“I just had the feeling that he was so wrapped up in the decision itself that he forgot the basics of implementation,” said Leon E. Panetta, the former defense secretary who served alongside Mr. Biden in President Barack Obama’s administration. “The American people may be with you on the decision, but if they see chaos, they’re going to be very concerned that the president doesn’t have his act together.”

David Axelrod, a former strategist for Mr. Obama, said he had no doubt that most Americans agreed with Mr. Biden that it was time to wrap up the Afghanistan operation. “The way it’s ending, at least thus far, is more problematical,” he said, “and cuts against some of his core perceived strengths: competence, mastery of foreign policy, supreme empathy. It’s as if his eagerness to end the war overran the planning and execution.”…

At points, the president has evinced little sense of the human toll as the Taliban swept back to power. Asked about pictures of fleeing Afghans packed into planes and some even falling to their death after trying to sneak aboard, Mr. Biden interrupted. “That was four days ago, five days ago,” he said, when in fact it was two days earlier and hardly made less horrific by the passage of a couple of sunsets.