His Handlers Have Lost Confidence In Him

There's been very little this morning about Joe's presser aboard Air Force One following his departure from Israel. The most pointed was at Gateway Pundit, which posted stills of John Kirby's expressions as Joe spoke. A full video -- about 13 minutes -- of the presentation is available on C-Span. As in the stills, the most important feature is the body language and expressions of the handlers.

From the start to about 2:30, Karine Jean-Pierre is visible in the lower right quadrant looking glum. Beginning about 1:45, John Kirby appears between Joe and Ms Jean-Pierre looking volcanic. At 2:27, Joe says to the press, "You guys are such a pain in the neck," and Kirby and Jean-Pierre adopt the expressions of middle school administrators contemplating a riot in the stairwells. At 2:35, Kirby and Jean-Pierre withdraw beyond camera view to consult. This seems to have been a message to Joe to go to questions from the press.

When these begin, Kirby adopts a painful expression a little like someone watching a tightrope walker whom they're confindent won't make it across the rope. By 5:29, he struggles to put on a game face. At 6:54, he disappears behind Jean-Pierre, who is shaking her head. At 7:34, she begins to say, "We gotta wrap up, guys. . ." but Joe persists, while Kirby becomes more visible and more unhappy. The two-shots with Kirby, one of them showing Kirby rolling his eyes, take place just before the end. As Joe exits, there's a brief shot of Kirby with a look of utter disgust on his face.

What are they disappointed about? There seems to be a general consensus that Biden executed predetermined US policy. For instance, per CNN:

The White House had attempted to balance the public and military support for Israel with the reality that Arab partners are critical to Biden’s approach by going to Jordan for a summit with the key Arab leaders. But the last-minute scrapping of that meeting meant Biden would no longer go to Amman and instead faces a new diplomatic headache.

. . . While there was no explicit stipulation from the US that Israel not launch its invasion until Biden leaves the region, that’s the understanding among American officials who have spent the past several days debating and planning the president’s visit, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

American officials want humanitarian plans for Gaza fully signed off on and implemented before start of the invasion, the people said, describing that task as among Biden’s main objectives during his visit to Tel Aviv on Wednesday.

In other words, in the specific context of the Hamas invasion, Biden had little wiggle room, especially after Jordan canceled the summit with Arab leaders. At that point, all he could do was claim limited success in a limited field of action, viz, getting Israel to provide humanitarian aid in Gaza, and maybe sorta-kinda limiting or delaying Israeli reprisal. But this makes any president forced to attain such limited objectives look less than decisive -- even a Reagan would have to spin this somehow. Why are Jean-Pierre and Kirby so unhappy?

The root of the current crisis has been the tacit encouragement both the Obama and Biden administrations have given Iran, that they will give the mullahs a free hand in the region. That Iran should encourage Hamas to invade Israel is just a logical outcome of this indulgence. A secondary factor is Joe's perceived weakness. The problem for the rest of the Middle East is that, as even Joe recognizes, the Hamas invasion puts the moderate states in an impossible position of seeming to support Israel if they don't enthusiastically support Hamas -- and they blame Biden for letting it happen.

Given the overall constraints of policies Joe didn't create -- Blinken, as far as anyone can see, inherited them from Obama and has been implementing them independent of Joe, and he's been in the Middle East all week trying unsuccessfully to fix things in detail -- there's little Joe can do independently.

Maybe Kirby and Jean-Pierre are upset that Joe is trying to take too much credit for what's happening, when he's had so little control over it start to finish. But this is a problem Joe's handlers and puppetmasters have brought on themselves, although Joe is in no position to rescue them or himself. The basic issue is that the current Iran policy has failed. I'll be surprised if Kirby, Jean-Pierre, or Blinken ever acknowledge this. On the other hand, Republicans are failing to grasp the opportunity.