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President Joe Biden's pronouncement on Putin could not have been clearer: "For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power." Yet as soon as he said it, the cleanup by US officials began -- and the President later clarified that he was talking only about his moral outrage over the invasion, not about seeking regime change in the Kremlin.

Dean Obeidallah wrote that Biden had nothing to apologize for. "The world has seen the horrors Putin has rained down upon the people of Ukraine simply because they won't bend a knee to this brutal dictator and agree to give up their democracy and self-determination," Obeidallah observed.

But if Americans think that appeals to morality would prompt the strongmen (siloviki) around Putin to oust him or force a change in policy, they're mistaken, wrote former CIA clandestine service official Douglas London.

"In the multi-level chess game of internal Russian power dynamics," London wrote, "the last thing those within the Kremlin who might consider moving against Putin need -- whether to alter his direction on the war or remove him outright -- is public encouragement from an American president ... Russians in positions of power today do not necessarily subscribe to Jeffersonian democratic ideals or see America as the world's shining beacon of light. They are focused on the attainment and preservation of power and privilege."

For more:

Margo Gontar: Sasha's story brought the Ukraine war home to me in a shattering way

Galip Dalay: Why Turkey is in a unique position to mediate

Many Washington Republicans have been wary of criticizing Madison Cawthorn, the 26-year-old representative from North Carolina who has triggered one controversy after another in his short congressional career.

As SE Cupp noted, Cawthorn has "made quite the name for himself in the 14 months he's been in Congress."

"There was that time he tried to board a plane with a gun in his carry-on, he claimed by mistake."

"And the time he posted -- and deleted -- pictures from his vacation at Hitler's summer retreat. He called Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who does not drink, an alcoholic. He spoke at the rally that preceded the Capitol insurrection, and later tried to blame the violence there on Democratic agitators. He's falsely claimed elections are rigged and promised 'bloodshed' if they continue to be."

But what finally prompted widespread condemnation? "He went on a podcast last week and suggested that Washington was full of open drug use and orgies," Cupp said.

"It really says something that the bridge too far wasn't his role in the insurrection, spreading lies about elections, slandering his colleagues, racist attacks against his opponents, or any of the other vile parts of his resume. It was what he said about THEM."

It happened so suddenly that viewers assumed it was all part of the preplanned Oscars show when Will Smith got up from his seat and slapped Chris Rock last Sunday. Peniel E. Joseph thought it was a "kind of 'SNL'-inspired skit designed to juice up a show whose lag in cultural relevancy has been much discussed."

"The slap heard round the world turned out not to be a skit, but an unplanned eruption whose cultural significance is now being refracted through the distorted lens of our disunited nation."

"Smith ostensibly struck the comedian in defense of his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, after Rock joked about her shaved head (a result of alopecia, a disease that Pinkett Smith has openly discussed)," wrote Joseph. "As a Black man who believes that both racism and patriarchy have had negative effects on the Black community, I don't believe in resorting to violence in the face of insults. However, none of us are the worst thing we have ever done. Smith's actions do not negate all the good he has contributed as an actor, artist and humanitarian."

"Nor does the wrongness of Smith's behavior make Rock's joke the right thing to have said at the Oscars."

Holly Thomas observed that "Smith's reaction, like his words during his acceptance speech, were more about himself than his wife -- and that's what rankles most. Men shouldn't use women's interests as a rationalization for hitting people -- and sending the message that this is what women want of men is not only unhelpful, but potentially dangerous."

"As a superstar with every resource and PR tool under the sun at his disposal, Will Smith could have chosen from countless ways to respond to Rock's joke ...

Whatever he decided to do, he should have waited to see whether it was what his wife, the subject of the joke, actually wanted, before centering himself and escalating a conflict she may not have been happy to amplify."

Smith created "a 'hey-look-at-me' moment destined to be all anyone would talk about or remember," wrote Bill Carter in CNN Business Perspectives. "Then he turned his acceptance speech into more 'look-at-me' theatrics, seeking to justify an ugly act of violence as some form of noble family values, even saying, 'Love will make you do crazy things.'"

The move detracted from other winners, including Questlove, who took home the Oscar for best documentary shortly after the incident, Carter observed. "How much did Smith's actions unjustly overshadow the powerfully moving words from winners like Ariana DeBose (Best Supporting Actress), Jane Campion (Best Director), Sian Heder (Best Adapted Screenplay) and Troy Kotsur (Best Actor in a Supporting Role), all of whom may never experience a night like that again in their lives? What right did Smith have to seize attention away from them?"

The midterm election that will determine which party controls the House and Senate is more than seven months away, and anything can happen. Despite the fast-growing economy, the Democrats' hold on Congress seems at genuine risk. Biden's approval rating notched down to 39% in the CNN poll of polls last week. Fairly or not, voters are watching the price signs at gas stations and blaming Biden for surging inflation. And even among Democrats' own ranks, there's discontent.

Jill Filipovic faulted the President for increasing spending on defense and policing while setting a modest agenda for social programs in his proposed budget. "Despite progressive hopes that the President might be a secret Franklin Delano Roosevelt capable of ushering in an ambitious domestic agenda, Biden is exactly the timid moderate he always appeared to be."

"He seems to be hoping that an agenda of the same old tacking-right policies will benefit vulnerable Democrats in the midterms. Instead, he may simply be depressing Democratic enthusiasm and helping to consign the party to a red wave ... he seems more concerned with convincing the public that he's a pro-police, pro-military tough guy and less interested in delivering the things that would materially improve the lives of average folks."

On Friday, the White House announced it would end a Trump-administration policy of turning back migrants at the southern border due to the Covid-19 pandemic. So far, "1.7 million migrants have been sent back across the southern US border to Mexico, or repatriated to their country of origin," wrote Raul A. Reyes.

"From the start, Trump's invocation of Title 42 was driven by politics, not by legitimate health concerns. In fact, when the Trump administration sought to implement the law, the CDC doctor who oversaw the regulation refused to comply." The policy reversal could produce a large flow of migrants crossing the border later this spring, Reyes noted.

GOP critics will cite the change to accuse Democrats of favoring "open borders" and "will paint doomsday scenarios of migrants crossing the border. Yet GOP lawmakers have never offered any constructive immigration or asylum solutions of their own ..."

"What this country is really confronting is decades of neglect and mishandling of US immigration policy by successive presidential administrations."

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AND ...

In classical music, a coda is the concluding section of a piece or movement. But CODA has another meaning, dramatically portrayed in the film that won Best Picture at the Oscars.

As CNN's Lilit Marcus wrote, "Yes, my parents are Deaf.

Yes, I am hearing.

CODA stands for Child of Deaf Adults.

No, I didn't invent it."

As a child, Marcus joked that she wanted to print a stack of note cards with those four lines and hand them out to "everyone who interrogated me about my family and my background."

"CODA," the movie, "didn't change my life. It showed my life."

"I was the older of two hearing children raised by a Deaf father and a hard-of-hearing mother in the 1980s and 1990s. When I was young, a teacher told me I 'didn't count' as bilingual because ASL 'isn't a real language,' TV captions were optional to provide and often inaccurate, and I never invited people over for dinner because I wanted to eat my food while it was hot instead of spending the whole night translating."

In Marcus' eyes, the film is a breakthrough. "To see a multitude of Deaf stories at one time in 'CODA' is a reminder that plurality is important. What if Hollywood took a break from rebooting Spider-Man yet again and devoted the budget to films that depict disabled stories and identities?"

In the film's wake, "a whole new crop of children will never have to explain what 'CODA' means. They will never need note cards. And maybe, just maybe, they will never have to apologize for who they are."