By contrast, New York Times reporter Michael Shear performs as Biden’s Baghdad Bob. Shear gives us an unintentional parody of the “Republicans pounce” genre of prestige press journalism. …

By the same token, Shear takes as a given the reality of Biden’s alleged “accomplishments” on the trip. It is all pure Baghdad Bobbery.

For some reason or other, Shear omits to note that Biden’s “familiar story” to the contrary notwithstanding, there is no such John Wayne movie. It might account for the audience’s alleged “perplexity,” as Shear has it. Shear, by the way, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner.

[I don’t call it the Protection Racket Media for no reason. Shear’s writing heroic epics in which Biden “rallied world leaders” to fight poverty and support Ukraine, as well as getting Vietnam to enter a deal to “counter Chinese aggression.” How exactly was Biden the key to any of those? Vietnam has been trying to get the attention of the US on Chinese aggression for many years. Support for Ukraine had been initiated and is still largely led by other NATO members, although Biden has been clearly supportive of those policies. And usually it’s “world leaders” who harangue us into supporting poorer nations, and I would not be at all surprised if Biden didn’t commit us to more than our fair share on that point, too. — Ed]