The politics of bad faith, Afghanistan edition

I am beginning to think that the Republican procedural criticisms of Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, which the political press routinely printed as fact, may not be entirely credible:

The evenly divided Senate narrowly turned back a Republican amendment Thursday that sought to curtail assistance to Afghan refugees who were rapidly evacuated to the United States and that would have made it more difficult for them to obtain Real IDs.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) sought to attach the amendment to legislation to fund the government into early December, which is expected to pass later Thursday with bipartisan support. Cotton’s amendment received 50 votes, one short of the number needed to succeed. The tally broke along partisan lines.

In addition to providing stopgap funding to keep the government open, the spending measure includes emergency funding for the resettlement of Afghan refugees who fled amid the takeover of the country by the Taliban and U.S. military exit.

Cotton’s amendment sought to cut off housing, food and medical aid, among other assistance, as of March 31, 2023, for Afghans who were granted parole to quickly enter the United States.

Cotton also sought to delete language from the spending legislation that would allow recent Afghan refugees to get driver’s licenses or identification cards without some documentation typically required.

Republicans pivoting from “Biden is abandoning people in Afghanistan” to “Afghan refugees are bloodsucking parasites” was more predictable than the tides, but the Blob proved that there was a major political price to pay for ending even the most catastrophically failed and useless war, so mission accomplished!