President Biden explains his Warsaw ad-lib:
President Biden: "I'm not walking anything back…I was expressing the moral outrage I felt toward the way Putin is dealing…I wasn't then nor am I now articulating a policy change. I was expressing moral outrage that I feel and I make no apologies for it." pic.twitter.com/YrfSVxdiHY
— CSPAN (@cspan) March 28, 2022
See how easy that was? Good for him.
There were a couple of comments in earlier discussions speculating that the so-called gaffe was planned. I don’t believe it; it was just Biden being Biden.
Open thread.
Baud
You go, Joe!
Salty Sam
Refreshing change from the usual “cringe, cower, and explain” (if you’re explaining you’re losing) Dem response to fauxtrage.
Good on Joe! He continues to rise to the challenge!
Brachiator
The media is used to faux outrage. Genuine moral outrage is new to them.
And of course Trump had no morals at all. Easy to deal with.
realbtl
I get the feeling Joe’s bag of fucks to give is empty.
WaterGirl
Great job, Joe!
I wonder if the Biden response over the weekend was in part kind of lame and wishy-washy is because both Jen and her assistant person are both out with Covid?
They said today in the press conference – we got the one male on the team for the first time! – that Jen is going stir crazy, so maybe she’s back at work and she’s got Joe’s back. I get the feeling that there’s a lot of trust between them.
Old School
And, of course, Biden had to explain it a second time moments later.
Geminid
@Salty Sam: I wonder if headlines are being written calling Joe Biden “defiant.” That was the go-to adjective during the evacuation of Afghanistan. I thought that was funny, because “defiant” has positive connotations. Especially when it comes to defying the media’s talking heads.
trollhattan
@realbtl:
The Biden Fvcks Field, it it barren, all hundred acres.
MisterDancer
Excellent re-setting of the stakes by Joe.
WaterGirl
@Old School: Oh my god, what a fucking condescending question from that reporter?!!!!!
“Do you [who i apparently think is a fucking moron] understand why people would think that…”
FUCK HER
edit: oh good, he replied to her with “it’s ridiculous!”
You go Joe!
trollhattan
@WaterGirl:
“I refuse to accept you not being got by my gotcha.”
Salty Sam
Oh, you can count on it. Or, he’s “sending mixed messages” during a crisis. They’ll spin it as weakness one way or another.
I’ve given up on the fourth estate. But Joe just gave a rousing rallying cry to all of US, the jackals here, and the folx like us, and to the Schiffs and Whitehouses in Congress who are fighting to defend democracy, both here and in the rest of the world.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: Exactly. I seriously want to smack that woman, and I don’t hit people.
Betty Cracker
I didn’t see the whole press conference, but he was asked the same question in several different ways. Incredibly frustrating because the first time he answered it (clip above) was 100% clear.
WaterGirl
@Salty Sam: Rallying cry… say more about what you mean by that.
geg6
Re-posting from the thread below:
On topic, this is why I quit watching cable news. You don’t get the whole story on local news, but at least you don’t have to sit through stupid shit from the WHPC.
zhena gogolia
Fuck them. As someone said below, have you noticed that Putin has sent several assassination teams to kill Zelenskyy? Why don’t you ask about that? Why are you always trying to undermine the president?
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I didn’t put up the press conference because it was just about the budget.
What is wrong with me? I should have realized that none of the questions would be about the budget. sigh.
Ken
@Betty Cracker: I’m sure with modern technology, the President (or Psaki for that matter) could say “your colleague just asked the same thing, let’s go to instant replay”, and then show the video of the previous question/answer on a screen. Maybe with some rewinds and slo-mo to zoom in on the questioner’s lips moving.
JPL
Don Lemon who is in Ukraine, agreed with Biden and said the entire crisis over words was created by the media. CNN then had a round table that agreed with him.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
“When you said that line in your speech, were you unaware of how the media would use it to undermine your presidency? If so, what does that say about your ability to lead?”
Litlebritdifrnt
Kids are being bombed, premie babies are not able to be moved to the basement because they are too fragile, they are being bombed. At what point do the fucking snowflakes tut tutting about his comments not agree that this murderer cannot be allowed to remain in office. This mother fucker is using teenagers to murder people on his behalf. He is sending them to their death to make him look good, to make him look powerful, and strong. His Generals are getting murdered by their own Men because they cannot stand it, they have no supplies (except twenty year out of date comrats), their equipment is shit because the oligarches took the money and outsourced the equipment to China which fails the moment it encounters Ukranian mud. They have suffered more losses in a Month than they suffered in ten years in Afghanistan. At some point everyone has to understand that Joe Biden has had enough. He held a refugee child in his arms and he got fucking mad. Yes he is the leader of the free world but he is husband, a dad and a granddad. You bet he is pissed, and all of those namby fucking pamby reporters pissing their pants about his words should either strap on some weapons and help out or shut the fuck up. I am tired of people thinking that the President should not be a human being with real thoughts about the innocent people being murdered by this madman. You elected him because of his empathy, and now the fucking wankers are turning on him because of it. Sorry but I am am so sick of this shit, I really am.
Baud
@JPL:
That’s good to hear. Wasn’t CNN previously leading the outrage brigrade?
gene108
Biden said what so many of us are thinking and wishing for, a Russia without Putin in charge.
jackmac
“I’m not walking anything back.”
Clear, no bullshit. Nicely articulated Mr. President.
Urza
@WaterGirl: Rallying cry Yo Joe! A callback to people around early 40s childhood. We’re practically living GI Joe vs Cobra at this point. Terrorist organization trying to take over the world, using businesses to hide and fund their nefarious deeds. Underneath all that is a truly insane religion of crazy snake people that think they’re better than everyone else by birthright.
Got Joe defending democracy and freedom across the globe.
germy
Roman Abramovich and Ukrainian Peace Negotiators Suffer Suspected Poisoning
Republicans in our country only poison the discourse. (well okay, our water and air, too.) I hope they’re not getting any ideas from their man in Moscow.
Baud
“Mr. President, President Trump would have banned us from the White House for the way we’re acting. You refuse to do so. Aren’t you concerned that Putin will think you’re weak?”
LongHairedWeirdo
One interesting thing to consider. The reason a call for a new Russian president is controversial is mostly because we don’t expect there to *be* a free and fair election in Russia that would displace him.
In a country with free and fair elections, a war-starter might lead every other nation in the world to wish (he, in this case) fails re-election. And seriously, would anyone but the Republican Party elect Putin in a free and fair election? He invaded another nation, tanked the economy, lost valuable military assets, and, oh, yeah, Russians are dying or getting captured. Not a good look heading into a fair election.
germy
“Mr. President, you took Afghanistan away from us. Surely you owe us another war.”
MagdaInBlack
@Litlebritdifrnt: With you 100%. Every single f-bomb.
JPL
@Baud: Alison Cameroti at first was taken back, and then when another journalist in Ukraine mentioned Lemon was being mild, she changed tune
When Tapper came on at four, I turned it off.
Salty Sam
I have watched and listened to too many Dems react to the Firehouse of Fauxtrage by curling up into the fetal position and just wait for it all to blow over. When they try to explain, the explanations get twisted up against them as well. That typical reaction has ALWAYS left me cold, and gives me zero reason to support or follow such a quivering bag of jelly.
Joe just made (repeatedly, because the questioners are as dumb as a box of rocks, and are still trying to “gotcha” him) a strong, unequivocal statement, BACKING UP HIS ORIGINAL STATEMENT (I refuse to call it a “gaffe” again)- he makes me PROUD to be a liberal Democrat, and I will go to the matt to support him and his policies.
Moral clarity is a powerful and attractive force in the world.
Martin
I think people are missing the point. There’s an old adage that if you have to explain the joke, it was a terrible joke. A corollary would be that if you have to explain part of your carefully prepared speech 3 days later, then it was a gaffe (or really poorly written, which doesn’t happen in well run White Houses).
Biden doesn’t want to be talking about this now. That’s what staying on message means – you deliver your message, and you get to move on. Every minute he spends on this is a minute he’s not spending on something he wants to talk about – billionaire tax plan, energy policy, etc. That’s what makes it a gaffe.
Is it a disingenuous take by the media, etc? Yeah. I never said it wasn’t. But that’s what they *do*. You can’t just wish that Putin and CNN won’t do that, and you can’t expect them to run your walk-backs as prominently as the statement itself, so walking it back has limited impact. You know going in that they will, so you make sure your presentation pre-empts that. It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t an expression of US policy, it matters that he now needs to explain that it wasn’t an expression of US policy because it could have been taken as such when uttered.
And I said at the time it was a minor thing because Joe let his moral outrage get the better of him, which he does, and it turns out that’s what happened. I happen to find that both an endearing and beneficial quality of a US president. Trump lacked any kind of moral outrage, and it showed. Hell, the climax of any story involving the president is when they throw off the shackles of the diplomatic speech and give in to their moral outrage. We love that shit. Doesn’t mean it furthers their interests, though.
Butch
@Litlebritdifrnt: Thank you for saying what I was trying to put into words.
WaterGirl
@Ken:
I would pay good money to see that!
WaterGirl
@Baud: I snorted when I read that. ( always so attractive! )
That is exactly it.
Chief Oshkosh
POTUS: I SAID WHAT I SAID.
Press: ..b-b-but…
POTUS: I SAID WHAT I SAID.
Me: I love it.
WaterGirl
@Salty Sam: Moral clarity is necessary in these times.
Mallard Filmore
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I’m not 100% there yet. Yesterday I saw a YouTube video of some soldier riding on the front of a tank, jumping down while the tank was still in motion, then scooting off to the side.
Maybe this general was doing this hot-shot cowboy thing, jumped down, had a mis-step and couldn’t get out of the way. I doubt that a tank driver has the same clear field of view as a car or truck, so it COULD have been an accident.
Doc Sardonic
@Litlebritdifrnt: Damn, I need a cigarette and a short nap before you do that again
Chief Oshkosh
@LongHairedWeirdo:
Yeah, but this was pretty much what I thought during Shrub’s second campaign “surely we’re not stupid enough to re-elect this nitwit! He invaded another nation, tanked the economy, lost valuable military assets, and, oh, yeah, Americans are dying or getting captured. Not a good look heading into a fair election.”
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: Somewhere, likely on Twitter, I saw that after Stalin had sent 5 (?) separate teams to try to kill Tito, Tito said publicly “Stop sending teams to try to kill me, otherwise I will send one to Moscow. And I won’t have to send a second.”
Baud
@WaterGirl:
How about immoral clarity? That’s something I can do.
trollhattan
@Litlebritdifrnt:
?????
(Also, Biden had no Boris-like comparisons of Ukraine to the bravery behind Brexit.)
Ken
“Not in 72 hours.” Leaves rooms. Doors seal and the screen begins playing clips of all the reporter’s questions, on loop. Three days later the transport vehicle from Arkham Asylum arrives and removes the gibbering madmen.
(It’s the near-subliminal “It’s a Small World” background music that packs the real punch)
debbie
@Brachiator:
At least the streets aren’t littered with fainting couches. ? //
Salty Sam
If it brings the narrative back to the issue of (insert Litlbritdiffrnt’s fabulous comment @22), rather than furthering the myopic “how does this affect the polls/his agenda/the midterms” media bullshit, I think it furthers his interest very well.
debbie
@Old School:
He should turn it on the questioner: “Are you okay with the destruction and deaths from the saturation bombing? Would you apologize?”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So be fair they incompetent and easily detected assassination teams.
I think Putin is getting into the same media space that Trump is in; the press gives him a by because he’s a total fucked up.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: They want him to fail because he is a Democrat. Our media (especially most of the punditry) plays for Team R.
Geminid
@Chief Oshkosh: Bush’s administration was able to paper over the faults in their failing Iraq strategy well enough to survive that election, although it was still close. I think that a year later they would not have been able to do that and Bush would have lost for the reasons you describe.
trollhattan
@Salty Sam:
Frickin’ poll-watchers. “Roosevelt not necessarily harvesting renewed public support following Churchill parlay.”
I suppose the “sleepy Joe” clan are now asking why Biden didn’t do one-armed refugee curls with that girl.
SiubhanDuinne
I have Nicolle Wallace on in the background while I finish packing. She’s been away for a couple of weeks, and I had forgotten how much I enjoy her habit of never referring to TFG without first identifying him as “the disgraced and twice-impeached ex-President.” Always makes me smile.
Baud
If Obama were still president, I bet all the questions would have been about Oscargate.
debbie
@Martin:
Your take on this has been wrong since you first posted about it on Saturday.
Kay
@Martin:
There’s a school of thought among Democrats that it doesn’t matter. That if it hadn’t have been this “gaffe” it would have been something else. I don’t really go along with it, because if that’s true then “communication” really doesn’t matter but it is widely believed, somewhat justifiably, I think.
I personally didn’t hear it as “regime change” or “assassinate Putin” so IMO media overreacted, partly because they have been asking him 50 times a day to escalate, so they were primed for that interpretation. It seemed clear it was moral outrage to me. I knew it didn’t indicate some specific action.
Salty Sam
I disagree on this as well. I don’t call it a gaffe because I think this is EXACTLY what he wants to be talking about now.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Seconded. Thank you.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Doc Sardonic: Oh and another thing, where are all of these “pro life” republians evangelicals? Babies are being murdered, pregnant women are being murdered. You want to outlaw abortion? How about outlawing a fucking murdering bastard killing babies in the womb and in their cribs. Where are all these “pro life” zealots while actual real life babies are being murdered? I demand that every single one of them stand up right now and condemn the murderer, and yet “crickets” . I haven’t heard a one of them condeming Putin killing fucking babies, haven’t heard one of them condemning a murderer killing pregnant women, not-fucking-one. What does that tell you. Tells you all you need to know about these hypocrites.
stacib
@Martin: Still plucking THAT chicken even after what Biden said today. WTF
Ksmiami
@Gin & Tonic: and the CCCP never bothered Yugoslavia again- they knew Tito’s support squads were merciless
Jinchi
He’s also threatened nuclear war several times now. But still it’s beyond the pale for Biden to wish Russia would replace him with someone sane.
MazeDancer
Couldn’t love POTUS more. But willing to try.
Maybe Mr. Biden has some intelligence that Putin’s nukes and nuke team are in no better shape than the Russian tanks and teenage conscripts.
And that @POTUS is trying to get Vlad to step one inch into NATO town.
At which point the 82nd Airborne flies. And Putin is no more.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Yes, he would have been asked to take sides with either Chris or Will.
zhena gogolia
This is a good one too.
Dopey-o
Seems to me that Joe’s message was:
“Russia, if you’re listening …. a successful coup will be rewarded with better relations and loosened sanctions.”
Addressed to the oligarchs and military close to Putin.
topclimber
@Martin: When Putin determines that Biden is the bad cop and Zelenskyy is the good one, the multi-dimensional chessality of Joe’s closing line will be obvious to all. Well, not to corporate media, but to others who follow events for more than a news cycle.
Has Zelenskyy actually called for Putin’s removal? I don’t remember if, but Fog of War Coverage and all that. Maybe Vlad decides to deal with Ukraine’s President on the other side of that long table rather than with ours.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: And, despite your multiple multi-paragraph comments explaining all this, you are still wrong.
West of the Rockies
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Well said. I am sometimes stupefied by how heinous humans can be (i.e., Putin and his commanders and enablers–at home and abroad).
Martin
@Salty Sam: But that statement didn’t achieve that, as we are witnessing. I’m not saying the statement *shouldn’t* have done that, but if the WH thinks that’s how the media is going to react, then they’re fucking idiots.
And much of the problem with Biden’s statement there was that there’s considerable confusion from the public about how foreign policy and moral issues intersect. The public always struggles with that. And Biden wasn’t helping to square how the US plans on balancing those two, he was letting his own struggle bleed through when everyone wanted clarification, and where the speech was focused on clarification.
A decent chunk of the country wants to know, legitimately, why we need to sit back and watch these people die rather than do a precision strike on Putin, or some equivalent. Biden knows exactly why we are limited in terms of what we can do, but then in the speech momentarily joins the rest of us in that frustration when it’s his job to not give into it.
Martin
@stacib: That he needed to say it today proves that I was right. He should be talking about the budget that was rolled out today.
Is anyone here talking about the budget? Is anyone here talking about the real impacts that budget could have on the Ukrainian people rather than continuing to rush to Biden’s defense? He wants us to talk about the budget, so we’re just furthering the evidence that what he said was a mistake.
WaterGirl
@Martin: I don’t know, Martin. It’s certainly giving Biden the opportunity to repeat his message over and over.
Kropacetic
@Martin: As someone quite willing to call out Biden for ehat I see as dumb comments, this is not one. Putin can’t remain in power. Acknowledging this doesn’t make it our responsibility to make it so.
I hope this comment does get play in Russia and Russia’s citizens understand why he said it. I’m well past tired of our media’s proclivity to drag out the fainting couch for any outre statement made by any Democrat or anyone loosely D affiliated. It’s bullshit. Just shut off CNN.
As far as a Biden comment I’m willing to criticize, I missed the boat for the “defund the police” bit at the SOTU, so I’ll wait however many months it takes for whatever relatively minor annoyance emerges next.
evodevo
@Old School: Yeah…that shit drives me crazy…Mr.Evodevo had to turn the TV off because I start yelling insults at the obtuse reporters and saying what I would have said to them – good thing I’m not in politics…wouldn’t make it past the first press conference lol
Citizen Alan
@Chief Oshkosh: Das?
2004 was really when I lost all faith in America. Everything since then has been pretty much a rear guard action to stave off the dawn of the 4th Reich as long as possible.
Jinchi
No. It proves that the press is desperate to get a good scandal going.
Biden doesn’t control the questions he’s asked. If they didn’t chase this, they’d be pushing CRT or his ‘controversial’ SC nominee, or some other nonsense. His job is not to take the bait.
Citizen Alan
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I have said it many times and I’ll say it again. No Republican cares about any loss of human life beyond the extent to which that loss can be used to slander Democrats.
marcopolo
@Martin: I guess my response is do you really think any of these WH reporters are gonna actually ask a question about the budget? They’ve show time and again they’d prefer to ask stupid gotcha sound bite questions that their networks can play and play and replay to actually asking anything about real policy, programs, the current assault on our democracy, etc… etc… etc…. Honestly, it feels like a majority of Americans who follow the news have been trained to lap this stuff up & then turn on a dime to the next ridiculously vapid subject du jour so I don’t really see any way to break the cycle.
Salty Sam
Heh. The Kremlin’s mouthpiece Tucker Carlson* will make sure of that.
*(whoever named him “Fishstick Goebbels” should win an award- was that you Betty Cracker?)
Kropacetic
I sometimes wonder if Democrats might start doing better if they were more willing to call out Republican and media* perfidy. Individuals might struggle but if we did it as a team, maybe? How much of the media’s protection of Republicans is ideological and how much is a response to bad faith bias claims?
*But I repeat myself
Salty Sam
Like a bunch of Chocolate Labs in a room full of tennis balls…
jonas
@Baud: They’d ask if he will be having Rock and Smith over to the White House for a beer to patch things up.
Salty Sam
¿Por que no los dos?
This is, in effect, what I brought up in my first comment- Dems have been typecast by their own actions and words as mealymouthed and uninspiring cowards. I have been longing for more of them to stand up and call out bad faith IN REAL TIME, no matter the consequences with “The Media” <spit!>
Here’s hoping more of them can take some inspiration from Joe.
rekoob
@geg6: For what it’s worth, I’m interested. My sister and her husband just bought a place in North Oakland, and this would be a perfect opportunity to visit. They’re new to the area, and this might be a chance for them to meet some kindred spirits.
gwangung
@Martin:
No, it just proves what we’ve known all along: the media are dumbs hits with an agenda they’re not honest enough to admit.
Winston
Biden should move a CV battle group into the gulf of Riga.
Kropacetic
So perhaps good for nothing is a slight overstatement. Granted, my proposal is of debatable positive value. Depends on the the Russian zeitgeist.
James E Powell
I watched President Joe, but made the mistake of leaving it on while the morons asked questions. Surprising there were no questions about The Slap.
I respect this community’s standards with respect to advocating murder or other violence, so I will just say that I wish benevolent aliens would visit earth & take the entire press/media to another planet.
Salty Sam
@Kropacetic:
That, and the fact that the message will be laundered to fit the beliefs of Russians and Republicans (but I repeat myself).
Montanareddog
@Martin:
In reality
1) It was a terrible joke
2) The listener is too stupid to get the joke
3) the listener does not want you get credit for telling a decent joke
I will let you decide which combination of 2 and 3 is behind the MSM reaction
Emma from Miami
@Litlebritdifrnt: APPLAUSE, APPLAUSE!!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: Also, that adage is great about jokes. This wasn’t a joke. What if Joe wanted this to be discussed this week? He is getting it, isn’t he?
matt
Right – when our press is confronted by actual moral clarity, by someone with a real moral compass, they drift sneering into their little walled garden of savvy tut tutting
Our elites are fancier than the denizens of Versailles ever were.
Geminid
@Winston: Is there enough room in the Gulf of Riga for an aircraft carrier to turn around? Or would they have to back out?
Winston
@Geminid: Roughly 100 miles x 100 miles.
Ella in New Mexico
@Martin: Yes, yes we all know that in your opinion he shouldn’t have said it. But look, it’s over and he did say it and TBH good people can disagree about whether he shoulda-coulda-woulda. I personally am in the Fuck Yeah, Joe! camp.
We simply cannot pretend that this issue is somehow a major calamity, given events on the ground in Ukraine. There are real-time reports of yet ANOTHER Russian hit squad attempting to murder Zelensky right now. I would think actual attempts at lethal means of regime change are far more worthy of your concern than the iffy semantics of a President who was morally outraged at the destruction, fear and misery caused by a very, very evil dictator.
Geminid
@Winston: So what would you have them do while they were there?
Martin
@Ella in New Mexico: I didn’t put the post up. And isn’t the point of the post to engage a conversation? I’m sorry my opinion isn’t welcome.
TonyG
@realbtl: I voted for Biden, but I thought that he was really too old to be president. However … one advantage to being old is that you really don’t give a fuck about the tender feelings of people who do not wish you well. It is, in fact, a refreshing attitude.
Kay
@Martin:
It is welcome. Biden’s a big boy. He can handle a little criticism from his supporters.
lowtechcyclist
@Salty Sam:
Fuck yeah!!
But also I think there is a connection to actual policy here, not that it’s a change from where things seemed to be heading anyway. There’s really no way to allow Russia back in to the community of civilized nations as long as Putin’s in charge. Besides being quite evil in his willingness to kill thousands to no advantage other than to make people fear him, he’s a completely untrustworthy person to negotiate with: maybe it’s possible to negotiate a deal with him about Ukraine, but he’d break it the moment it served his purposes to do so. There’s no way to make a deal that gives him anything, and have whatever he gives in return to mean anything.
Also, there’s the way he treats his own people, and the ever-present possibility that he might think his only way to claim a win might be via the use of a tactical nuke or two.
He really does need to be removed from power. It’s just that we not only don’t have the means to do it (so regime change isn’t something we can really work toward), but we really should let Russians determine their own destiny with respect to Putin and with respect to their nation more broadly. But of course we want him removed from power, and there’s no reason not to say so.
Speaking of the nukes, it strikes me that we and China share an interest in keeping Putin from using his nukes. I hope our diplomats are trying to talk the Chinese into sending a clear signal to Putin that if he uses a nuke, he loses them, which would just about totally isolate Putin.
Martin
@Montanareddog: My point is that if you’re waiting for the press to act differently, don’t hold your breath. This is the game they play, like it or not, and Joe isn’t going to change that in this setting.
If you tell a joke to get a laugh and you don’t get a laugh because your audience is full of assholes, then don’t tell jokes to assholes because they will deny you your goal.
During the speech, everyone agreed it was an excellent speech. I agree, it was an excellent speech. A lot of people clearly worked hard on that speech. Nobody is talking about the speech that was written, just like nobody is talking about who won best actress. Even Joe isn’t talking about the speech that was written.
Joe’s goal was to get them to talk about the stuff in the speech. They aren’t doing that. Y’all admit they aren’t doing that by complaining about what they are talking about. That can’t be taken as a win by Joe. Is the media to fault for being shitty at this? Absolutely. You get no resistance from me on that. Did they surprise Joe with a new behavior he couldn’t have seen coming a mile away? Absolutely not. That’s why a number of us immediately grimaced at that line. We knew what was coming. It was completely predictable. I was not the only one.
That said, Joe can talk to the media about his moral objections. He does that a lot, and he’s great at it. Better than any president we’ve had in my lifetime. But there’s a context for that – in the map room or whatever fucking room in the WH that you have these sit-down interviews with Barbara Walters where you can contextualize it (which again he’s great at). It’s not in Poland on a foreign policy tour with NATO, the EU, the G7, against a backdrop of Patriot missile batteries, while a war rages 20 miles away and everyone is wondering if the latest promise of military aid is going to result in a nuclear exchange. It’s a circumstance that the media is primed to misunderstand, even above their normal disingenuous behavior.
Bex
@Litlebritdifrnt: Preach it!
lowtechcyclist
@Martin:
I don’t know that you’re right about this. Maybe he and his advisors hadn’t planned on his still talking about this today, but I think it works to his advantage to drive this home. And what were we talking about instead, that this is taking attention away from? Oh yeah, we were talking about Will Smith and Chris Rock.
This gets the conversation back to Biden, and in a good way. He can take it from there.
Martin
@Kay: Thank you.
Another Scott
@Martin: OTOH, without this “gaffe” the speech would have been forgotten by the next day. How much attention has been paid to his other speeches?
I continue to think that Biden knew what he was doing.
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
@lowtechcyclist: My problem there is you are insinuating that this was a deliberate act to steal the news cycle back from Will Smith for an event that happened two days later. That requires a very weird conspiracy be formed.
But here’s a different FPer on this issue:
I don’t think Biden wants the Supreme Court legitimacy crisis to be memory-holed.
Here’s Watergirl in this thread:
What we do know is that today started out with a rollout of his budget. He had a press conference that was supposed to be ‘just about the budget’. Watergirl admits she should have known it would have spun back to last Friday. And we’re arguing that Biden *shouldn’t* have seen that? Or that the folks who put the speech together shouldn’t have seen that (on the presumption it wasn’t ad-libbed?)
The operative theory here seems to be that Biden didn’t ad-lib that line but deliberately planted it to stir up a 3 day long fake controversy that he could return to during the rollout of his budget and overshadow whatever other news might have popped up over the weekend, rather than actually talk about his budget. That’s a really fucking weird plan, IMO.
My theory is that he let his emotions get the better of him (over something that *should* cause that response) in that moment and overspoke. That’s it. That’s my whole theory. That’s my whole criticism – that it would have been better if he hadn’t said that last line.
As others have said, he said what we’re all thinking. Yeah, no shit. And he said what we all know that he’s thinking. He’s not been shy about that. He called Putin a war criminal. Does anyone think that any country should be led by a war criminal?
That’s why the statement was bewildering to me. He said something nobody was in doubt of – that he’s outraged that Putin is in power. So why say it unless he’s trying to broadcast something else? And that something else has nuclear implications. There’s a MASSIVE risk to that expression. Yes, I don’t think anyone really believed he was looking for regime change, but holy shit, let’s not leave WW3 to a matter of interpretation, okay? You want to be absolutely fucking clear on those points, which is why you script every goddamn thing and don’t ad-lib.
J R in WV
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Very well said~!~ I can’t think of anything to add to what you said, thanks for being so clear and definite.
Take care, enjoy your English summer!!
Martin
@Another Scott: It *was* forgotten the next day. Except for one sentence.
Nobody remembers this:
Or this:
Or this:
There’s a lot being said here. A lot that is deserving of important follow-up – energy policy, how that might extend to our policies toward Saudi Arabia, what his plan is for the duration of economic sanctions, etc. None of that happened. All of them would be things Biden would prefer to talk about.
lowtechcyclist
@Martin:
You’re not just twisting my words, you’re making them do a 180°:
@lowtechcyclist:
Taking advantage of unexpected circumstances is the complete opposite of any sort of conspiracy, weird or otherwise.
Winston
@Geminid: NATO mobilizes to prevent Russian invasion of Baltic States.
lowtechcyclist
Oh wait, you said because people were talking about the gaffe, that they weren’t talking about Clarence and Ginni Thomas.
But the thing is, now that the attention is back on what he was saying the other night, he’s in a position to shift the conversation back to what we must do now about Russia.
J R in WV
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Still on fire, I agree with every thought and mood you express. You’re going to put me out of the commentary business. As bad as Tony Jay, but more to the point, so better, really.
Fuck those hypocrites, indeed, with a rusty and radioactive farm implement from a field in North Ukraine!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Geminid:
He wants to fire nukes.
J R in WV
@Jinchi:
Did you see in the WaPo, Judge Brown Jackson is a member of an exclusive, invitation-only club in DC for intellectuals? Lots of Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer winners, etc… The horror, a nominated Justice is a member of an exclusive century-plus old club for intellectuals in DC… For Shame!
Martin
@lowtechcyclist: Is he doing that? I don’t see that he is. He seems to be frustrated that he’s having to answer this over and over.
Remember, Biden can convene an audience at his discretion. If he wants to exploit this, he can absolutely do that. So far I don’t see any evidence of that. He didn’t delay the budget rollout. He didn’t even append statements on this – it only came up in questions from reporters.
And that’s the sort of thing that the WH would use surrogates for anyway. Send them out on the Sunday shows, etc.
lowtechcyclist
What, in the past 20 minutes? Hell if I know.
Madeleine
I read Biden’s speech and felt that, in its entirety, it led overwhelmingly to his final powerful statement.
Winston
@Omnes Omnibus:![]()