Thanksgiving came early this year. Let’s be grateful that we have a President who says stuff like this:
“(I will) meet with Mr. Putin to let him know what I want him to know…The United States will respond in a robust and meaningful way when the Russian government engages in harmful activities. We’ve already demonstrated that. I’m going to communicate that there are consequences for violating the sovereignty of democracies in the United States and Europe and elsewhere. I’m going to be clear that the Transatlantic Alliance will remain a vital source of strength for the UK, Europe, and the United States. And I’m going to make sure there’s no doubt as to whether the United States will rise in defense of our most deeply held values and our fundamental interest.”
So said Joe Biden the other day, addressing U.S. Air Force personnel in Great Britain.
But if that’s too “boring” for you, perhaps this new statement from his predecessor is more to your tastes:
“As President, I had a great and very productive meeting in Helsinki, Finland with President Putin of Russia. Despite the belated Fake News portrayal of the meeting, the United States won much, including the respect of President Putin and Russia. Because of the phony Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, made-up and paid for by the Democrats and Crooked Hillary Clinton, the United States was put at a disadvantage, a disadvantage that was nevertheless overcome by me. As to who do I trust, Russia or our ‘intelligence’ from the Obama era, meaning people like Comey, McCabe, the two lovers, Brennan, Clapper, and numerous other sleezebags, or Russia, the answer after all that has been found out and written, should be obvious. Our government has rarely had such lowlifes as these working for it. Good luck to Biden in dealing with President Putin – don’t fall asleep during the meeting and please give him my warmest regards!”
I’m not in the habit of quoting sociopathic traitors, especially at such length; this particular one, due either to ignorance or derangement, doesn’t even know how to spell sleazebags. But contrasting his remarks with those of President Biden clearly reminds us that despite all our ongoing woes, we’re at least taking steps to demonstrate that we are no longer a global laughingstock curtsying in humiliating fashion at the feet of a former KGB agent.
Helsinki, lest we forget, was a quintessential humiliation. At that 2018 summer summit, with Putin virtually at his elbow, the simpering supplicant refused to endorse the U.S. intelligence consensus that Putin had personally ordered the cyberattacks on the 2016 presidential election. With the whole world watching, the supplicant stiffed our intelligence community and sided with Russia. Putin had assured him that Russia had done nothing wrong, and that was good enough for him: “(Putin) just said it’s not Russia. I will say this. I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
Further fueling the humiliation, his own Director of National Intelligence (one of his own appointees) openly contradicted him within hours of the Helsinki summit: “We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security.” Even some MAGA cheerleaders decided that toadying to Putin on live TV was too much to bear. The Wall Street Journal editorial page derided Helsinki as “a personal and national embarrassment.” Even Fox News ran a headline on its website declaring that Putin had eaten our lunch.
So President Biden – in his mission to repair our global standing, and to remind Putin that his surrender monkey is gone – has a very low bar to hurdle. Rich Galen, a former Republican operative, says Biden has one huge advantage over his predecessor: He’s “a rational human being…He doesn’t have to convince our allies his heart and head are in the right place. They know that. The more difficult challenge is to convince (them) that Trump or a facsimile, will not be the next U.S. President or the one after that.
That is indeed the biggest challenge, as Biden well knows. Addressing the U.S. Air Force personnel in Britain, he said:
“I believe we’re at an inflection point in world history – the moment where it falls to us to prove that democracies will not just endure, but they will excel as we rise to seize the enormous opportunities of a new age. We have to discredit those who believe that the age of democracy is over, as some of our fellow nations believe.”
Fortunately, Biden has the wind at his back. Our allies want us to lead, not grovel in front of our adversaries. A new Pew Research Center global poll says that “the election of Joe Biden as president has led to a dramatic shift in America’s international image” – favorably so. Pew surveyed 12 nations and found that 75 percent of respondents voiced confidence in Biden to “do the right thing regarding world affairs”; last year, 17 percent said the same about his predecessor. Currently, 62 percent have a favorable view of America – a 28 percent spike since Biden took office. It is incumbent on him to sustain this honeymoon by defending our values.
“Democracy doesn’t happen by accident,” Biden said at the start of his foreign trip. “We have to strengthen it, renew it.” Only then will Putin’s exiled sap, and those who worship him, be rendered truly impotent.