The incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan has been a national embarrassment and a political disaster for President Biden. His approval ratings have tanked. One credible poll has his approval rating down to 41%. He obviously wants to move on and hopes that the American people will forget about this.

That doesn’t seem likely. A recent poll found that 20% of voters regret casting their ballots for Joe Biden. And Afghanistan is an ongoing disaster.

Our country overwhelmingly wanted all Americans evacuated. But Biden left hundreds behind and the Taliban appears to be using them as hostages.

So, who were the 120,000 people we did evacuate out of Afghanistan if they weren’t Americans? Half of them appear to be Afghans who worked with the United States. Fair enough. But the other half appear to be Afghans whose only attribute appears to be that they made it to the airport.

According to whistleblowers, these 60,000-plus people are not being properly vetted. (See next item.) And they are already being brought by the thousands into the United States. But let’s assume none of them mean us harm. Are their values American values? We have no reason to believe they are.

Afghanistan is a fundamentalist Muslim country. Most Afghans believe it is okay for a husband to beat his wife. Most Afghans believe that a Muslim who coverts to another faith should get the death penalty. Not surprisingly, many are anti-Christian and anti-Semitic. They believe every country should be ruled by Muslim Sharia law, which is incompatible with our Constitution.

So, President Biden has humiliated the United States. He’s undermined the confidence of our allies. And now there is growing evidence that he’s bringing tens of thousands of people into our country who reject American values. This disaster should mark the end of the Biden presidency.

*About Those Refugees… *

As we just noted, the process of thoroughly vetting and assimilating tens of thousands of Afghan refugees is not going well. But as the Biden Administration trumpets its success in evacuating so many refugees, keep these headlines in mind.

• Seven Afghans Who Arrived In Germany Forged Documents

• Washington Post: Afghans Flown to U.S. Later ‘Flagged for Security Concerns’

• U.S. Handed Out Blank Copies Of Visas In Afghanistan

• Arriving Afghans Without Paperwork Prompt Security Challenges

• Afghan Resettlement Raises The Question: Who Is Coming To The U.S.?

• Convicted Rapist Reached The U.S. On Afghan Evacuation Flight

• Deported Criminal Afghans Back in Sweden After Boarding Kabul Evacuation Flight

• Associated Press: Afghans Lying About Their Identities to Get Resettled in U.S.

• Two Attacked By Afghan National With ‘Possible Islamist Motivation’

Biden’s Hostage Crisis

The Taliban are now reportedly preventing planes from taking off. Leaks indicate that they are making demands of the Biden Administration. If we have learned anything in the past seven months, whether it’s Putin’s Russia, communist China or illegal immigrants, this administration aims to please.

Whatever the Taliban wants, the Biden White House is desperate to make this issue go away, so they are likely to give them whatever they demand.

Meanwhile, many Americans, including veterans, have gone to Afghanistan to rescue people. They are reporting that the State Department not only doesn’t help them, but has been actively resisting their efforts.

Adding insult to injury, Secretary of State Blinken and the State Department bureaucracy unbelievably tried to take credit for a private rescue involving an American mother and her three children. Cory Mills, who was involved with the rescue, blasted the State Department, saying:

“This is an attempt to save face by the administration for the Americans they left behind… They did nothing to try to expedite this… But at the very last minute you have these ‘senior officials’ at the State Department trying to claim credit for this like, ‘Oh yeah, look what we’ve done.’”

Biden’s Retreat

There was another Biden retreat on Friday that did not get the attention it deserved. The left is furious with the State of Texas for passing a pro-life bill that protects unborn babies from abortion after a heartbeat is detected. The left is even more furious with the Supreme Court for allowing the bill to take effect. (The new law is still facing legal challenges before the courts.)

Last week, Joe Biden ordered his Justice Department to do whatever it could to block the new law. But here’s what I believe was the most significant moment, and I believe it was a setup.

Biden tried to put a positive spin on Friday’s dismal jobs report, which fell short by 500,000 jobs. But he offered to take a question, which was highly unusual. The reporter he called on didn’t ask about the jobs report or the debacle in Afghanistan. No, the most pressing issue to this reporter was the Texas pro-life law.

For most of his political life, Biden has said that as a practicing Catholic, he doesn’t support abortion, but believes it should be legal because he doesn’t want to force his values on anyone else. For most of his political life, Biden opposed federal funding for abortion.

But during last year’s campaign, he abandoned his opposition to taxpayer funding of abortion and has aggressively attempted to fund it.

On Friday, he completed his surrender to the pro-abortion left. He said, “I respect those who believe life begins at the moment of conception… Don’t agree, but I respect that.”

So, he’s not only rejected the core of Catholic theology on the question of when life begins, he’s rejected the core of basic biology and science.

It was a very revealing moment that should make it difficult for any faithful Catholic to vote for Joe Biden.

An Important Marker

Sometimes the most important markers of where a country is headed aren’t found in election returns or candidate debates, but what’s happening in the popular culture. And this weekend, I think something very significant happened — the return of college football.

It’s not just that college football came back. It’s how it came back.

From Virginia Tech to the Aggies of Texas A&M, from Auburn University to the University of Wisconsin, football stadiums were filled with hundreds of thousands of young Americans who were clearly staging “a jailbreak” from the smothering atmosphere the left has imposed on America during the pandemic.

You can watch the opening minutes of these games online. The celebrations were exuberant and raucous. Fans seemed to be saying, “ENOUGH!”

The “Mask-up and don’t leave your house” crowd was apoplectic. But the more they complained, the more these football fans seemed to shout their defiance.

Many colleges had some display or tribute to our country and the 13 Americans who died at the Kabul airport. One of the most notable occurred at Auburn University, which set aside 13 seats at Jordan-Hare Stadium in honor of the fallen.

But there was something else that happened. I don’t want to leave the impression that it was overwhelming or widespread, but it was picked up by fans who posted it on Twitter. At several games around the country, fans erupted in spontaneous chants of “F— Joe Biden!”

That language is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea. Yes, it might seem disrespectful to the office of the presidency. Nonetheless, it is likely a marker of some shift that is taking place in the country.