The false choice was one of Barack Obama’s most annoying rhetorical devices as well one of his favorites. It is a device he used frequently in “explaining” the rationale for funding Iran and entering into the JCPOA. It was either that or war. I heard an unsubtle echo of Barack Obama’s favorite rhetorical device in Slow Joe Biden’s comments on the ongoing disgrace in Afghanistan:
There was only the cold reality of either following through on the agreement to withdraw our forces or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more American troops back into combat in Afghanistan, lurching into the third decade of conflict.
This one line combines the false choice and the passing of the buck. It is almost laughable.
There is barely a line of the speech that could pass the laugh test. This one too reminded me of Obama:
And our true strategic competitors — China and Russia — would love nothing more than the United States to continue to funnel billions of dollars in resources and attention into stabilizing Afghanistan indefinitely.
Deep thoughts from a lifetime of stupidity and error.
We can hear another echo of the Obama era in Paul Sperry’s enraging New York Post column “Taliban leader was freed from Guantanamo Bay in 2014 swap by Obama.” I can’t think of a true word Obama uttered about the Bowe Bergdahl deal. Sperry’s story puts an exclamation mark on the mendacity of that sorry chapter of Obama’s presidency and this sorry chapter of Biden’s.
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