Hmm.....
Posted on 03/04/2022 8:11:02 AM PST by Kaslin
By now you may have forgotten resident Joe Biden gave his State of the Union address last week. On Monday, Biden walked across the White House lawn alone and in a mask. On Tuesday, he walked into a crowd of House members rejoicing that no more masks were needed. It was the perfect metaphor for Biden at governance and Biden at speech.
First, forgive Biden for his flubs and twisted words. He is almost 80 and has a stuttering problem. As someone who grew up with a stuttering problem, I'm sympathetic. He is neither Cicero nor Churchill, King nor Kennedy. He is Joe from Scranton. The problem was not the words or delivery. The problem was the message.
The State of the Union address was not for you or for me unless you are a moderate, Democrat-leaning voter who is frustrated with Biden and looking at the GOP for November. Despite all the talk about multiple audiences, Biden is trying to keep wavering moderate voters on board.
He hit on, for example, securing the border. That's an issue he has done nothing with, but it shows up in the polling as a problem for Democrats, so he mentioned it. He mentioned funding police too. That is another area in which polls show voters trust Republicans more than Democrats. He needs to reassure suburban voters that he is not the radical the loudest Democratic representatives are.
He called Afghanistan an "extraordinary success," but it polls terribly for him, so he chose not to spend time on it. The whole of the speech after opening about Ukraine sounded like it was written by pollsters panicked by the GOP's current numbers.
The problem for Biden and the Democrats is simple. This speech is going to be forgotten -- if it's not already forgotten -- but the public will still see empty store shelves, high prices and the cost of filling up their cars. The president offered nothing to address these issues. In fact, it is now widely accepted his COVID-19 relief package sparked inflation; the president not only defended it but called for even more spending.
Biden started with a unifying moment about Ukraine. He had applause from both the Republicans and Democrats. He then pivoted straight into an attack on the Trump tax cuts with a lie about those cuts benefiting the top 1%. Even the supposed fact-checkers rebut that.
He continued to call on Congress to pass an agenda Congress has repeatedly failed to pass and to advocate for positions most Americans reject. There was no reset. He doubled down on progressivism. He doubled down on growing government. He refused to offer gas price relief but instead announced he wants to expand the Green New Deal.
Forget the flubs. Forget the rhetorical stumbles over "Iranians" instead of "Ukrainians," etc. This is Biden. He is not the best orator. Forgive him those things.
The problem with the speech is that Biden offered Americans a vision of what they've already rejected and bookended it with calls for unity after pushing policies that led to firing Americans for not taking a vaccine.
It is really hard to tell Americans we need to get past our differences after spending two years maligning those who wouldn't go along with his agenda. A few months ago, Biden said Americans who opposed his agenda were on the side of Jefferson Davis and those who did not get the vaccine were in for a winter of death. Now, at 40% in some polls, he is calling for unity and urging people to stop politicizing COVID-19. But he never offered an apology for his own harsh words and his turn comes only after leaked Democrat polling showing the public is ready to get on with life.
This speech offered no reset. It offered no new vision. It offered no olive branches. It was patently designed to rally Democrats and hopefully get moderates back into the camp.
The president may get a bump in the polls over Ukraine, but the polling will get trumped by gas prices and bare shelves.
In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson refused to intervene when the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the pro-democracy "Prague Spring."
Yet, today, America's leaders do not have the same freedom not to act as did Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. We are obligated to act. Why?
Because, since the end of the Cold War, we have expanded the membership of NATO, and there are now 28 nations of Europe we are obligated to defend if they are attacked.
Ukraine is not one of them, but five of them that border Russia or Ukraine -- Romania, Slovakia, Poland, Latvia and Estonia -- are currently providing Stinger or Javelin missiles to Ukraine to destroy Russian tanks, down Russian aircraft, and kill Russian soldiers in Ukraine.
If Putin retaliated against any of these countries for these arms transfers that are killing Russian soldiers, the U.S. would be obligated, under Article 5 of NATO, to fight Russia on behalf of these NATO nations.
Article 5 automatically conscripts the United States into a war with Russia, if Moscow retaliates against a NATO nation providing weapons to kill Russian soldiers.
Why have we willingly tied our own hands in this manner?
During 40 years of Cold War, America remained secure while East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were all under Moscow's control.
These nations are all free today as a result of the West's victory in the Cold War. But why do all these nations have war guarantees from the United States when none of them, as the Cold War demonstrated, is a vital interest of the USA?
Why, after the Cold War ended in 1991, did we agree to fight a war with Russia, including a nuclear war, on their behalf when 40 years of Cold War demonstrated they were not essential to our security?
Today, by our refusal to intervene militarily in Ukraine, to slow or halt this Russian invasion, we are sending a message to the world.
That message?
Ukraine's independence is not vital to the United States. While a desirable goal, it is not worth our fighting a war with Russia to preserve.
Moreover, the independence of Ukraine is not worth the risk of using U.S. planes to establish a no-fly zone for Russian planes in the skies over Ukraine.
Indeed, had we given Putin assurances that NATO was closed to Kyiv, we might have prevented what has happened, because that was the first and most insistent of Putin's demands.
The heroic rhetoric we are hearing from our political and media leaders aside, the real message sent to Ukraine by our own and NATO's actions and inaction is this:
We will send you weapons, but we are not sending our troops, and we are not going to fight your war for you, or beside you, unless and until we decide that it is in our vital interest to do so.
Fortunately, we had not brought Ukraine into NATO, nor given Kyiv a war guarantee that obligated us to risk everything for a nation deemed not vital to us.
Those who prevented the U.S. from realizing former President George W. Bush's ambition to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO may have saved us from a war with Russia in which both of us could have suffered horribly.
Whether we go to war for a nation that was formerly part of the Soviet bloc should be a matter for decision by the Americans of that day and time -- not mandated, not dictated by our signature on a 73-year-old treaty, devised for another era and another world.
I stopped reading at “he has a stuttering problem”...no he DOES NOT. So sick of this excuse being used for his dementia. He HAD a stuttering problem as a child. He had no problem spewing away on the Senate floor when he was younger, no stuttering then.
According to the American chattering class, Putin = evil dictator, “President” Xi is a reasonable man. Zelensky = Teddy Roosevelt, Trump = Putin bootlicker.
You got that right!
Yeah, I noticed and the DUmmie FUnnies was the FIRST to point this out.
Perhaps Germany and Western Europe in general now realize the reality of their situation.
Hmm.....
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