President Joe Biden said Monday that he would make “no apologies” and wasn’t “walking anything back” after his weekend comment that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power,” attempting to turn the page on a controversy that clouded his recent trip to Europe.
Pardon me for a little of what we used to call a “reporter’s notebook” story.
An old truism exists in broadcast journalism that “there’s a story around every corner.” I first learned that in 1996 but, unfortunately, I just learned it again today. Russian bombs and bullets, and Putin’s psychotic ego, have destroyed one of the very few good things to come out of a worldwide disaster 35 years ago.
Striking harder at Russia’s economy, President Joe Biden on Tuesday ordered a ban on Russian oil imports in retaliation for Vladimir Putin’s onslaught in Ukraine. The major trade action, responding to the pleas of Ukraine’s embattled leader, thrust the U.S. out front as Western nations seek to halt Putin’s invasion.
For two decades, Vladimir Putin has struck rivals as reckless, impulsive. But his behavior in ordering an invasion of Ukraine — and now putting Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert — has some in the West questioning whether the Russian president has become dangerously unstable.
Vlad Putin, the evil though very calculating chief oligarch of the shriveled nation of Russia (when stacked against its predecessor, the Soviet Union), is playing chess over the fate of Ukraine, while our figurehead president and his gaggle of administration mediocrities (here being charitable) and Pentagon toadies play checkers.