Upset at Biden for Sticking It Out? Blame the Voters.
Plus: Going to War for Respect
Recently in The Bulwark:
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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 presidencyās nadir, has managed to freeze Democrats in place, stop a mass abandonment of his campaign, and defiantly keep his White House bid afloat.
Itās nonsense.
Not just because Bidenās 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 Bidenās campaign has had relatively little to do with the president and his team.
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The Next Level: Blue MAGA š
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BILL ROGGIO AND WILL SELBER: David Petraeus Is Wrong: Counterinsurgency Wonāt 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 āclear, hold, and buildā echoed through the halls of the Pentagon and dominated the debate among the civilian leadershipāand 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 Germanyās navy sparked controversy by casting doubt on the well-established intelligence about the Kremlinās 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 Schƶnbach opined that Vladimir Putin ādeserved respect.ā
šØOVERTIMEšØ
Happy Wednesday! Another big Biden interview is on the horizon with Lester Holt on Monday. The roller coaster continues.
Loud flyover comingā¦ To the mall, tonight. 7:45 for NATOās 75th.
šµOn the Jukeboxā¦šµ POLARIS - Summerbaby
George Clooney: I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee. (NYT š)
The Cool Kidsā Conservativeā¦ 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 Deepā¦ in Our Political Posterior. Andrew Donaldson at Ordinary Times.
Trump is Planning for a Landslide Winā¦ And his campaign is all but praying Joe Biden doesnāt drop out. Tim Alberta in The Atlantic
Arkansas Secretary of State rejectsā¦ abortion amendment ballot petitions (KARK)
CNN guts its opinion sectionā¦ the cable giant axed the entire section, which ends August 9.
Trump 2024 vs. Project 2025ā¦ His campaign denies anything to do with the blueprint for a second term, but Trumpās alumni are all over it. Read Alec Dent in Intelligencer.
āWeāre Living in a Nightmare:ā Inside the Health Crisis of a Texas Bitcoin Town (TIME).
Answers to questions nobody is askingā¦ 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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