Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 01:43 pm
If there was ever one subject that a person would think the GOP wouldn’t touch, it would be anything involving President Biden and Russia.
There is a quaint old notion that politics stops at the water’s edge. Thus, when Trump went to Finland to meet with Vladimir Putin, Trump was there as “our president.” As such, we watched “our president” stoop before Putin and take Putin’s side over our entire intelligence community. The very fact that it happened was humiliating, but the body language and “feel” of the entire press conference made it worse.
Trump begged for Russia’s readmission into the G8 despite the fact that Russia was kicked out due to their aggression against Ukraine, annexing Crimea, and had since only intensified the aggression and threat.
One would think that the GOP would want to simply allow Biden to handle Russia as best he could without criticism, especially as the situation looks dire.
According to Politico:
Ukrainian officials have said Russia could invade next month. Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said the number of Russian troops near Ukraine and in Russia-annexed Crimea is estimated at 94,300, and warned that a “large-scale escalation” is possible in January.
Thus Biden and Putin have a phone call planned for Tuesday.
There is no question that President Biden has made Putin’s life far more miserable since taking office. Again, according to Politico:
His administration has imposed sanctions against Russian targets and called out Putin for the Kremlin’s interference in U.S. elections, cyberactivity against American companies and the treatment of opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who was poisoned last year and later imprisoned.
When Putin and Biden met in Geneva in June, Biden warned that if Russia crossed certain red lines — including going after major American infrastructure — his administration would respond and “the consequences of that would be devastating.”
But ever since Biden’s Nord Stream 2 decision (the pipeline to Germany that was more about Germany than accommodating Russia,) the GOP has gone after Biden as weak on Russia. As characterized in a prior Politico article:
“It’s like their new caravan, or border wall, or ‘lock her up’ rallying cry,” a congressional Democratic aide told NatSec Daily. “These guys didn’t give a s— about this issue until it got weaponized into political theater to claim Biden is weak on Russia.”
“We’re not surprised that some Republicans are making bad faith political arguments and playing politics with our national security by blocking critical legislation and holding up qualified national security nominees,” a White House spokesperson told NatSec Daily.
On the theory that Biden is “weak” on Russia? Even some of the most cynical political observers could be surprised that the GOP would manage such a u-turn, one made not even a full year after the most pro-Russian president in history.
One thing is certain, with 94,000 Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s border and with neither Putin nor Biden backing down, it is all too possible that the United States best be prepared to speak with one voice regarding the situation and stop using Ukraine’s dire situation as yet another political segment on Hannity.
Lives are at stake. A former Soviet republic with a young and relatively stable democracy could be toppled (a first). It is a time for serious people and we keep looking for them in the GOP, and looking, and looking….
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