President Biden delivers remarks on the united efforts of the free world to support the people of Ukraine, hold Russia accountable for its brutal war, and defend a future that is rooted in democratic principles.
Live at 1:00 pm Eastern time.
Open thread.
WaterGirl
I passed a billboard today on one of our main streets here. The whole billboard covered in blue, with a sunflower in the middle. So simple, not even the word Ukraine, that was it, but it meant so much to me to see it there.
debbie
What a trip, Joe! Even if you don’t think he’s doing enough, he’s elucidating the allies’ positions better, more clearly, and more vigorously than anyone else could (I think).
WaterGirl
@WaterGirl: They even had the colors exactly right.
TaMara
@WaterGirl: I love that idea
NotMax
@WaterGirl
You mean billboards aren’t just for shady lawyers anymore?
//
debbie
@WaterGirl:
A few people around here have large Ukrainian flags draped across the front of their homes.
Brachiator
@WaterGirl:
Very cool.
WaterGirl
@TaMara: Me, too. I would love to see them everywhere.
@NotMax: Apparently not!
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: I was wishing for something I could put in the front window of my house, similar to the Obama decal that is still there from 2007.
WaterGirl
@TaMara: I am eating my spicy version of sloppy joes for lunch, on my potato bread from your recipe.
WaterGirl
Obama speaking!
edit: Um, make that Biden. But this speech is a good as any speech Obama ever made.
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: ?
NotMax
@WaterGirl
I’d make a Gladys Glover reference except that’s bound to ring overwhelmingly obscure to the vast majority.
:)
Kelly
https://twitter.com/AndrejNkv/status/1507365192405073920
I am the very model of a Russian Major General
My standing in the battlefield is growing quite untenable
My forces, though equipped and given orders unequivocal
Did not expect the fight to be remotely this reciprocal
I used to have a tank brigade but now I have lost several
My fresh assaults are faltering with battleplans extemporal
I can’t recover vehicles but farmers in a tractor can
It’s all becoming rather reminiscent of Afghanistan
My ordnance is the best but only half my missiles make it there
I would have thought by now that we would be controllers of the air
But at the rate the snipers work my time here is ephemeral
I am the very model of a Russian Major General
NotMax
@Kelly
Rumor has it Russian senior officers being issued Don’t Tread On Me flags.
//
Suzanne
Very sad news about Taylor Hawkins today. Too young.
Ken
@Kelly: Bravo! or Brava! Now we just need someone with vocal chops to put in on YouTube.
laura
@NotMax: ❤ Judy, Judy, Judy!
Kelly
@Ken: Massive respect to AndrejNkv of Edinburgh, Scotland who is experiencing his first moment of viral internet fame.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
It should happen to you.
CaseyL
Wow. I’m not usually moved by speeches. This one, though… wow.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kelly:
???????
Kent
Anyone know what the hell happened to Scott Ritter? I just stumbled across him on Twitter and he seems a complete Putin fanboy these days. More so even then Glem Greenwald. Anyone know what broke his brain?
https://twitter.com/RealScottRitter
Gin & Tonic
@Kent: Who cares what a pedophile thinks?
Gin & Tonic
Shit, Wolf Blitzer is a moron.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: I missed all but the end of Biden’s speech because I was on was on a fish market run! Did Obama really speak?
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Was so shocked and saddened to read about his death. He was such a joyous presence.
SiubhanDuinne
@CaseyL:
I’ve never seen him deliver a speech more powerfully.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: No, that was Biden – I think I was so inspired by even just the first few words that I ended up typing Obama.
MomSense
That was a really important speech and I’m glad he included the US in having to do the work of democracy. I’ve been struggling to deal with what is happening not just in Ukraine.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: Haha, okay. I figured Biden and his team know better than to let ANYONE speak after Obama. :)
WaterGirl
I hope the less than overwhelming number of comments means that everyone took the time to listen to President Biden. Truly an important speech, an inspired speech. This is about Ukraine, and they are bearing the brunt of the suffering, but this is also a fight for small-d democracy around the world.
It’s great to see that President Biden is making that point so clearly. Truly the leader for this moment.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: ha, you’ve got that right.
Are you planning to watch the speech now that you’re back. Truly a great speech.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
Also you had just typed Obama in your previous comment, so it was in your fingers.
dmsilev
@Gin & Tonic: He’s been like that for a long time.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Okay, let’s go with that. :-)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Beautiful speech.
On another note, I was figuring that Putain was going to start slamming more of Lviv from afar. If he decides to do a demo shot that’s chem or nuclear, it’ll land there.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: What is the moron up to now?
Jackmac
@Kelly: wonderful! I started singing along.
Kent
@Gin & Tonic: OK, I did a deeper dive into that creep and now I need a shower. Wow. I guess I haven’t been paying attention. He does have 44K twitter followers though, so some people are eating up his bile.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: Will try to catch the whole thing later! I did hear this: “For God’s sake, this man [Putin] cannot remain in power.” Whoa!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
A diatribe of no fewer than 10,000 words is being furiously pounded out by an area substacker in a favela in Rio….
dmsilev
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I’ve decided to stop paying attention to him. Saves a lot of time.
JPL
@WaterGirl: He was excellent, and it was the best speech that I’ve heard him give.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I heard that too, on a CBS radio report. It was striking, and is probably a realistic appraisal of what it will take to end this war.
Fair Economist
Wow, Biden was really on fire with that speech.
James E Powell
@Gin & Tonic:
The avatar of the stupidity of our political discourse. He has been stupid & disingenuous his whole career.
Ksmiami
Putin’s Russia must cease to exist. Over and over.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@dmsilev:
I’m guessing his money is way down since the ruble imploded. Haven’t seen one of those weird rando “I Just Subscribed to Greenwald’s Substack” tweets for several weeks now.
Other MJS
@Kelly: Find of the week!
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Yep. Biden has his eyes wide open and he knows what we are up against, and not just in Ukraine.
JPL
@Geminid: They are walking it back to suggest he did not mean regime change. Since he was addressing the Russian people, I assumed that change had to come within their own country.
Uncle Cosmo
Replay opens at about 25:00 but seems to start some time after President Uncle Joe started speaking. Wonder what I’m missing?
Dorothy A. Winsor
I just listened to Biden’s speech. Thanks for posting it. Very inspirational
LivinginExile
@Gin & Tonic: I saw Blitzed on celebrity jeopardy once. Dumb as a bucket of bolts.
debbie
Villago Delenda Est
Vlad, like the GQp, doesn’t believe in “democratic principles.” He believes, like the GQp, in nothing but power and the accumulation of wealth. Both are evil, both hate the Enlightenment, and both must be removed from the equation, one way or another.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kelly: Ball hit out of the park. Will need a visa, because it will land in Venezuela. AndrejNkv is a true poet.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m still thinking about Biden saying Putin cannot remain in power. That’s pretty strong. I wonder what he’s thinking about
debbie
@Uncle Cosmo:
I’m watching on youtube. There was milling crowds and a light and sound check. His first words were, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Captain C
@Kent:
Getting busted for raping kids isn’t good for one’s psyche. That probably had a lot to do with it.
Geminid
@JPL: It makes sense to walk it back to the extent of saying that President Biden wasn’t adamant that this has to happen. In any event it is the Ukrainians who will set the terms of a ceasefire and peace.
I think Biden used this phrasing advisedly though.
debbie
debbie
(Great photo at the Tweet.)
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Doubt it’s anything specific.
debbie
Amazing how quiet the crowd is.
Dorothy A. Winsor
dc
Everything Biden said in that speech about forces of democracy against forces of autocracy applies to our country too. Democracy has to be won every day.
Betty Cracker
@Dorothy A. Winsor: He said what he said, damn it.
debbie
@dc:
As Joe himself pointed out.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
Listen to the whole thing. That was just the last sentence.
Martin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I think pretty simply the Serbia plan. When Milosevic was accused of war crimes, we sanctioned Serbia until he was brought to justice. We signaled to the country that it was up to them to work out how best to do that (election, deposing, legislature etc.) but that we would not do business with a country run by a war criminal.
This is looking similar.
It isn’t forcing regime change. It’s giving the Russian people a sign they might want to consider that and they can work out the means to do so, but we’ll have nothing to do with them until that happens.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Regime change might not be policy, but Joe meant it. It’s up to the Russian citizens to rid us of the monster.
JPL
@Geminid: yup
Betty Cracker
@debbie: I know, but now some anonymous White House spokesperson is telling us that the sentence in question that we all heard didn’t mean what it clearly meant. That’s bullshit. I’m disappointed that they felt the need to do that.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: All they had to say was that he’s serious about wanting the Russian people to demand new leadership.
Betty Cracker
@JPL: Exactly! They could even add “it doesn’t signal a change in current U.S. policy” if they felt a need to quiet the nervous nellies. The WH statement as issued sucks because when someone says, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” those words have meaning.
Martin
@Betty Cracker: They *really* need to do that. That clip is going to be played on endless loop on every Russian media outlet. “Biden wants to overthrow the Russian government, just as Putin had claimed.”
Biden fucked up. He let a policy of indirect action (the US will sanction Russia until things change) be expressed as a direct action (we will depose Russia). He knows better. His moral outrage got the better of him there.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
You’re right, of course. I’m just not looking forward to the GQP hot takes.
It really was one hell of a speech.
debbie
@Martin:
Being safe isn’t helpful. Staking out a strong position is what’s needed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: I am convinced that at least 90% of Biden’s “gaffes” are entirely intentional. I have little doubt that this one was as well.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, all dude had to say was “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” and it was lights out for Becket.
Baud
Good speech.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Me too. We’ll see.
TonyG
@Kent:
@Gin & Tonic: Huh. Scott Ritter is a name that I haven’t heard much in the past 19 years. Apparently he is a pedofile. Also, like another Putin apologist, Chris Hedges, he’s been paid by RT for the past couple of years. Maybe Putin has some additional blackmail information on him? Or maybe he’s just swayed by the RT paycheck.
Omnes Omnibus
@TonyG: Aside from his conviction, I think that his treatment by the Bush Administration left him a bit embittered.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Here in the US, the right wing got so apoplectic over FDR winning 4 free and fair elections that they agitated for (and got) a constitutional amendment so it could never happen again.
Meanwhile, they and their tankie buddies will knob slobber all over despotic 20 to 30+ year rule gerontocratic strongmen who make the lives of the people they cower worse.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Really not looking forward to hearing Tom Massie speak tonight.
Warblewarble
Not ready to make nice, great speech.
Martin
Ukrainian intelligence believes that virtually all (90%) of Russias equipment being pulled out of storage is basically worthless – either parts were stolen, or simply not maintained and being inoperable. Commander of one of those units apparently has shot himself.
Obv impossible to verify, but tracks pretty well with what we’ve seen from the outset.
bjacques
I can’t help thinking of Putin’s typhoid chickens coming home to roost regarding 2016. Supposing Hillary won despite his efforts. She probably gets a single term, still weighed down by 35 years of manufactured baggage, and continued badgering by Fox and Russian troll farms *and Trump TV*. There’s no Women’s March or wave of disgust swinging Congress to the Democrats, so she doesn’t have much to show for four years. A more credible-sounding Republican than Trump (or maybe even Trump) wins in 2020. Putin at least has an easier time in Ukraine, because the Republican President isn’t spearheading any effort to supply weapons to the Ukrainians, and he definitely doesn’t have to worry about crippling sanctions. Unintended consequences…
Baud
@bjacques:
Plausible. But alternative histories are hard.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Maybe. I’m not sure it’s lost on anyone what the US plan and position is here. Since Biden doesn’t need the propaganda but Putin does, seems like a weird thing to give away.
Omnes Omnibus
@bjacques: @Baud: HRC wins. We get hit by a meteor. GOP blames HRC for the meteor. Then everyone dies.
Equally plausible.
Gin & Tonic
@Martin: The nation you call sacrificial lambs might disagree.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: If everyone knows it, what is he giving away? Sometimes people need to hear things even if they need to be walked back pro forma.
StringOnAStick
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Please see my quote from Heather Cox Richardson at the end of the last thread to get an idea of what Barr, and by extension the scary religious wingnuts you have to go hobknob with, really think and why.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: Judy Holliday.
Martin
@Gin & Tonic: I don’t think so. Biden will make his intentions clear with Zelenskyy and Zelenskyy can make the most of how to use that for the Ukrainian people.
It doesn’t change what our underlying intent is, just how it’s used by Putin to shore up his support, which runs counter to his intent. He wants Putin to be and feel weak. We help the Ukrainian people by giving them faith in their leader and showering them with weapons. Understand that one of the opening assumptions by many was that the Ukrainian people weren’t sufficiently loyal to Zelenskyy and Ukraine (based on polling, previous elections, attitudes in the east of the nation) to stand and fight. Zelenskyy did an absolutely masterful job of rallying his nation. There is simply no substitute for that, so keep the spotlight on him. Give him credit. Let him demand things from the US and have us come through on those demands.
StringOnAStick
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Let me make this easier; here’s what HCR had to say:
Betty
@Betty Cracker: That has Twitter in an uproar about his incoherence. The White House has apparently walked it back. Responses to the criticism are saying that we all are thinking the same thing.
zhena gogolia
@Fair Economist: I’ll have to listen. I was out for a walk.
StringOnAStick
@StringOnAStick: The rights she’s referring to in the quote are to abortion, birth control, same sex marriage, interracial marriage; all on the conservative 6 USSC members target list.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Some might even say preferable.
Baud
@Betty:
That signals to me that it’s a winner.
Baud
@StringOnAStick:
There was a Seinfeld episode about that.
zhena gogolia
@Martin: It makes no difference what is played on Russian media outlets. They blamed the 2012 mass demonstrations on Hillary Clinton. Who cares.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Because everyone *outside* of Putin’s media control knows it. But the people *inside* Putin’s media control don’t. Putin now has evidence. You think he’s going to run the walk back? Fuck no. This will be evidence that the US is running assassination squads inside Russia to kill Putin. Have we learned nothing from the GOP?
Stay on message. That’s all. It’s not a massive gaffe, but it’s a gaffe. We didn’t need that on tape. It only helps Putin and nobody else. Again, just stay on message.
Baud
I’m not sure Putin will allow Russian media to play a clip of Biden telling people that Putin cannot remain in power.
ETA: OTOH, now that Putin had seen Twitter attack Biden, maybe he will.
Betty
@StringOnAStick: And that is maybe the biggest travesty of Hillary’s loss. Who knows how long until the damgerous 6 can be replaced?
Old Dan and Little Ann
@Baud: Ukraine and domain rhyme. Coincidence?
Geminid
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I’m glad you are willing. You can do a lot of good as a judge and this may help you achieve that goal.
And you can tell us about it! That stuff interests me and I don’t think I’m the only one.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: Maybe he thought that the American who have been demanding that we do something, the Ukrainian people, and the people of Poland, Romanian, the Baltic states, etc., needed to hear it more. Bucking up “our” side is a thing as well. Maybe you are right and this is one of his few real gaffes, but I wouldn’t be so certain.
Baud
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
There are no coincidences on my whiteboard.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: It’s all enemy action? Just remember that you are not paranoid if they really are out to get you.
Martin
@zhena gogolia: Here’s Biden’s opener, which is fantastic:
“A dictator, bent on rebuilding an empire, will never erase the people’s love for liberty… Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia, for free people refuse to live in a world of hopelessness and darkness.”
And then
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power”
Which is contradictory to the first part. If we are trying to convince the people of Russia to be a free people, to embrace democracy – an implementation of a social contract made between the people to decide what the state should be, how it should work, what it should protect. To then assert that ‘Putin cannot remain in power’ from outside that contract is to suggest that Biden or the US gets to dictate what that contract should be, which is the opposite of a democracy.
I know this is a subtle point, but it’s a criticism that has been leveled at democratic nations forever because, well, it’s too often true. That despite our assertions of democracy, we don’t actually walk the walk. We deny it to indigenous peoples, to slaves, to blacks in Jim Crow, to a whole host of other nations – Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, a good chunk of Central America, and so on. These examples of ‘world building’ by democratic nations are the bedrock of authoritarians – that we seek to convince nations to adopt this difficult to maintain form of government and then just steamroll it because it lacks a powerful hand in an authoritarian leader.
The message up until that last sentence was that Russia can do what it wants within Russia. But if they want to be a bad neighbor, the neighborhood does not need to interact with them in any way. We don’t have to accept their money or their goods. And if they don’t like this, then they need to run the country in a way that makes them a good neighbor. It is akin to the philosophy of parenting between making a decision for a child or letting the child decide but making them live with the consequences of that – knowing that at some point the child will be an adult where the latter will be unavoidable. Most people understand this even if philosophy of governance and foreign policy are infinitely more complex affairs.
His expression should not be ‘this man cannot remain in power’, but ‘the people of Russia will need to pay the consequences of this man that they allow to remain in power’. Ukrainians of all people don’t need to hear this message. They are fucking PISSED at Russians because Ukraine shook off their shitty leaders – very, very recently. They did that work. They protested. They voted people out. They demanded reform and fair elections. They watched their preferred candidates get poisoned. They watched Putin say repeatedly ‘this man cannot remain in power’ to them. They want far more than Americans do for Russians do stand up, choose their own destiny, and set their own leadership. They get it. We just need to stay on message. They don’t need our statements in opposition to Putin, they need ammunition.
Winston
Maybe if a few cruise missiles would land here would send a message.
debbie
@Martin:
I think it was far more important for the citizens of Ukraine and every country in that region to hear that we here stand with them rather than some diplomatically correct pablum.
ETA: This is clearly a time when the heart matters more than the brain.
JPL
@Omnes Omnibus: From Rick Wilson, who I will forever hate for what he did to Max Cleland, but even a clock is right twice tweeted this
After the clownish antics of Trump’s dictator-fellating time in office, please seek the Mysterious Valley of My Missing Fucks if you think Biden calling for the end of Putin’s regime is some kind of serious argument against Joe Biden.
Omnes Omnibus
@Winston: Stop trying to make WWIII happen.
Omnes Omnibus
Do you think that they are only getting one of those things?
zhena gogolia
@Martin:
I read this:
as a cri de coeur, not a plan of action.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: We have all the time in the world to buck up our people. Nobody here is seriously questioning that we are doing too much and even the Putin-curious GOPers have gotten on the right page despite Tucker’s bullshit. Nobody thinks we want Putin to stay in power – it doesn’t need to be said.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: I think they only care about one of those things.
zhena gogolia
@JPL:
And
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@StringOnAStick:
A friend of mine went through a SSPX/Opus Dei-curious phase about 20 years ago. He told me that his notion of “liberty” was the “liberty to create a society bound by moral rules that he wanted imposed on all”.
He got much better as his kids aged.
debbie
@JPL:
If I ever return to work, I will have to remember this phrase.
Carlo Graziani
The audience of that message is not “the Russian People”, who have no independent, unfiltered access to any message anyway.
The audience is the Russian military and the FSB. They are being told, explicitly, that there are no off-ramps with Putin in power. That the sanctions will remain in place. They already know that there is no chance for a settlement in which Russian troops leave the territories that they entered on 24 February so long as Putin remains in power. That’s the rock. Now they know the hard place: No peace is acceptable on that basis.
They also know the implications: by fall, a can of cabbage will cost $25 in Moscow, and there will be food riots, and in the meantime they won’t have enough of an army left to take on a small-town police force.
They just got invited to give him the shove.
Martin
@zhena gogolia: No, I agree. That’s why I said that I think Biden’s moral outrage got the better of him. I get it.
But he’s the leader of the free world. If anyone needs to exercise consistent message discipline, it’s the person in that seat. It’s why Trump was so catastrophic. He’s got the entire rest of the federal government to choose from to deliver that more direct message from a messenger that won’t be immediately recognized on Russian state media.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: You are a very rational, data-driven person. Your posts here show that. Sometimes, that isn’t what works for the majority of people.
zhena gogolia
@Martin: And I am telling you that Russian state media doesn’t care about the truth ever, so whether or not they have a clip of Biden saying this makes absolutely no difference.
zhena gogolia
Did Soviet state media play the clip of “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”?
WaterGirl
@Baud: @Omnes Omnibus:
In part of his speech he talked directly to the Russian people and said he knew they would be able to see through Putin’s lies. (my paraphrase)
Biden was planting the seed. His audience was the Russian people, quite possibly the Russian troops, and all the countries in the world.
Baud
If Putin is thrown out of a window tomorrow, I wonder if the media will give Biden the credit.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: We were told that that’s what ended the Cold War. Are you saying that was not true? Let me find where i put my shocked face. It is around here someplace.
WaterGirl
@Martin: I imagine that shooting yourself may look preferable to whatever might be coming your way from Putin.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: The same people who would pay attention to Biden now paid attention to Reagan back then. There aren’t enough of them to effect regime change.
Martin
@JPL: To be clear, I agree with this entirely. This is in no way a disqualifying act by Biden. I think it undermined the argument he was trying to make up to that moment. I think it will help Putin build support.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@zhena gogolia:
Joe is who he is – every old Catholic dad and granddad from my neighborhood when I was a kid. Steady, works the fish fry and bingo, attends men’s club. He’s old-fashioned and a little out-of-touch, but has a good moral compass and sense of justice with regard to every person he’s ever interacted with.
Those were the very qualities I found made him appealing as a candidate.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: And most of us seem to think you are wrong.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: He also seems very confident he knows what Ukrainians want.
zhena gogolia
Oh, watching the speech now and crying. It is inspired.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
Clearly, listening to Reagan’s quavering voice made it happen.
zhena gogolia
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Yeah.
Ken
@zhena gogolia: I know they played the one of “I have signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. The bombing starts in five minutes.”
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: What if he just falls, accidentally, and isn’t thrown?
The Thin Black Duke
I think Biden did fine. Micromanaging every dotted “I” and crossed “T” is ridiculous.
debbie
Ironic that GHWB called for the demise of “Saadam” and was hailed as a hero. And he was talking about literal demise!
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Aren’t all Russian defenestrations accidents?
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Kind of like there’s no point in Dems saying “we can’t do this or they will say that in response” when we know the Rs are lying sacks of shit who will just make stuff up.
So we may as well do what’s right.
Carlo Graziani
There is, in my opinion, zero chance that that was an ill-considered, improvised throw-away line. Zero. To many significant figures. It’s ridiculous theater criticism to even suggest such a thing. Biden knows exactly what he’s doing.
And please, everyone, keep in mind that the information on the situation in both Russia and in Ukraine that is at his disposal is certainly vastly better than anything we have, or anything feeding the twitterati currently all a-ruffled. I think the guy has handled the business well enough so far to have earned the benefit of the doubt, and while we can try to divine what work various parts of a speech like this are intended to do, the “OMG HE BLEW HIS LINE” hot take is absurd on its face.
WaterGirl
@Baud:
Fixed that for you:
Narrator: No, they won’t.
Omnes Omnibus
@Carlo Graziani: Exactly.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: Right.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I loved the part in Biden’s speech today where he said that it wasn’t a few words that brought down the wall.
A not very subtle correction of history, I thought.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Let Bartlett be Bartlett.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: “The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here.”
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: You out-quoted me, you bastard. :-)
Martin
@zhena gogolia: I disagree. The media can say that Ukraine is going to win this war all day long, but visual evidence of that *does* amplify the message.
Let me illustrate this a different way. If an American knows who Nikita Khrushchev is, they will know he said ‘we will bury you’. They won’t know when or where he said it, they won’t know the context, they won’t know if it was walked back. They might also know that he brandished a shoe at the UN and banged on a desk, but there’s no evidence he did so. The photo I have in my memory going back to middle-school civics was a fake. There’s no photo of him holding his shoe. He may or may not have done it, but our memories of this are all wrong.
Both of those events were used by western media, textbook authors, and so on to portray Khrushchev and the USSR as an absolute evil that necessitated the funding of a near limitless number of nuclear weapons. We would have spun the same narrative without those events, but the *evidence* of them is what sticks with us to this day. It is one thing to lie, it’s another to lie with *proof*.
Biden’s line was proof that Putin’s lie wasn’t a lie. All of the nuance and context will be stripped from it just as we did that speech in Poland, and that protest at the UN against some resolution involving Spain’s Franco (which to be honest, we probably somewhat agreed with since we weren’t exactly thrilled with Franco either).
If the US with a pretty fair and open media can keep a propaganda narrative running for 60 years in the minds of the public based on two tiny excerpts, one of which was fabricated but had plausible confirmation, then Russia will have no problem doing the same. And the proof is what makes it stick. It can still work without, but boy howdy is it easier and better if you have it.
Kropacetic
@Martin: Damn that was long. Glenn?
WaterGirl
Alexander Vindman liked the speech:
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: You have made your point. You have not convinced people. Nevertheless, the horse is dead.
Kent
@Omnes Omnibus:
If Clinton wins we likely don’t have a 6-3 fascist majority on SCOTUS. That’s not nothing. Unless McConnell can hold out 4 more years which I doubt.
JPL
@Martin: Although this would add fuel to the fire, it would be pretty funny if Biden said name one person besides trump that would disagree with me.
zhena gogolia
@Martin: The word Khrushchev used didn’t refer to burial of a corpse. It was burying us with their economic progress, something like that. ETA: Maybe I’m wrong about this.
I just finished watching the speech and I am sobbing. That line was not ad libbed and it wasn’t a gaffe. And I don’t see any way that it makes anything worse.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s fine. I stand by my assessment. It was a great speech. The last line undermined it. Biden is still overall handling this masterfully. One of my biggest worries when he won the election was how the fuck he was going to restore the US standing with Europe and other nations, and he’s managed to do it in 18 months. I am astounded at how good the situation is today and I give him all of the credit. Is it perfect? No.
I can be critical of the guy and still think he’s the best we could have hoped for in this situation. There’s nothing contradictory about that.
There go two miscreants
@StringOnAStick:
“Our Constitution mentions religion just twice, and both times the word ‘no’ is attached.” (Ellery Schempp)
Martin
@JPL: That would be funny.
JPL
ot This guy could replace Warnock, unless we get out the votes
tweet
Winston
@JPL: What does CTR mean?
Martin
Speaking of being held accountable. The Jan 6 committee evidence includes testimony that Eastman, when pitching his legal theory to Pence indicated that he thought two justices would support it, one of which being Thomas.
This now suggests that Clarence Thomas was at least aware of the plot, and possibly a component of it. I would like to see the Jan 6 committee now subpoena both Ginni and Clarence. Time to start the public hearings.
Ksmiami
@Carlo Graziani: there is no future for Russia- and the world with Putin in his current position. This isn’t a missed line, or obfuscation. One way or another Putin will be ended
WaterGirl
I just rewatched the end of Biden’s speech, and I totally agree with zhena – “that line was not ad libbed and it wasn’t a gaffe.”
I think this was deliberate, and planned. It was the closing line. if it was an ad lib, then I think he might have rambled on a bit, but he most definitely did not. He barely took a breath between “freedom and possibilities” and “For god’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
The final 45 seconds of the speech is totally building toward that final sentence.
Watch it again starting at 49:30, right after he says “Be not afraid!” It ends at 50:12. It takes less than a minute to watch that again.
Geminid
@Carlo Graziani: I think you have it right here.
Gin & Tonic
Just talked with one of my oldest and closest friends in Lviv – today’s bombing was about a half-mile from his home. He and his wife are basically living at his work, which is a safer location, just go home to shower and eat.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: For one thing, you don’t ad lib in a speech this big.
Ishiyama
What Uncle Joe Biden said was the right thing to say, and was said the right way. It is the most important article in the Terms of Peace. Say it now, make it clear – you can’t pursue his war crimes trial until he is in custody. Anything less than war crimes trials is “solution unsatisfactory”.
Gin & Tonic
The mood in Ukraine:
Note also that there are two verbs in Ukrainian which translate as “to die” – one is reserved for people, and the other for non-human animals. Two guesses which one is used here referencing Putin.
Geminid
@Winston: I expect that Walker meant “CRT”, that is, Critical Race Theory.
Herschel Walker took too many hits playing football. He would do better to apply for the NFL’s program that supports (not very well) it’s brain-injured retirees than to run for the Senate.
Walker will get this nomination because his churlish patron demands it, but the only way he’ll take that seat from Senator Warnock is if the Republicans steal it for him.
zhena gogolia
I wonder if all the mentions of John Paul were partly a message to Francis
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Or the home crowd.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: that of course, but it was so blatant
Ella in New Mexico
@Kent: It appears he’s completely lost his mind.
Spending years in online chatrooms sexting and masterbating with women and underage females may have been an early clue
Tazj
@WaterGirl: I don’t think it was an ad-lib either. Some reporters(Daniel Dale) are saying he went off script and there was a bit of a walk back but I think they wanted it out there, after all the atrocities that have been committed.
LivinginExile
@Carlo Graziani: I hope you’re right. Also, I have enjoyed your posts and comments.
Miss Bianca
@Kelly: Wow. That’s good enough to be one of Subaru Diane’s.
Jerzy Russian
@Gin & Tonic:
The non-human form was used?
German (and Dutch I believe) have (at least) two words for “eat”, one for humans and one for animals. I wonder how many examples there are of languages having different verbs to describe similar actions by humans and animals.
Kalakal
@WaterGirl: Totally this
The last 45 seconds of that speech are about morality and righteousness. They are about inspiring his audience(s). You don’t inspire people with pro forma diplomatic language, you make clear the choices ahead, between dark and light. What would have been foolish would have been to call for retribution on the Russian people, he didn’t, he made it clear the choice was between a world led by Putin or a world where Putin is without power.
zhena gogolia
@Kalakal: such a breath of fresh air after Trump
David Koch
Biden should smile more, but not too much.
evodevo
@bjacques: Yeah, quite plausible…and because no mid-term victory for Dems in the House, Repubs control both houses and we get no judges OR SC justice noms…and no programs passed when covid hits. Yep…would have been a disappointment. And 2020 could well have been won by a Repub, or even Trumpy. HOWEVER, NATO wouldn’t have been weakened, but it would still have to cope with Trumpy’s treason for the last year. Putin wouldn’t have hesitated to invade right after Jan 20, 2021, with Trumpy and the MAGAts blessing…
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
I think it’s long past time to change warfare from bullets and bombs to hurling insults back and forth.
August West
@Martin:
“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.” – Barack Obama
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/14/obama-biden-relationship-393570
WaterGirl
@August West: I went to the link. That is a totally unsourced comment that was supposedly made by Barack Obama. Anyone could have made that up.
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hi Rip! How was your 30-year nap?
PaulB
One interesting thing about Scott Ritter’s take on things is that he does the equivalent of “you’re the puppet!” several times.
Russian war crimes? “An unpopular take: when the dust settles, Russia will be found to have conducted a military campaign where assiduous compliance with the law of war was the norm. Ukraine, on the other hand, will be the subject of numerous war crimes investigations.”
Russian logistics problems? In a three-tweet thread, he begins with: “Some harsh realities are about to come home to roost in Ukraine. War is all about logistics; you can’t fight if you don’t have food, water, fuel, and ammunition.”
and ends with: “Logistics wins wars. Ukrainian logistics are no longer functioning.”
Things haven’t gone Russia’s way? “I’ve never seen such a level of self-delusion as what I’m witnessing on CNN this morning. They think Ukraine is winning the war. How are they going to spin Zelensky’s inevitable surrender, which is going to happen sooner rather than later?”
Russian casualties? “I’ve been informed that I mistranslated the Russian report on Ukrainian casualties. 14,000 killed, 16,000 wounded or sick, unable to fight.”
Russian army numbers giving it, on paper, an advantage? “190,000 Russian troops are fighting 180,000 Ukrainian regular troops trained and organized to NATO standards and another 310,000 reservists and security forces. Normal attack-defense ratios call for a 3 to 1 advantage. Russia is attacking at 1 to 2.5+ disadvantage and is winning.”
Russian aggression? “History will soon treat all the ‘good’ Ukrainians who minimize the Nazi cancer in their midst as it has the ‘good’ German residents of Dachau who ignored the existence of a death camp next door even though ash from the crematoriums coated their homes. Nazi ideology is evil.”
Russian tanks? “Russia has destroyed more than 1,200 Ukrainian tanks so far. In less than three weeks. And they’re losing?” [A response to that tweet indicates that the confirmed number of Ukrainian tanks lost is … 55.]
Wow….
Citizen Alan
@evodevo: Even with all that, I would still rather have had the Clinton victory in 2016. Because if Hillary had won, I think the republicans would have rushed through Merrick Garland before she took office rather than risk circumstances changing and her getting someone younger and more liberal into Scalia”s seat. And Merrick Garland on SCOTUS means partisan gerrymandering would have been struck down as unconstitutional.
Uncle Cosmo
Auf deutsch, 3, in descending order: speisen, essen, fressen. Peter Armbrust, my excellent second-year German instructor, differentiated them as follows:
(Everyone got it, especially us “townies”! :^D)
** Present tenses of essen and fressen, respectively.
SamIAm
@Omnes Omnibus:
Although Winston is an ignoramus I have to inform you WW III is already in progress.