Dead Drop: April 14

THE KIRBY DERBY:  There are a lot of folks who consider themselves fans of retired Navy Rear Admiral John Kirby’s communications skills. Whether during a couple stints as chief Pentagon spokesman, a similar gig at the State Department, or more recently at the White House as National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communication – he has always been a beacon of clear, responsible and believable facts. Well, almost always.  On a recent Thursday afternoon, he was asked to go into the White House press briefing room and explain a report that was going to the Hill about the messy evacuation from Afghanistan in 2021. The briefing already had the aura of a preventative strike – which, in communications parlance means getting the administration’s spin out before Congressional opponents can get their hands on the report and make political hay out of it. To many observers, it appeared that the normally sure-footed Kirby was trying a bit too hard to make chicken salad out of what he had to work with. The handling (and mishandling) of the Afghanistan withdrawal is certain to be political fodder in the 2024 election.  Kirby’s statement regarding the evacuation that “For all this talk of chaos, I just didn’t see it, not from my perch” struck a lot of ears as tone deaf.  If images of frightened Afghans falling out of the wheel wells of departing aircraft is not chaos – we guess it will do until something more dramatic comes along. Some (normally supportive) observers described his comments as “Baghdad Bob level stuff.” Our own spin, or version of the story that we ‘choose’ to believe is that Kirby’s political masters may have been demanding that kind of spin – but they would have been better served by an acknowledgement that there was plenty of blame to go around – shared among the last administration, the current one, the then-Afghan government and the Taliban. Former CIA officer (and Cipher Brief expert) Marc Polymeropoulos wrote thoughtfully in The Washington Examiner that the Biden administration would be smart to walk back their stance of this matter – quickly. We agree – but would not bet on Kirby being permitted to do so.

YOU DON’T SAY: By now, you have almost certainly heard of the leak of a large batch of top-secret U.S. documents.  Well, the White House has a plan for that. The aforementioned NSC spokesman, John Kirby, said on Monday that the details have “no business…on the pages of – front pages of newspapers or on television.” Uhhh… But since every foreign intelligence service in the world (friend and foe) undoubtedly have obtained the documents, and they have been featured in other nation’s media – (and on Twitter, Telegram and gaming chat rooms) we suspect the damage has already been done. Seems to us, telling U.S. media not to report on it seems only likely to make foreign disinformation about the contents of the documents – more effective.  Oh, and then there’s that whole first amendment thing that (again, we believe) allows for a more informed society.