Biden in dark over defense chief's cancer for month

[TheProle]

President Joe Biden was kept in the dark over his defense secretary's cancer diagnosis and subsequent hospitalizations for about a month, the White House admitted Tuesday, as details of Lloyd Austin's deeply unusual disappearance raised questions about leadership of the world's top military.

The 70-year-old's failure to disclose his hospitalization has prompted an extraordinary row in Washington and could be embarrassing for Biden, who faces multiple foreign crises in his reelection campaign year, including in Israel and Ukraine.

As defense secretary, career soldier Austin is personally overseeing military deployments to try and contain fallout from the Israel-Hamas war, which has sparked violence against American forces in Iraq and Syria as well as attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea.

After days of refusal to issue details, the Pentagon came out Tuesday with its first full account of Austin's health issues, but the new transparency came too late for a clearly upset White House.

https://news.yahoo.com/biden-dark-over-defense-chiefs-212514251.html

[LiberalFighter]

1. The way W.G. DUNLOP wrote his piece shows an intent to make Biden look bad.

[Ferrets are Cool]

8. You beat me to it.

[LiberalFighter]

9. My preference is to call out the writer of any article and not let them hide behind the media as a whole.

[Demsrule86]

18. Yes...exactly.

[pwb]

2. Yawn.

More yahoo shit starting.

[TheProle]

4. It's an AFP story

Yahoo is simply the portal.

[Voltaire2]

11. Yes media compliantly regurgitates RW talking points a lot.

[Voltaire2]

3. I don't care. This is yet another rw manufactured upset.

[SarahD]

5. Should have stepped aside.

He should have taken leave of absence when he found out. He blew it.

[onecaliberal]

6. When he's found to have sold secrets to Putin let me know. Otherwise, spare me.

[TheProle]

10. That's your bar

for proper governance?

[Demsrule86]

12. I fail to understand why anyone here would repeat what is really rightwing talking points created

to attack the president. Do some desire Biden to lose the General? Just asking.

[TheProle]

14. Why would these people "create RW talking points"?

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby made clear that Austin had not followed procedures.

"It is not optimal for a situation like this to go as long as it did without the commander-in-chief knowing about it or the national security adviser knowing about it, or frankly other leaders at the Department of Defense," Kirby said during a briefing at the White House.

However, amid an outcry both from Democratic allies in Congress and Republican opponents, White House chief of staff Jeff Zients ordered an urgent review of the rules for when senior US officials are incapacitated.

"There's an expectation that if a cabinet officer becomes hospitalized, and for whatever reason can't continue to perform the duties even temporarily, that that will be notified up the chain of command to the commander in chief," Kirby said.

The defense chief (Austin) said in a statement over the weekend that he took "full responsibility for my decisions about disclosure," and admitted that he "could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed."

So by your reasoning, Biden NSC Spokesman Kirby, Biden chief of staff Zients, Democratic allies, and Austin himself are "creating RW talking points."

That's ridiculous.

[Demsrule86]

16. The article you posted is an attack on Biden IMHO.

[TheProle]

17. Your reasoning seems solid.

[onecaliberal]

15. No, and there is nothing equal about any of this. I'm over the special treatment.

[ripcord]

7. At that level you can't just disappear

Part of these Cabinet level jobs is being on call as needed, not even letting the President know he wouldn't be available or even where he was is irresponsible.

[genxlib]

13. I agree

Our willingness to dismiss problematic issues isn’t good.

This is not acceptable and should have been handled differently. I would argue that this is a bad situation for any senior government official but is especially so for the military lead.

Not a good look. I am sure there are plenty of processes that would avoid this becoming a real operational problem. But it is a terrible look as it relates to being in full command and for operational readiness.

[Ninga]

19. I dunno. I give all involved, or not, a pass. Giving a do over. A mulligan. The press is snarling

and growling and bitting. They need to be as dogged about the secret conversations the Orange asshole had with Putin.

[Marthe48]

20. My husband had prostate cancer

At the time he was diagnosed, about 10 years ago, the urologist explained that it was usually a slow growing cancer and treatment options included watching, surgery, and maybe radiation (?). The surgery was optional at the time for my husband, meaning the cancer was slow-growing and not endangering him. My husband opted for regular checkups and watching the situation. The V.A. dr he saw said he was more concerned about his blood sugar than his PSA.

If General Austin were a private citizen, he'd get respect for his privacy. As a public figure, privacy is something that gets eroded or destroyed. Even at my age, I would be reticent about sharing certain health conditions with subordinates, co-workers or my boss. I don't think General Austin should step aside, but I think there should be a method for sharing private information just as a heads up.

The way General Austin handled this situation would be okay if he were a rwnj, but of course, it isn't acceptable by the hypocritical rwnj that would handle their privacy the same way.