Everything in Geneva went swimmingly between Joey and Vlad. And if you don’t believe me just ask the acting President himself. He said his meeting with Vlad went “pretty good.” Well, I suppose - if by “pretty good” you mean “train wreck.”
Whoops, no more track
The degree to which the summit was a disaster became evident when Putin emerged for his press conference — alone with a forum all to himself. (The Biden Team did not want to do a joint presser so held their own)
Putin fielded softball questions from Russian news agencies, but he also welcomed hostile questions from the U.S. media. (In fact, Putin, an enemy of press freedom, was more polite than Biden would be, and took far tougher questions.)
The opportunity to defend his own position, and to attack the United States, without fear of contradiction was a massive gift to the Russian president. He used the old Soviet tactic of pointing to American problems as a way of deflecting from questions about human rights and political opposition. - Joel Pollack
Here’s an example of that fine Soviet style deflection:
When asked about the assassinations of political rivals in his country, Putin responded by implying that the United States had assassinated Ashli Babbitt during the Capitol riot.
“Secondly, I want to ask you: Did you order the assassination of the woman who walked into the Congress and who was shot and killed by a policeman?” Putin asked. “Do you know that 450 individuals were arrested after entering Congress? And they didn’t go there to steal a laptop. They came with political demands. Four hundred and fifty people have been detained. They’re facing jail time, from 15 to 20 years. And they came to Congress with political demands. Isn’t that prosecution for political opinions?”
As a result of Biden’s weak position,
“Putin walked away from Geneva with no significant response to cyberattacks; with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which Trump had opposed; and with no real pushback against his aggression in Ukraine…”
The response from America’s media was predictable:
The American media echoed Biden’s posture of appeasement. CNN, which had raised the alarm when Trump and Putin appeared to get along with one another, gushed about Biden’s “optimistic” tone at the summit, and how wonderful it was that Biden and Putin seemed to have had a friendly conversation.
It’s no wonder Biden thinks reporters are “the smartest people in the entire country.”
Except, that is, for that one moron who dared asked him a real question.
Kaitlan’s question:
“Given his past behavior has not changed, and in that press conference, after sitting down with you for several hours, he denied any involvement in cyberattacks, he downplayed human rights abuses, he even refused to say Alexei Navalny’s name. So how does that amount to a constructive meeting, as President Putin framed it?”
Ha! I do love Joey’s response though:
“What the hell? What do you do all the time?…If you don’t understand that, you’re in the wrong business.”
I could say the same about the man currently occupying the White House.
Posts
