Guest host Nicole Sandler with journalist/author Spencer Ackerman...
By Nicole Sandler on 8/20/2021, 5:54pm PT  

Back in the 1960's there was a hit novelty song called "The Name Game." Well these days, I feel like we're living in the middle of The Blame Game! But the mainstream, corporate media is pointing at JOE! If you got all your news from the major networks or cable channels, you'd be convinced that Afghanistan was Joe Biden's fault and that the people responsible for sending our kids to fight in Afghanistan were the heroes of the story. I'm NICOLE SANDLER, guest hosting for Brad and Desi today on the BradCast. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

The thing helping me keep my sanity is realizing that I'm not the only one seeing this. Judd Legum wrote about the problem in his Popular.Info newsletter about how "media is largely overlooking voices that supported Biden's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. Instead, media reports are almost exclusively highlighting criticism of the withdrawal --- often from people complicit in two decades of failed policy in Afghanistan." In fact, Legum cites a conversation with a PR pro who was unable to get any of his clients, who are supporters of the withdrawal, booked anywhere...

I’ve been in political media for over two decades, and I have never experienced something like this before. Not only can I not get people booked on shows, but I can’t even get TV bookers who frequently book my guests to give me a call back…

I’ve fed sources to reporters, who end up not quoting the sources, but do quote multiple voices who are critical of the president and/or put the withdrawal in a negative light.

I turn on TV and watch CNN and, frankly, a lot of MSNBC shows, and they’re presenting it as if there’s not a voice out there willing to defend the president and his decision to withdraw. But I offered those very shows those voices, and the shows purposely decided to shut them out.

In so many ways this feels like Iraq and 2003 all over again. The media has coalesced around a narrative, and any threat to that narrative needs to be shut out.

So let me just say that ending our occupation of Afghanistan is a good thing. And I don't need to hear from the architects of this invasion and occupation, though it seems that those are the only people they're booking on these shows.

Aaron Rupar wrote at Vox:

Four presidential administrations share, in varying degrees, the blame for the Taliban’s sudden takeover of Afghanistan --- a development that brought the United States' 20-year war in the country to an ignominious conclusion.

But watch cable news and you'd think some of the retired officials who helped orchestrate and continue the war had learned nothing.

Fox News watchers particularly have been inundated with the message this week that it's all President Joe Biden's fault --- a message coming from veterans of the George W. Bush administration. Take Fox News contributor and former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen, who told host Dana Perino during a segment on Monday that the idea of pulling US troops out was "shameful."

You get the idea. For the record, it was Donald Trump who negotiated a "peace agreement" with the Taliban last year, with a withdraw date for U.S. forces of May 1 this year.

Today, I'm joined by a journalist who's covered national security for as long as we've occupied Afghanistan. SPENCER ACKERMAN has written for The New Republic, The Guardian, The Daily Beast and others. He recently launched his own Substack newsletter at ForeverWars.Substack.com. And his book about the so-called War on Terror just hit stores last week. Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized American and Produced Trump tells the brutal truth about the last 20 years and more, and shows the failure extends to many who came before Joe Biden.

Also today: the latest news. Although I left out the part about the new Jeopardy host being forced to step down before he began, or that Joe Biden is appointing Rahm Emanuel ambassador to Japan, or that OnlyFans is banning sex from their platform. But Hurricane Henri is headed for the Northeast... New York City is in the cone. And there's that big NYC Central Park celebratory concert happening tomorrow. Good luck everyone!...

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Article Categories: War On Terror, Afghanistan, Mainstream Media Failure, Joe Biden, BradCast