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Krauthammer starts us off as it is now the turn of our favorites to look at clueless, hapless, feckless, and hopeless.
… The East Europeans know they inhabit the battleground between the West and a Russia that wants to return them to its sphere of influence. Ukrainians see tens of thousands of Russian troops across their border and know they are looking down the barrel of quite a zero-sum game.
Obama thinks otherwise. He says that Vladimir Putin’s kind of neo-imperialist thinking is a relic of the past — and advises Putin to transcend the Cold War.
Good God. Putin hasn’t transcended the Russian revolution. Did no one give Obama a copy of Putin’s speech last week upon the annexation of Crimea? Putin railed not only at Russia’s loss of empire in the 1990s. He went back to the 1920s: “After the revolution, the Bolsheviks . . . may God judge them, added large sections of the historical South of Russia to the Republic of Ukraine.” Putin was referring not to Crimea (which came two sentences later) but to his next potential target: Kharkiv and Donetsk and the rest of southeastern Ukraine.
Putin’s irredentist grievances go very deep. Obama seems unable to fathom them. Asked whether he’d misjudged Russia, whether it really is our greatest geopolitical foe, he disdainfully replied that Russia is nothing but “a regional power” acting “out of weakness.”
Where does one begin? Hitler’s Germany and Tojo’s Japan were also regional powers, yet managed to leave behind at least 50 million dead. And yes, Russia should be no match for the American superpower. Yet under this president, Russia has run rings around America, from the attempted ingratiation of the “reset” to America’s empty threats of “consequences” were Russia to annex Crimea. …
Craig Pirrong of Streetwise Professor also asks the question of where to begin.
Obama has given two major sets of remarks about Ukraine, one set on teleprompter, the other off. Like Tolstoy’s unhappy families, each was appalling in its own way. It is hard to say which is worse.
The off-teleprompter remarks were delivered at a press conference. The statement that garnered the most attention, and rightly so, was Obama’s assertion that Russia was a mere regional power that is not a threat to the US, and invaded Crimea out of weakness.
Where to begin?
Part of the problem is the man’s preternatural pettiness. He denigrated Russia in part because he will not, cannot, concede that Romney might have been closer to the truth than he was when the Republican candidate named Russia as our number one national security threat, and Obama responded with a snarky “the 80s called and want their foreign policy back.” A bigger man would have given Romney his due. But that would be a different man than Obama.
But the bigger problem is the substance. First, I would be the first to acknowledge that Russia’s military is decrepit and its ability to project power beyond the Eurasian landmass is limited. But the Eurasian landmass is pretty damned big, and Russia’s region includes many areas of vital interest to the United States.
Second, Russia has many other sources of power that transcend those of a mere regional power (like Brazil, say). Most obviously: It has nukes. It has a UNSC veto. It has extremely effective asymmetric capabilities, notably cyberwarfare (conducted in large part through private and criminal elements that work for Russian intelligence out of a combination of patriotic and mercenary motives) and intelligence. (Snowden, anyone?) …
… Russian troops are massing on Ukraine’s borders. Russia’s most capable formations, its paratroops (VDV) and Guards armored/mechanized units are assembled there. But don’t worry! Russian defense minister Shoygu assures that these troops are only there for maneuvers. And the drunk who is our SecDef believes him:
At the Pentagon, there remains confidence in the assurances provided to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel from Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu that the Russian troops amassing on the border with Ukraine were there only for exercises.
“[Shoygu] told me that they had no intention of crossing the border into Ukraine,” Hagel said at the Pentagon this week.
Can we really be this stupid? (Don’t answer that. The question was totally, totally rhetorical.)
Just why, pray tell, need the Russians conduct maneuvers with 50K of their best troops on a sensitive border? And given that Putin repeatedly lied about his intentions in Crimea, why should we believe Shoygu-especially since there are serious doubts that Shoygu is in Putin’s decision making clique? …
Michael Godwin has more.
Today’s quiz: What do Vladimir Putin’s aggression and ObamaCare’s troubles have in common? OK, that was too easy.
It is impossible to dismiss as mere coincidence the Russian Bear’s invasion of Ukraine and the continuing mayhem of the Affordable Care Act. In their own ways, each reflects the full flowering of the policies of Barack Obama.
His chickens are coming home to roost, and what a mess they are making.
Obama’s sixth year in the White House is shaping up as his worst, and that’s saying something. He’s been in the Oval Office so long that it is obscene to blame his problems on George W. Bush, the weather or racism. Obama owns the world he made, or more accurately, the world he tried to remake. …
… A Caesar at home and a Chamberlain abroad, Obama manages to simultaneously provoke fury and ridicule. He bullies critics here while shrinking from adversaries there.
He divides the country and unites the world against us, diminishing the nation in both ways. His reign of error can’t end soon enough, nor can it end well.
Howie Carr writes on the Dems getting indicted around the country.
… Last Friday, it was the speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives. …
… Next, the mayor of Charlotte, Patrick Cannon, another Democrat. …
… Then there’s state Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco. …
… Two-gun Yee is the third Democrat state senator to be arrested in California this week. Earlier it was state Sen. Rod Wright (perjury) and then Ron Calderon (bribery).
What a crime wave, in less than one week. So guess what most of the networks led with on their newscasts last night? The 5-month-old story of Gov. Chris Christie’s Bridgegate. Because it has one thing going for it that none of these other stories had, the only thing that matters to the corrupt American media.
Christie is a Republican.
Andrew Malcolm with late night humor.
Fallon: Obama has called for a united front with Europe against Russia. Obama promised that if Russia invades another country, America will stand behind Europe. Way, way, WAY behind Europe.
SethMeyers: Jimmy Carter says he sends no emails because the NSA is reading them. Also because he can’t find the “send” button on his typewriter.
Conan: Jimmy Carter says he’s stopped using email because the NSA was spying on him. And also because he’s 89 years old and what he thought was email was actually a thermostat.