Afghanistan refugee.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock)

President Biden is taking flak for his timid position on admitting refugees to the United States from Afghanistan amid a messy withdrawal. The Atlantic's George Packer quotes Biden as telling a fellow Obama administration official back in 2010 that these refugees shouldn't be a priority as U.S. troops departed: "Fuck that, we don't have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger got away with it."

That's a dumb and ugly sentiment reminiscent of some quotes attributed to Biden's predecessor. It also appears to be consistent with what he said publicly as a senator about refugees from the Vietnam war: "The United States has no obligation to evacuate one, or 100,001, South Vietnamese."

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W. James Antle III

W. James Antle III is the politics editor of the Washington Examiner, the former editor of The American Conservative, and author of Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?.