Biden and Blinken Rally NATO to Support Ukraine;

Trump and Fox Support Putin

Update: April 2022 - As the war in the Ukraine continues, with Vladimir Putin's troops targeting innocent civilians and Mr. Putin still not offering any legitimate reason for his invasion, Donald Trump is being pressured to try and distance himself from his initial supporting comments of the invasion.

But he just can't bring himself to terminate his man-love for Mr. Putin. Or is he just scared for some reason to cross Mr. Putin?

While the rest of the world has condemned Mr. Putin's actions and focused on the suffering of the Ukrainian people, Mr. Trump has had many opportunities to denounce Mr. Putin and to add his voice to the calls for Mr. Putin to end the invasion. But at a speech in Georgia in late March, Mr. Trump could only bring himself to say that the invasion was a "mistake" and then once again called Mr. Putin "smart" and praised Mr. Putin, saying that putting 200,000 troops on the Ukrainian border was a good negotiating tactic that just didn't work out.

(At least 100 casualties followed a Russian missile attack on Kramatorsk's railroad station in early April - image from Reuters)

This speech followed an earlier interview on Fox News during which Sean Hannity at least twice tried to get Mr. Trump to call Mr. Putin "evil", but to no avail. In fact, not only has Mr. Trump not walked back his having called Mr. Putin's actions "genius", he again recently praised two other dictators, Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jong Un of North Korea. He called Mr. Kim "smart" and "tough" at a GOP fundraising event and, at his March 26th Georgia speech said, "He {Chairman Xi} runs 1.5 billion people with an iron fist. Yeah, I think he's pretty smart."

After four years of praising dictators (including "joking" about wanting to emulate them) and insulting our Western allies who have stood tall with the Biden team against the Putin aggression in Ukraine, we are fortunate that Mr. Trump no longer is in power.

February 2022 - Vladimir Putin's invasion of the Ukraine is not going as planned. He had hoped it would happen with Donald Trump serving a second term in the White House and after Mr. Trump had pulled America out of our 70+ year NATO alliance with Europe, leaving Europe weakened and divided.

Instead Mr. Putin had to attempt his invasion in the face of a pro-freedom, pro-European, and pro-democracy American administration that a) had prepared for this possibility and b) has rallied the world to condemn the Russian invasion, to send military and other aid to Ukraine, and to impose economic sanctions on Mr. Putin and the oligarchs who support him.

(Image of Ukraine flag from nbcnews)

Does anyone actually think that Mr. Trump would have taken any of these actions? Or done anything but encourage and/or praise Mr. Putin? After all, Mr. Trump never criticized the Russian strongman during (or after) the Trump White House years. And, doubling down on his love for the Russian leader, Mr. Trump referred to the Ukraine invasion as "genius" on the part of Mr. Putin and described Mr. Putin as a "peacekeeper".

The allies of former KGB agent Putin at Fox News also have not stood up for America and American values in this conflict. Initially most of the Fox talking heads discounted the possibility of an invasion, claiming that the intelligence reports released by the Biden administration to the world were untrue and just an attempt by Mr. Biden to change the conversation away from other matters. (Once again our intelligence operations were correct, though, despite Mr. Trump's continuous bad-mouthing of the CIA, DIA, etc. over the past four years.)

Even worse, many of the network's far right commentators parroted the Putin talking points by claiming all this excitement is really just a border dispute that America should ignore. The man-love for Mr. Putin on Fox didn't get any stronger than that exhibited by commentator Tucker Carlson. Mr. Carlson didn't feel the criticism leveled at Mr. Putin was proper, saying: "Is he {Mr. Putin} making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity? Does he eat dogs? These are fair questions and the answer to all of them is no."

(Russian damage to this residential building in Kyiv doesn't look like a border dispute to us)

Yes, believe it or not, Mr. Carlson did try to make that argument. Even if we were to ignore Mr. Putin's invasion of the Ukraine, apparently Mr. Carlson is not concerned about the world-wide consensus regarding crimes Mr. Putin has committed against his political opponents and Mr. Putin's attempts to de-stabilize Europe and the United States.

Nor, apparently, have the Fox folks remembered their history. The arguments Mr. Putin has made about the Ukraine are eerily similar to the arguments Adolph Hitler made about the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. The appeasement of Hitler in the 1930's was the lesson that conservatives liked to remind us of as they took hard line anti-Russian policy positions during the Cold War. How quickly many of them seem to have forgotten those lessons. Or does that element of the conservative movement no longer care about freedom and democracy?

(The world stands with Ukraine as indicated at this English soccer match)

For those who question whether elections matter, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a textbook example of why elections do matter. It seems pretty clear that America, Europe, and especially the Citizens of the Ukraine would find themselves in a much worse situation today if Mr. Trump were still in the White House and it would not be an overstatement if the Ukrainians tonight are saying God Bless America's intelligence operations, God Bless NATO, and God Bless the current President of the United States.