One of the lamest excuses ever given by a U.S. president for dodging a question.

It would have been lame even if the topic were some pedestrian domestic dispute, like tax rates. But to deflect a question about war on grounds that it’s a downer, well.

Not something a Republican president would get away with, needless to say. Watch, then read on.

Biden: “I’m not gonna answer any more questions about Afghanistan. Look. It’s 4th of July. I’m concerned that you guys are asking me questions that I’m gonna answer next week…I’ll answer all your negative questions, not negative, legitimate questions…”
pic.twitter.com/1VTFq0O0Zz

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) July 2, 2021

Jazz wrote earlier about the Pentagon’s decision to execute a surprise evacuation of Bagram Air Base this morning. What was left at the base was looted by locals after the Americans departed and before the Afghan military arrived to take over. When and whether the Taliban will show up is anyone’s guess but they’re naturally excited about the symbolism:

Taliban claiming victory for US leaving Bagram after 2 decades. A Taliban commander telling @NBCNews “This is as a result of our sacrifices that US finally agreed to vacate Bagram airbase. We heard they had destroyed each and everything which they couldn’t take back to America”

— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) July 2, 2021

Any air missions targeting enemies in Afghanistan will operate out of Qatar, the UAE, or an aircraft carrier going forward. Is that the right move? Not everyone thinks so:

Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution policy group, who visited Bagram about a dozen times, said a more prudent approach would have been to hold on to the base and keep a few thousand troops in the country long enough to give an Afghan-led peace process a chance.

“It’s a shame to lose it,” he said. “It was an impressive, largely defensible and important staging base for so many things, including intelligence operations as well as other tools of counterterrorism.

“Without it, we will have a very hard time helping the Afghan government stay in power,” he said.

I don’t think helping the Afghan government stay in power is part of the plan, realistically speaking. A few days ago America’s top general in the country admitted that “civil war is certainly a path that can be visualized.” As far as I’m aware, the only plans for a continuing U.S. troop presence at the moment are the 650 soldiers stationed at the embassy in Kabul to defend the complex. A rapid-reaction force of counterterror troops will be organized and based in some neighboring country to be named later.

Full withdrawal was supposed to be completed by September 11 but the White House is rushing to get it done in the next few weeks, not wanting to risk any casualties after Biden announced that we’re withdrawing. If we can get everyone to safety by mid-July, the thinking goes, it’d be reckless to keep them in place unnecessarily for several more months without any reason to do so. Whether we’re gone by summer or by fall, though, the Taliban’s reconquest of the country looks inevitable.

In fact, the early withdrawal raises the ugly possibility that the 20th anniversary of 9/11 will be marked by the Taliban back in power in Kabul. There’s still a nonzero chance that the embassy will need to be evacuated in a manner not unlike the scene in Saigon in 1975.

A Twitter pal notes that it’s revealing how Biden refers to questions about the Bagram evacuation in the clip as “negative” when withdrawal and a handover to the Afghans is supposed to be good news. I guess even he can’t pretend that the outcome to all this might be encouraging. Exit question: If the Taliban overruns Bagram this weekend, is it okay for reporters to interrupt his big July 4 bash to ask about it or nah?