If President Biden’s press conference Wednesday was supposed to inspire confidence, it failed — horribly.
Even though he spent most of it clearly calling on reporters from a list of “safe” questioners provided by his staff, he stumbled and bumbled and all too often made no sense at all. Plus, he repeated his bizarre “whisper shout” gimmick to emphasize certain points — when what it actually emphasizes is his age.
On that note, he kept walking down memory lane, reminiscing about how “in my day” cable news was like that, the Republican Party was like this, and so on. He’s fighting old wars in his head, or maybe he’s just confused about the modern world.
Yet he couldn’t remember what he said last week, insisting he hadn’t compared opponents of end-running the Senate filibuster rules to pass the nationalize-election-law bill to Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis. Yet minutes later, he warned those same (Democratic!) senators that their supposedly infamous position will stick with them all the rest of their days.
Then there was his “confession” at the end that he “forgot” he’s president, not a senator, as implicit explanation for his disastrous first year. But earlier, he’d insisted he’s done more than any other president in history. What the fudge?
His answers on Ukraine were particularly confused.
The issue is pretty straightforward: Vladimir Putin is threatening an invasion and will do it if he thinks he can get away with it; at the least, he’ll try to get the West to bribe him by promising him much of what he wants without any fighting.
Biden seemed to offer one bribe by volunteering that NATO won’t make Ukraine a member anytime soon. Even if true, why limit your options?
Worse, at one point the prez suggested Putin “has no choice” but to invade because he’s boxed himself in. At least, we think that’s what Biden said, but his syntax made it impossible to say for sure.
Then too, he outright said Putin would win, albeit at a heavy price: “The cost of going into Ukraine in terms of physical loss of life for the Russians — they’ll be able to prevail over time, but it’s going to be heavy.”
Oh, and Biden suggested Russia might well get away with “a minor incursion.” That’s an invitation to take one piece of Ukraine now — and more pieces later. What a disaster. No wonder his staff does everything it can to keep him away from the press.