are we there yet?

a recurring trauma in foreign policy

President Biden took a guts ball trip to Kyiv today as we all likely know. Listening to the news when the news cap came off at 0500, one could hear the air raid sirens wailing as the POTUS and his host Zelenskii chatted calmly before the cameras. Biden took a train rather than a flight into the Ukrainian capital, extending the time of vulnerability. I imagine the Secret Service was fit to be tied but also heard later in the morning that the meticulously orchestrated visit, a forte of the White House, had been accounting for all of these issues in their preps.

Good thing as the POTUS was abroad upon the heels of the Vice President’s participation in the Munich Security Conference this past week, meaning she was probably jet-lagged at best. The third in line for the Presidency, as Secretary of State Al Haig famously forgot upon Ronald Reagan’s 1981 shooting, was the new Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy. I understand Biden had multiple objectives with this trip ranging from messaging oue determination to thwart Vlad the Impaler in the Kremlin to supporting the war-weary Ukrainians on the cusp of another Russian offensive as the war enters its second year this week to showing how fit and in charge the POTUS is as he gears up for another apparent presidential campaign. Lots of stuff going on.

A major portion of the messaging, however, was unmistakably aimed at the U.S. population which is losing support for the effort, according to public opinion polls. There should be no surprise about this at all. We do not like extended conflicts,