Method To Our Sadness
Twitchy: “Adults are back in charge! SUPER-genius Biden spent 3 months trying to get China to help stop Russia, guess what China did INSTEAD”
NYT: “The U.S. met with China over three months to present intelligence showing Russia’s troop buildup near Ukraine and to urge Beijing to help avert war, U.S. officials said. Chinese officials rebuffed the U.S. and shared the information with Moscow.”
Spencer Brown headline: “Peace Through Begging: Biden Wasted Months Asking China to Stop Putin”
“As Russian aggression escalated, Biden didn’t lean on U.S. strength to deter Putin. Instead, his administration wasted months trying to convince China it should tell Putin not to invade. But China played Biden and strengthened its ties with Russia instead.”
Politico headline: “Putin was playing Biden all along; The U.S. president and his aides thought they could manage Putin. Their calculations were dead wrong.”
“For Biden and his team, it is a deeply frustrating moment. Their strategy toward Russia has largely failed…”
“Plenty of Russia hands feared Biden and his aides were being naïve.”
Method To Their Madness
Michael Horowitz reminder: “BTW there is a ‘Madman theory’ in international relations, which is basically to intentionally appear irrational — not to say, cray cray — so as to force your adversary to be cautious. If this is what Putin is doing, then he is frighteningly good at it.”
Gideon Rachman wrote: “A final twist is that Putin the Rational may be pretending to be Vlad the Mad. It was Richard Nixon who outlined the ‘madman theory’, when the US president told aides that it could be helpful if America’s enemies thought he was crazy enough to use nuclear weapons.’
“Putin is said to be planning high-profile nuclear weapons exercises in the coming weeks — which would be a move straight from the ‘madman’ playbook. But the line between acting like a madman and being a madman is disconcertingly thin.”
Dead Serious Vs. Utterly Unserious
Jordan Hall: “Putin and Xi perceive the West as a declining power. They view the West as weak, stupid, infantile, decadent and thoroughly parasitized by a mercenary Virtual ‘elite’ class that seems more than happy to wage an internal war on their own Physical classes.”
Federalist headline: “The Ruling Class Is A Far Greater Threat To Americans Than Russia Is”
“From Western Europe to West L.A., we know we’re governed by leaders in business, entertainment, and politics who hold scorn for our country, its history, its heroes, its people, and their religion. They have the money and the power, too. They can freeze truckers’ bank accounts and mask children as young as three. They can order Australians into internment camps and host drag queen story hours. They can force vaccinations, close churches, arrest priests, bankrupt businesses, prosecute bakers, empty prisons, defund police, and sometimes even win votes.
“One thing they can’t have, however, is the moral authority to rule a civilization they despise. They are the very thugs they claim to stand against; they have no legitimacy.”
“Really: Who can follow a political left or establishment GOP calling us to defend Western civilization when just last week our culture’s triumphs were submitted as proof of our awful patriarchy? When they were apologized for? Can we really take Ukraine’s inviolable border seriously, while defending our own is called racist?”
To go along with this ’malarkey’ offering, there is a representative meme.
