Joe Biden is promising to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. It’s a mixed bag. Ending America’s longest war is an enticing notion, but Afghanistan reverting to its pre-war status as an incubator for terrorists is less enticing.
Rep. Andy Kim (D, NJ-03) made the most of the story by landing quotes in regional and national publications. Kim’s hook is his resume.
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For example, Vox identified Kim as having “advised top US generals in Afghanistan and was a national security adviser in the Obama administration.” Unfortnately, that’s simply not accurate. Not even close.
Save Jersey reported on Kim’s embellished credentials extensively in 2018 during his first run for Congress against then-incumbent Tom MacArthur:
[…] Kim is claiming to have served as a “strategic advisor” to Generals David Petraeus and John Allen in Afghanistan back in early 2011 but, later in 2011, he claims to have been a simple “Notetaker.” That’s according to information in State Department emails obtained by the MacArthur campaign through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
How Kim went from an adviser to America’s most senior military leaders to a low-ranking “notetaker” in a mere matter of months is made all the more strange, says MacArthur’s campaign, by the fact that Kim isn’t mentioned in the biography penned by Petraeus’s mistress; moreover, despite the fact that he claimed “helping to coordinate the war against ISIS” in 2013, a Politico report identified Kim as a “relatively junior national security aide” in 2014.
MacArthur’s camp sent a second FOIA request to the Office of Personnel and Management (OPM) for clarification; OPM responded on March 7, 2018 in writing: “[There are] 61 Andrew Kim’s…none have these credentials.”
The fact that the Media is still letting him get away with this charade speaks volumbes about the sorry state of journalism, folks.
We expect politicians to make stuff up. We’re lost if journalists let them get away with it, and especially when latitude to lie based upon ideology.
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