'He isn't Putin's psychoanalyst'
| Oops, he did it again.   President Joe Biden often blunders into controversy with imprecise, offhand comments — forcing aides into frantic clarifications.
That's what happened on Wednesday, when Biden suggested that a minor Russian incursion into Ukraine might not bring down the full hammer of promised international sanctions that would follow an invasion. The comment caused immediate uproar, not least in Kyiv, where Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba acidly noted: "One can't be half invaded." Biden's comment was damaging because it raised the idea that NATO is divided when he spent weeks trying to ensure the alliance is united in the face of the Russian threat. And it played into the hands of President Vladimir Putin, whose life's work is turning NATO allies against one another.
Biden's biggest sin was in inadvertently telling the truth — the chances are slim that all European powers would agree to impose maximum punishments on Moscow in the absence of a full invasion. But Putin might now reason that there's a sliding scale of consequences, some of which would be bearable, for interfering in Ukraine short of a full blitzkrieg. Even before Biden wrapped up his news conference Wednesday, his aides were insisting he hadn't said what he'd said. A day later, the President clarified his position. "If any – any -- assembled Russian units move across Ukrainian border, that is an invasion," he said.
This is becoming a bit of a habit for Biden. Several times, for example, he's appeared to change US policy on Taiwan on the hop, watering down the strategic ambiguity that traditionally cloaks US responses in the event of a Chinese invasion. At a CNN event in October, Biden said the US would defend the democratic island if it were attacked. Officials, however, insisted there had been no change to US policy.
Does it matter that the President keeps messing up? It's never good for a great power to sow confusion about its intentions. It's a headache for US officials if Biden keeps undermining them when they're in the field. And Biden did run in 2020 as a foreign policy expert. But while US adversaries may wring political advantage from Biden's gaffes, sophisticated actors like Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are unlikely to make fateful geopolitical decisions on his flubs alone.
Still, the President talks like he's still a senator — indiscreetly waffling through various scenarios that might be better left unsaid. The latest brouhaha is a reminder that every word uttered by the commander in chief has consequences.  'He isn't Putin's psychoanalyst' Whatever the Russian President takes from Biden's remarks, they triggered an eruption of scorn from Republicans. The GOP is deeply invested in portraying Biden as weak, confused and not up to the job as it eyes midterm congressional elections in November and the 2024 presidential election. The President also said in his news conference Wednesday that he likes Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – a sentiment few other Democrats share.
The wily Kentucky Republican didn't repay the compliment, tearing into Biden over his Russia comments on Thursday. McConnell complained that the President "telegraphed passivity and weakness" and suggested that "Putin can do what he wants."
"Why is our President speculating like a passive observer on the sidelines? He isn't a pundit. He isn't Putin's psychoanalyst. He's the President of the United States," McConnell said. He added that Biden's comments about a possible "minor incursion" by Russia into Ukraine were "bizarre and devastating" when he should have been delivering a "powerful warning to the Kremlin that Ukraine's sovereignty is invaluable" and the "cost of escalation would be devastating." The world and America Pope Benedict knew about abuse as Munich archbishop, report says
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A Democratic congressman is arrested in voting rights protest What took so long? The pandemic has been raging for two years, and Omicron has been thrashing its way across the US for weeks. But the Biden administration has only now come up with a plan to dole out free at-home Covid-19 tests and nonsurgical N95 masks.
You might think that the President is a bit slow off the mark. Even Biden admitted on Wednesday that it might have been better had the government gotten its act together on rapid tests a month ago. After all, other Western democracies, like the UK and Canada, have long been handing out free kits.
But otherwise, as CNN's Devan Cole writes for Meanwhile, Biden made clear during that marathon news conference that he had no regrets about the way his administration has managed the pandemic. He flatly told reporters at the White House that he thinks his team has "done remarkably well" in that regard.
On one hand, it's surprising that the plan to distribute four at-home tests to each household through a government website and the distribution of 400 million N95 masks is coming nearly two years into the pandemic and one year after the federal government's vaccine program kicked into gear. But public health experts are happy. The mask handout is especially notable given the Trump administration's reluctance to distribute 650 million masks to Americans in the early days of the pandemic. That plan was nixed after some Trump White House officials feared it might cause "concern or panic" among the public, according to The Washington Post.
Of course, this being America, where many conservatives view pandemic mitigation efforts as infringements on the country's quintessential individualism, there's no guarantee that people will use the masks or tests. An Axios/Ipsos poll released last month showed that only 38% of Americans reported wearing masks at all times when they leave their homes.
So, as with vaccines, the success or failure of the Biden administration's latest effort to beat the pandemic will be decided more by politics than personal health decisions. Thanks for reading.
On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meet in Geneva amid rising tensions over Ukraine. The "March for Life" takes place in Washington, DC, as the abortion debate rages across the United States.
On Saturday, the SpaceX CRS-24 cargo craft is due to undock from the International Space Station.
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