Upset at Biden for Sticking It Out? Blame the Voters.
Plus: Going to War for Respect
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SAM STEIN: Upset at Biden for Sticking It Out? Blame the Voters.
A NARRATIVE HAS TAKEN HOLD THAT JOE BIDEN, at his presidency’s nadir, has managed to freeze Democrats in place, stop a mass abandonment of his campaign, and defiantly keep his White House bid afloat.
It’s nonsense.
Not just because Biden’s political position remains incredibly tenuous (Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday offered some widely spaced lines between which she invited everyone to read). But the post-debate survival of Biden’s campaign has had relatively little to do with the president and his team.
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BILL ROGGIO AND WILL SELBER: David Petraeus Is Wrong: Counterinsurgency Won’t Work in Gaza
GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS WAS ALL THE RAGE in the mid-2000s. No American general captured the public imagination in the way that he did, in part because he was one of the most prominent advocates of the strategy adopted to turn around the war in Iraq: population-centric counterinsurgency (COIN). For the better part of a decade, the COIN mantra “clear, hold, and build” echoed through the halls of the Pentagon and dominated the debate among the civilian leadership—and of Petraeus it could be said literally that he wrote the book on the subject.
BRIAN STEWART: Going to War for Respect
AS RUSSIA WAS MAKING FINAL PREPARATIONS to expand its war of conquest in Ukraine in January 2022, the chief of Germany’s navy sparked controversy by casting doubt on the well-established intelligence about the Kremlin’s hostile intent. In addition to claiming that Kyiv could do nothing to reclaim the territory it had already lost since 2014 to its predatory neighbor, Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach opined that Vladimir Putin “deserved respect.”
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Happy Wednesday! Another big Biden interview is on the horizon with Lester Holt on Monday. The roller coaster continues.
Loud flyover coming… To the mall, tonight. 7:45 for NATO’s 75th.
🎵On the Jukebox…🎵 POLARIS - Summerbaby
George Clooney: I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee. (NYT 🎁)
The Cool Kids’ Conservative… Comes to the hill to testify, for some reason. I guess it was so Jim Jordan could talk about advertisers and his feelings?
'It's already disastrous': Biden campaign fundraising takes a major hit (NBC)
The Arrow of Time, Lodged Deep… in Our Political Posterior. Andrew Donaldson at Ordinary Times.
Trump is Planning for a Landslide Win… And his campaign is all but praying Joe Biden doesn’t drop out. Tim Alberta in The Atlantic
Arkansas Secretary of State rejects… abortion amendment ballot petitions (KARK)
CNN guts its opinion section… the cable giant axed the entire section, which ends August 9.
Trump 2024 vs. Project 2025… His campaign denies anything to do with the blueprint for a second term, but Trump’s alumni are all over it. Read Alec Dent in Intelligencer.
‘We’re Living in a Nightmare:’ Inside the Health Crisis of a Texas Bitcoin Town (TIME).
Answers to questions nobody is asking… Jason Palmer, who surprised in American Samoa, is going to Wilmington to ask the Biden team how he can help. (Semafor)
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Editorial photos provided by Getty Images. For full credits, please consult the article.