Matthew Dowd was the chief political strategist for the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, and he's certainly come a long way. He was on CNN last night praising Joe Biden's handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Kate Bolduan asked Dowd if Biden is simply counting on the American people to stand by him for the way he's handled the withdrawal, "and if he's making the right bet." (Because it's unthinkable to the press corps that they're so out of touch that the public disagrees with their eager attacks on the Biden withdrawal.)
"Well, as you probably are aware, I actually have lauded the president from the very beginning about Afghanistan. He was dealt a horrible situation and as of today, he's done an extremely good job in the situation," Dowd said.
"There were many people over the last seven days that said there is no possible way he could get 50,000 people out. no possible way, and that was the number of people we thought had to get out. He's got 70,000 people out in the last eight days, 70,000 people out of Afghanistan in the last days, and I actually think the president, from what he was dealt and done over the course of the last week, should be congratulated on the way this was done.
"There are many things left to handle over the course of this situation. I think the president has done unbelievable yeoman's work, and he's the first president in four presidents to actually get done what the American people wanted done in Afghanistan, which was 'get out.'"
