WASHINGTON — Foreign policy supposedly is President Joe Biden’s strongest suit, as a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Indeed, it was a prime reason Barack Obama chose him as his running mate in 2008.
But his unfortunate comments in his latest press conferences and other remarks on Ukraine seemed to leave an impression of indifference toward Russian threats to invade the former Soviet Union state.
Biden last week predicted that Russian President Vladimir Putin would “move in” to Ukraine in what he labeled “a minor incursion.” He added that short of a major invasion, “our allies and partners” in NATO “are ready to impose severe costs and significant harm on Russia and the Russian economy.” To some observers, Biden seemed to be giving Moscow a go-ahead to a limited military action.
The White House launched a swift cleanup of the president’s off-the-cuff remarks. The next day, he held a 90-minute news conference in what appeared to be an effort to calm the waters. Nevertheless, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy quickly tweeted: “We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones.”
One Republican senator, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, called Biden’s long press conference “an absolute train wreck that will have serious consequences.” He said Biden had given Putin “a green light to invade Ukraine by yammering about the supposed insignificance of a minor incursion. He projected weakness, not strength.”
Later in the week, Biden offered still more cleaning up. “I’ve been absolutely clear with President Putin,” he said. “He has no misunderstanding. Any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion” — and would be met with a “severe and coordinated economic response.”
Biden declared that Ukraine would never be invited to join NATO, while Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in Moscow issued assurances that “there is no risk of a large-scale war that could break out in Europe or somewhere else. We do not intend to take any aggressive steps. We have no intention of attacking, staging offensive on or invading Ukraine.”
At the same time, Ryabkov said: “As it concerns the American demand that we immediately pull our troops away from Ukraine’s border, we’ll keep patiently explaining to our counterparts that said forces and resources are deployed in our own territory, and we aren’t going to make any adjustments to their movement under pressure from the outside.”
Thus the war of words on both sides goes on, in an aura of mutual mistrust short of armed conflict. The climate underscores the imperative of mutual restraint in both word and deed at the top levels of government, in Washington as well as in Moscow.
On Monday, Biden committed another verbal gaffe, caught on an open microphone, calling Fox News reporter Peter Doocy “a stupid son of a b—-“ for asking him a seemingly innocuous question: “Do you think inflation is a political liability in the midterms?” Afterward, he called Doocy and apologized, saying his harsh comment was “nothing personal, pal.”
It was the second time recently that the president was betrayed by an hot mic. Earlier, another Fox reporter, Jacqui Heinrich, had asked him: “Why are you waiting for Putin to make the first move, sir?” He snapped back: “What a stupid question.” But then he added: “I shouldn’t have been such a wise guy with the last answer I gave.”
In any event, Biden’s sudden surly lapse revealed a certain touchiness toward Fox News that likely would only encourage more hostility from the transparently right-wing network. More seriously for him, his loose tongue could account for, or contribute to, his notable slippage in the public-opinion polls in his first year in the highest office. It could feed an impression that plain-talking Joe Biden might somehow be less “presidential” to voters’ liking, and thus imperil his announced intention to seek reelection in 2024.
* Jules Witcover is a syndicated columnist. He can be reached at juleswitcover@comcast.net.
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