Joe Biden Rushes to Move the Goalposts After Getting Thoroughly Punked by Putin – Opinion

Okay, Joe Biden might be a little misleading in this headline. Our intrepid, totally qualified, and not at all senile president is still nowhere to be found (at least publicly) following Vladimir Putin’s big move yesterday. Yet, Biden’s handlers are out in force, doing their best to sugarcoat the fact that the administration just got completely punked by Russia.

If you’ve been asleep the last 18 hours or so, the short version of things is that Putin recognized the separatist-controlled regions of Eastern Ukraine as autonomous, giving the Russian leader a pretext to go ahead and invade Ukraine while claiming it’s not an invasion of Ukraine. One must admit it’s a cunning move. Putin managed to get another bite of the apple while creating a scenario where he could claim that he was the victim of aggression, if West responded.

Meanwhile, the White House’s response has been one of pure chaos. Despite “predicting” an invasion for almost a month, including putting down a redline that included any Russian troops crossing the border, Biden and his cohorts are now scrambling to move the goalposts by arguing what the definition of an invasion is.

SAO: Russian troops not moving into Donbas is a step that’s new. Russia already has forces in Donbas since the last 8 years. However, the SAO stated that there would be further sanctions tomorrow.

— Ali Rogin (@AliRogin) February 21, 2022

It is true that Russian-backed elements are present in the Donbas for nearly a decade. As one of my RedState colleagues shared in a dressing down of the Biden administration’s fecklessness and incompetence, the now more formal invasion by Russia is just a reinforcing of the status quo enabled by the Obama administration.

To that extent, perhaps you could argue it’s not a move worthy of a forceful response. Biden did not set the red line, but few people are advocating military action. I’m certainly not doing so, as I believe any such move would fall on the shoulders of the Europeans first and foremost.

But let’s be clear, this is an invasion, even if it’s one couched in a fairly brilliant strategic and diplomatic move (Putin is a lot of things, dumb is not one of them). Their lands are not Russian property just because they speak Russian. Their language was forced upon them by the former Soviet Union, and so border areas (including those from Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and others. It is neither surprising or an excuse to annex Russia that Russian-speaking people are present.

Biden doesn’t have an answer to this invasion. Biden and his handlers have made excuses for not putting into place the promised sanctions immediately. Is it not time to make this move? How does Putin view Biden? In fact, if the White House was serious about peacefully defusing this situation and stopping Russia in its tracks, all they’d have to do is go gangbusters on domestic energy production via new leases and green-lighting every pipeline that has been blocked. This would negate Putin’s financial power and eliminate his only bit of financial leverage.

That won’t happen, though, because Biden is a weak, incompetent man who is being dictated to. Thus, Putin will win this bout just as he’s won previous bouts with the United States. Taiwan should probably prepare for what’s coming.