On domestic issues, President Joe Biden’s staff have ranged from useless to actively harmful. Overseen by way-too-online chief of staff Ron Klain, those in charge of Biden’s domestic agenda have chosen the worst of all worlds, overpromising and under-delivering to progressives who don’t understand his razor-thin electoral mandate while publicly alienating the centrists crucial to passing what remains politically possible.
Biden’s foreign policy apparatus is a different story. To be sure, it has had its disaster moments, such as the execution of the Afghanistan withdrawal, the decision to let Nord Stream 2 proceed without sanctions, and Biden’s collaboration with Russia on reviving the Iran nuclear deal. Less than three months ago, Biden was desperately lobbying Senate Democrats to stop them from imposing sanctions on Russia, even as Russia’s army was massing at Ukraine’s borders. One could go so far as to say that the Biden administration did as much as it could to enable Russian aggression, right up to the moment of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Still, after that invasion, things got better. There exists a crucial coalition of Biden staffers who now understand that there is a singular mandate that overrides all else in matters related to the war in Ukraine — do not trigger or give Russia any reason to trigger World War III.
The public nature of the debate over Poland’s plan to send MiGs to Ukraine was a mistake — obviously a recurring theme of this administration. But the underlying instinct that this debate exposed ought to instill some confidence. From the Pentagon to the press briefing room, the administration was remarkably consistent in resisting all shortsighted, emotional appeals to send warplanes from a NATO country and base lest Putin use this as an excuse to escalate on the grounds of NATO’s participation in the war. Furthermore, the White House restrained its messaging to the need to help Ukraine defend itself as a sovereign nation. It avoided more dangerous ideas such as regime change in Moscow.
Or rather, it did, until Biden opened his mouth this weekend. In Poland, Biden sent his staff into damage control mode after he ad-libbed a line that Putin “cannot remain in power.” After White House sources tried to walk back that line, Biden has just walked back the walk-back.
“I’m not walking anything back,” Biden said on Monday. “The fact of the matter is I was expressing the moral outrage that I felt.”
Biden then claimed he wasn’t making a policy position. He may be the last person in the world to understand, but it doesn’t work that way when you’re president of the United States.
Putin certainly understands it. Biden speaks publicly as commander in chief. He didn’t merely call Putin an abhorrent killer who is driving his nation into second-world autarky. He said the unsayable thing for U.S. presidents, echoing half a century of his predecessors who have used American blood and bodies to overthrow regimes around the world. Not only does that upset Putin, it also teases an utter disregard for international law and his own office’s fundamental mandate — not to Ukraine, not to Russia, but to Americans, who deserve not to be dragged into World War III by a careless and inept leader.
The Pentagon and the State Department have thus far demonstrated the diligence to uphold our role as an ally to Ukraine but not a participant in its war. The only question is whether the White House staff can keep their boss on script with the future of the planet at stake.
