Big news stories almost always contain at least one back story, a telling point that gets little notice at the time but in the long run may be as important as the main story. This back story is bureaucracy, and the main stories are the evacuation from Afghanistan, wildfires in west and renters facing eviction.

A study by Stanford University suggests that highly visible office workers are more likely to be promoted. Workers at a travel agency in Shanghai were divided into two groups — one assigned to work from home and the other told to come into the office. After nine months, the remote workers were promoted half as often as their in-office counterparts, even though they were 13% more productive in both hours worked and calls made.

The Biden administration wants credit for the Afghanistan evacuation as measured by the sheer number of people it flew out amid a security and humanitarian crisis of its own making.

This is the arsonist bragging about how many fires he has put out.

The radical right has explicitly shown us and told us what they plan to do. I propose we take them at their word — take the threat seriously.

And act accordingly.

As President Joe Biden’s propagandists wage a rearguard political war of lies and narrative distortion, al-Qaida has begun exploiting his administration’s on-the-ground Afghanistan disaster.