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Cooke: Biden Looks Like a Flake

President Joe Biden delivers virtual remarks during the National Action Network Convention from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building’s South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington, D.C., April 12, 2024. (Bonnie Cash/Reuters)

National Review senior editor Charles C. W. Cooke, on today’s edition of The Editors, said that “from the beginning” on Israel, Biden has done nothing but “vacillate,” and he’s done so again in pausing munitions shipments to the nation.

“His position,” Cooke said, “is neither fish nor fowl. He reminds me of that great quote from Churchill about the government. ‘So they go on in a strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be a resolute adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful for impotency.’

“If a country wishes to stay out of another country’s fight,” he said, “it can do so.” He then reminded listeners of how the British, without undercutting the U.S., stayed out of Vietnam. “And if a country wishes to be involved, then they can do so. They get involved, and they use back channels to register any dissent, and they understand that there is a ‘for better, for worse’ element to being an ally.”

Cooke said “Biden has done neither of these things. There is some give in foreign policy. . . . But the way in which Biden has flitted back and forth makes him look not just weak, but odd.

“If you abandon someone on their wedding day,” Cooke said, “having told the world that they’re the only thing in your life, then you begin to look like a flake.

“That’s the problem. He looks like a flake.”

The Editors podcast is recorded on Tuesdays and Fridays every week and is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Sarah Schutte is the podcast manager for National Review and an associate editor for National Review magazine. Originally from Dayton, Ohio, she is a children's literature aficionado and Mendelssohn 4 enthusiast.
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