’ve been a nation too long at war.”

Biden did something else that was unusual in presidential speeches: He took on the arguments of his critics, one by one, and asked the country to see why he was right and they were wrong.

He was especially forceful in rejecting the most alluring claim of respected voices in the foreign policy and military establishments — architects, it should be said, of many of the policies that led us to this point. Maintaining a small American force, they insisted, could have held off a Taliban victory and prevented a rout of the United States’ Afghan allies.

Biden described this option several times as the “low grade,” “low risk” approach, and asserted that this halfway house of a policy misdescribed the alternatives he faced.

It was not withdraw or go small. It was withdraw or go big. “That was the choice — the real choice — between leaving or escalating,” he said. “I was not going to extend this forever war.”

The history of the war suggests that Biden is right, even if we will never know for certain. Once it reversed the withdrawal set in motion by former president Donald Trump, the United States would most likely at some point have faced another choice, between a surge of U.S. troops or an ignominious battlefield defeat.

But there was more to Biden’s decision, and here is where his revulsion over two decades of war — bolstered by his many conversations with military veterans, and his role as the father of a son who fought in Iraq — came into play.

“When I hear that we could’ve, should’ve continued the so-called low-grade effort in Afghanistan, at low risk to our service members, at low cost,” Biden said, “I don’t think enough people understand how much we have asked of the 1 percent of this country who put that uniform on, who are willing to put their lives on the line in defense of our nation.”

He spoke arrestingly of “18 veterans, on average, who die by suicide every single day in America,” and concluded: “There’s nothing low-grade or low-risk or low-cost about any war.” Rarely has a president described the burdens of warfare so starkly.

Washington being Washington, its talk has already moved to politics and the impact of the chaotic withdrawal on voters’ judgments about Biden.

There will be arguments over whether we should celebrate (as Biden devoutly hopes we do) the extraordinary heroism in the airlifting of more than 120,000 people, including almost all remaining Americans; or whether we should criticize Biden for leaving perhaps 200 Americans behind, along with the tens of thousands of our Afghan allies to whom we owe much.

Republicans — whether they supported or opposed Trump’s decisions that immensely strengthened the Taliban — suddenly spoke with one voice. They contended that whatever happened in the past, all the problems and failures now rested on Biden’s shoulders.

This claim overlooks the mistakes of two decades and is especially hypocritical coming from Trump’s die-hard defenders and those who were silent when Trump set this outcome in motion.

But the very pugnaciousness of Biden’s speech showed that he is ready to own the consequences of his choice. His bet — and every important choice by a president is a wager of one kind or another — is larger than Afghanistan.

At bottom, Biden is arguing that responding to the attacks of 9/11 with large military deployments, occupations and “nation building” was a mistake. Such wars, he said both directly and indirectly, sap the country’s energies and the attention of policymakers while placing intolerable burdens on our armed forces.

In the short term, Biden’s detractors will have plenty of fodder, given an endgame badly suited for the unexpectedly swift collapse of the Afghan government and its forces.

Over the longer run, however, Biden is right that policies driven by the passions, calculations — and, yes, misjudgments — of two decades ago could not be sustained. The nation needed to set a new course.

His task now is to minimize the human and strategic damage of a disorderly end to a long era of war — and to make good on his promise of a new era in which American power will be used more prudently, more effectively and with fewer illusions.

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Biden’s Ugly Defense of His Afghan Failure

His lie-loaded speech caps off a debacle that could sink his party in 2022 and 2024.

By Karl Rove

Joseph R. Biden Jr. ’s surrender in Afghanistan and the chaotic, inept and shameful way he effected the capitulation have left an indelible stain on his presidency. The distortions he used Tuesday to justify his actions compounded his historical blunder.

The president offered a false choice, saying he could either “follow the agreement of the previous administration . . . for people to get out or send in thousands of more troops and escalate the war.” Set aside the fact that Mr. Biden has reversed many of his predecessor’s policies. The president’s statement ignored the reality that American airpower and support assistance kept the Taliban in check in recent years with minimal risk to U.S. military personnel.

Mr. Biden bragged he had “ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan—the longest war in American history.” The war hasn’t ended, just the U.S. role, and even that probably only temporarily. Islamic jihadists are still waging the wider War on Terror. They’re celebrating our humiliation and making plans.

Mr. Biden also declared the only “vital national interest” the U.S. had was “to make sure Afghanistan can never be used again to launch an attack on our homeland.” That was, he claimed Tuesday, achieved when Osama bin Laden was killed in May 2011 leaving al Qaeda “decimated.”

Mr. Biden neglected to mention that he opposed the strike that killed bin Laden. He also left out the finding by the Defense Department that a reconstituted al Qaeda is working closely with the Taliban. With America’s exit, Afghanistan can once again become a sanctuary from which terrorists launch attacks against the West.

Mr. Biden also claimed Tuesday that “we were ready” when the “assumption that the Afghan government would be able to hold on beyond military drawdown turned out not to be accurate.” Pretending that what we’ve witnessed resulted from careful preparation may have been his most absurd statement. Plenty of reports have demonstrated how much the Biden administration was caught off guard, including believing it had the “luxury of time”—18 months or so—before the Afghan government might collapse.

Then there was Mr. Biden’s neat little rhetorical trick, identifying “ISIS-K terrorists” as “sworn enemies of the Taliban” while not identifying the Taliban as “sworn enemies of America,” which they are. Neither group may like each other but last week’s bombings should have reminded the president that doesn’t much matter when they have set their sights on us.

Mr. Biden also sketched “the threats of 2021 and tomorrow” that he worries about, namely Islamic terrorists in Syria, Iraq, the Arabian peninsula and “across Africa and Asia.” But there’s little sign he knows what to do or will commit the necessary resources. The president has explicitly said he’ll withdraw from Iraq this year. And, of course, a terrorist attack from al-Shabaab won’t make an assault from al Qaeda any more welcome.

Adding yet another classless touch, Mr. Biden blamed American citizens trapped in Afghanistan for ignoring “multiple warnings and offers to help them leave.” At least he’s rhetorically consistent, always claiming the buck stops with him as he blames everybody but himself for what’s gone wrong. This is petty and defensive.

The president finished his Tuesday address by promising a future that’s “safer” and “more secure.” We’ll see, but given his record over the past few weeks, Mr. Biden is probably among the least credible people on the planet to offer such assurances.

Even in our highly polarized atmosphere, where partisans stubbornly cling to their team colors, Mr. Biden’s approval ratings have plummeted. Since Aug. 1, his numbers in the RealClearPolitics average have dropped from 51.3% approve to 45.8% approve, and in the FiveThirtyEight.com average, from 51.5% approve to 46.7% approve.

These losses aren’t only because of Afghanistan. The president’s ratings are dropping on his handling of Covid, the economy, immigration and crime, too. I bet they get worse in the months ahead, despite attempted P.R. resets.

Mr. Biden’s shaky and listless performance has demolished the idea that he’ll be a credible contender in 2024. Also wrecked is any sense that Vice President Kamala Harris is an acceptable heir. The president’s failures and shortcomings are hers as well, while she’s failed to produce success in virtually every responsibility she has been given to handle.

But who could emerge to replace them? Both the White House and the aging apparatchiks of the Democratic Congressional leadership will discourage new faces from making their ambitions known. And Mr. Biden’s actions and Tuesday’s speech diminished what little good will he has among swing voters, which will also hurt Democrats if Republicans make 2022 about checks-and-balances. It ain’t a pretty picture.