James Carville says “mealy-mouthed” Democrats are doing President Biden a disservice by refusing to defend his handling of the fall of Afghanistan.
The long-time Democratic strategist took to MSNBC on Wednesday to slam media coverage of the chaos in Kabul and other parts of the region now in control of the Taliban.
In his comments, which came before Thursday morning’s news that Americans are likely among the casualties of a suicide bombing outside the Kabul airport gates, Mr. Carville defended the president’s handling of the crisis.
“There’s no elegant way to lose a war,” Mr. Carville insisted. “We lost this war 15 years ago. All Joe Biden is telling us is what time it is, and the hysterical and stupid coverage of the mainstream press, it’s just been awful.”
The man who ran former President Bill Clinton’s famous “War Room” added that Mr. Biden has “nothing” to do with the carnage, which includes stranded Americans desperately trying to escape the country and the surge of Islamic State’s Afghan affiliate, ISIS-K.
“Does Biden need more friends and more vocal friends in Washington to point all this out?” Mr. Williams asked.
“Well, first of all, he would be greatly benefited if the press would cover this accurately,” Mr. Carville responded. “And, yes, you always have mealy-mouthed Democrats. And I can’t tell you the number of phone conversations I’ve had. They say, ’Well, James, damn, man. He did the right thing by getting out, but he’s going about it the wrong way.’”
Regardless, the Democrat did concede that the coverage of an imploding Afghanistan “looks bad.”
“The country looks bad,” he said. “When you lose a war, you don’t look good. This war was lost a long time ago. Joe Biden had nothing to do with it. He wanted us out before that.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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