That ceremony was to receive the 13 bodies of service members killed at the Kabul airport by a homicide bomber during the unnecessarily chaotic end of U.S. involvement in the Afghanistan war. Cameras caught Biden during the ceremony frequently checking his watch, as if he had somewhere important to be.

In 2021, Biden dangerously and inexplicably delayed the troop withdrawal from the spring exit his predecessor had negotiated to the heavy combat season of late summer. Biden assured everyone that it would not resemble the chaotic 1975 end of U.S. involvement in South Vietnam.

The Afghan exit was worse. And a 2,000-page after-action Army report confirmed that.

You might think the U.S. would have learned by now how to extricate itself from such military defeats without igniting colossal panic among civilians attempting to flee the victorious new regime’s revenge.

You may remember horrifying images of U.S. military planes taking off from Kabul with desperate Afghans clinging to the wheels and fuselage, then falling to their deaths.

When ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked about that, the empathetic Biden’s reply was: “That was four days ago.”

Our nation’s capital city is a beautiful place. But it is a disgusting moral swamp when it comes to addressing fatal mistakes. 

And that’s a bipartisan fault. When in trouble, DC denizens take care of each other — unless they're after Donald Trump, who's an outsider.

After four loyal Americans died in 2011, when they were abandoned to a Benghazi mob by the unprepared Obama administration, a so-called Accountability Review Board was appointed to investigate the disaster. Retired Admiral Mike Mullen was in charge.

He examined papers selected for him to examine. He did not interview Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was in charge that night because Barack Obama was absent.

And as expected by official D.C., the trusty ex-admiral found no one at fault — not the people who had withdrawn consulate security despite threats and roaming bands of terrorists, not the people who outrageously blamed an obscure video for the mob’s fury, and not the people who were unprepared to reinforce or rescue Americans in a land turned lawless by a Nobel Peace Prize-winning president who ignited the lawlessness by helping to oust Libya's ruler. The deceits are mind-numbing.

And certainly not President Obama, who had totally disappeared for 16 hours.

The ensuing Republican House committee probes of Benghazi were performative hearings producing angry photo-op moments, including Clinton yelling. But zero accountability there, too. 

Move along, people. This matter is closed.

Despite Joe Biden's self-serving claims, the Afghan exit and aborted evacuation were dramatic signs of presidential weakness that have since emboldened U.S. opponents abroad and launched Biden's long slide to an historically low job approval.

As in Saigon in 1975, Biden pulled the plug on the U.S. Afghan presence suddenly one midnight. What had begun in 2001 as a worthy revenge operation for 9/11 turned into a hopeless nation-building exercise. Biden didn’t even alert the host government or NATO allies who stood with us despite their own 1,000-plus casualties in that military morass over 20 years.

Biden ignored the Pentagon warning that several thousand troops would be needed for an orderly evacuation. As one result, Biden left some 12,000 Americans and green card holders behind to the not-so-tender mercies of the returning Taliban.

Worse, in my opinion, much worse, is that Biden’s abrupt total troop withdrawal abandoned, without recourse, about 150,000 Afghan allies who had loyally worked for American forces as interpreters, guides, and all-round spotters of trouble, including IED scouts. 

For their dedication and dangerous service, these locals and their families had been promised speedy visas out of the country when the U.S. left. That’s betrayal, plain and simple. Who would ever help in-country Americans anywhere in the future?

I saw the same thing occur in Vietnam, where the ambassador forbade evacuation preparations because that would cause panic. Which the lack of preparation did anyway. 

The CIA gave some of us a back-channel warning the end was near, which allowed evacuation of our local employees. Thousands fled by boat. Thousands were left behind and sentenced to communist reeducation camps.

Over the years, some 835,000 Americans served in Afghanistan. Exactly 2,465 of them did not come home alive, including several who perished seeking to "rescue" Bowe Bergdahl, who had actually deserted.

That body count would have been much higher without local allies. 

They were left behind. The Taliban has been hunting them down ever since. That methodical manhunt was facilitated because, in the haste to depart, U.S. officials left behind unshredded personnel files on all of them: fingerprints, eye color, addresses. 

One of this country’s most respected reporters, Eli Lake, has just published a detailed and disturbing account at The Free Press of the murder of one such man and the shameful exit process underway.

Other Afghan allies have been snatched in their homes or hiding. Then, they simply disappear.

Before the botched exit and aborted evacuations, Biden had said:

I have placed Ambassador Tracey Jacobson in charge of a whole-of-government effort to process, transport, and relocate Afghan Special Immigrant Visa applicants and other Afghan allies. 

Our hearts go out to the brave Afghan men and women who are now at risk. We are working to evacuate thousands of those who helped our cause and their families.

They were not evacuated during the withdrawal. And the State Department tells Lake it has processed only some 38,000 such special visas in these ensuing months.

The surprisingly small number in all this time can be explained 1) by the lengthy application process, requiring documents and statements. 

And 2) by the obvious fact that obtaining such documents in Afghanistan today requires outing yourself as an American ally to people who are hunting you.

This vetting process could have been completed during Biden’s unexplained four-month withdrawal delay into the peak fighting season. But no one in the administration, safely living in Washington, thought of it.

Biden handed off the exit visa mess from his evacuation mess to Jacobson to fix, much like he handed off the southern border mess to Kamala Harris to fix. Results have been the same.

Rich Goldberg, an Afghan war vet and adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Lake that “Jacobson’s appointment is emblematic of a White House that has internalized disaster as success.”

Now, with more than 100,000 betrayed Afghan allies left waiting in peril for Jacobson’s help, she’s actually getting a promotion.

In true Washington style, after an unfinished assignment with dubious success, Biden has nominated her to become the next ambassador to Iraq. Those could be interesting Senate nomination hearings next month.

Joe Biden's physical and mental conditions continue to deteriorate in full public view, producing some truly cringe-worthy moments and fictitious tales such as his pioneering civil rights work and successful career as a long-haul truck driver. 

Once again, this year, the man who says he could have been an All-American football player is dodging the traditional kid-glove Super Bowl interview. 

Many now wonder who really is in charge at the White House, since it's clearly not the 81-year-old. The president has also pronounced his Afghanistan exit work “an extraordinary success.”

Biden wants to continue his "success" until 2029.