There has been a lot of really dumb messaging emanating from the White House over the last several years. Labeling the currently languishing economy, complete with sky-high living costs and interest rates, as "Bidenomics" is perhaps the worst domestic example. 

On the foreign policy front, though, there's been an attempt to paint Biden as some kind of courageous warrior, boldly going where no president has gone before. We saw the first hints of that when the White House comms team tried to pretend that flying on the world's most luxurious jet and riding an armored train into Ukraine was a show of strength not seen in decades. 

Keep in mind that he was visiting an area that is so safe that U.S. congressional members and celebrities appear there routinely and walk the streets. Regardless, after Biden's recent half-day excursion to Israel, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates tried the same gambit. 

Wired: @JoeBiden “has now visited two active war zones in eight months ― two more than all the previous presidents combined.”

Tired: Trump resisted going to Iraq because he “was afraid for his safety, according to one of his top White House aides.” https://t.co/h3oIgB10Hi

— Andrew Bates (@AndrewBatesNC) October 19, 2023

There's a lot to unpack there. First of all, I'm not sure what that stat is supposed to be. Obviously, Biden is not the only president to visit a war zone, which is what his assertion appears to be on its face. So is he actually saying that no president has visited two war zones in the span of eight months? But if so, that still wouldn't be "two more than previous presidents combined." It would be one more because every president that has ever visited a war zone has done so within the span of eight months.  

When you read the linked article, the distinction seems to be war zones that were "under U.S. control." That seems rather arbitrary, does it not? Is the idea that a president going to Afghanistan during an actual ground war is somehow safer than going to Israel? Or that walking around Kyiv was more dangerous than Abraham Lincoln visiting the front lines of the Civil War in 1862? While there's no doubt that Israel is at war, does Tel Aviv even qualify as a war zone? 

That's not the dumbest part of Bates' post, though. The dumbest part is that he's bragging about something that illustrates an objective failure of the administration. Ask yourself, why are there so many war zones to visit under Biden's tenure? 

Andrew, those places were not the disasters they are today until Joe Biden got in office.

This isn’t the brag that you think it is.

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) October 19, 2023

Both occurred during his presidency. That's not a good thing, Andrew. https://t.co/tZcwkctvqu

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 19, 2023

I'm just going out on a limb here, but I don't think a U.S. president gets much credit for visiting war zones that he is partially responsible for. There was an obvious failure by the administration to deter a Russian invasion of Ukraine, including the refusal to put harsh sanctions in place preemptively, and regarding Hamas attacking Israel, that was a move largely bolstered by Iran. Who has been relieving sanctions on Iran and babying them on the world stage in order to try to reinstitute a farcical nuclear deal? That would be Joe Biden. 

So yeah, Bates' post isn't the brag he thinks it is. Instead, it's a reminder of just how chaotic the world has become, both domestically and globally, on Biden's watch.