New Zealand Listener

REALITY DAWNS

As President Joe Biden scans the headlines and surveys the latest polls, he must wistfully recall the Franklin Roosevelt comparisons that came thick and fast during his early, heady days in office.

According to media monitor Andrew Tyndall, the big three US TV networks devoted a grand total of five minutes airtime to Afghanistan in 2020. But once the media rediscovered that wretched nation, a new, invidious historical analogy quickly gained ground: the undignified exit from Afghanistan was a replay of the fall of Saigon in 1975. Thus, Biden had presided over another American humiliation, giving rise to another

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