Four takeaways from Biden's address to the nation today.

The President actually referred to airlifting masses of Afghans out of their own country as “The extraordinary success of this mission.” Churchill might have said the same about the withdrawal from Dunkirk, but he had the good sense not to. Instead, he told the House of Commons that “our thankfulness at the escape of our Army and so many men, whose loved ones have passed through an agonizing week, must not blind us to the fact that what has happened in France and Belgium is a colossal military disaster.” That’s called 'telling it like it is.' Biden has never been brave enough to do that.

As he has in the past, Biden blamed the Afghans – both military and civilian – for the collapse of Ashraf Ghani’s Kabul-based regime. That's unkind, ungenerous, unfair, and to the extent that Biden skips over America's shortcomings, mistakes, and failures in Afghanistan, it's also untrue.

Biden was incredibly defensive. I think he thinks he is projecting strength when he loudly attacks his critics. No, that’s not strength. It’s closer to petulance.

He told us, as so many politicians tell us when their record is called into question: “It’s time to look to the future, not the past.” On the one hand, looking to the future is always a good idea when a person or a nation has a future, and the United States of America certainly has a future, whether Joe Biden has one or not. On the other hand, the admonition not to look to the past can be, and in this case I believe it is, an ass-covering manoeuvre, because the recent past – since Biden's inauguration – does not reveal a record of conspicuous success. This administration has not exactly covered itself in glory since taking office. It still might, but it hasn’t yet.