Another week, another master class by Joe Biden on how not to succeed as president.
Fresh from stabbing Israel in the back and thumbing his nose at the Supreme Court over student loan forgiveness, Biden continued his wobbly ways by mucking up the two-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine.
He barely tried to persuade war-weary Americans they should support more aid for our outgunned ally and was perfunctory in outlining the geopolitical impact of a Russian victory.
In fact, if Ukraine falls, NATO nations would be next in line and Russian aggression could ignite a nuclear conflict.
That very real prospect must be a wake-up call for all of Washington.
It’s a measure of Biden’s mental and physical limitations that his handlers apparently decided he couldn’t carry off a prime-time address or a press conference to argue why the war still matters.
He also missed an opportunity to work with congressional Republicans to get that aid for Ukraine and close the southern border, a double play that would have been both good policy and good politics.
But Biden did none of those things.
As Casey Stengel asked about his hapless New York Mets, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”
The anniversary of the invasion came soon after the murder of dissident Alexei Navalny.
It gave the world fresh evidence of Vladimir Putin’s brutality, and a more nimble president would have used the moment to explain why Putin’s plan for a Greater Russia must be stopped.
Biden met with Navalny’s widow and daughter, but his limited effort at public persuasion was a dud.
In a lifeless and brief speech to governors gathered in the White House, he announced 500 new sanctions against Russians, a move that nobody claimed would change the course of the war.
It was quantity over quality.
If any of the new sanctions were significant, why weren’t they deployed earlier?
Unfortunately, the president’s main effort went to milking the Navalny murder and the aid standoff for political points.
He did it the old fashioned way — by attacking Republicans on a West Coast fund-raising trip.
“Look at what they are doing with the national security supplemental bill that provides assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Palestinian people. Nothing. Not a single thing. Why? Because that’s what Donald Trump tells them to do,” Biden told Los Angeles donors Tuesday.
The next day, in San Francisco, Biden said the current crop of GOP lawmakers was “worse” than southern segregationists.
“I’ve been a senator since ’72. I’ve served with real racists,” he said.
“I’ve served with Strom Thurmond. I’ve served with all these guys that have set terrible records on race. But guess what? These guys are worse.”
Biden eulogized Thurmond, but calling him more of a patriot than Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans who are linking Ukraine aid to securing America’s southern border is beyond the pale.
Then again, President Unity is a frequent race baiter.
Fading Dem support
In fact, Johnson’s positions on Ukraine and the border largely reflect the national mood, including among Biden’s fellow Democrats.
A January Pew poll found that a whopping 73% of Democrats rated the administration’s handling of the invasion of migrants from Mexico as “somewhat bad” or “very bad.”
Pew reports that Dem unhappiness has climbed steadily, from 56% in 2021 to 62% last year and 73% now.
Many of those Dems no doubt live in or near crime-ravaged cities overrun by tens of thousands of illegal newcomers.
And still Biden does nothing, even though he could have gotten the urgent assistance Ukraine needs while also addressing a problem that could cost him the election.
But the border concessions he offered were too small to solve the problems he created, so the bill died.
Meanwhile, the aid issue, for all its importance, is far more complicated politically.
Pew reports that 31% of respondents in a large survey said the US is giving too much money to Ukraine, while 29% said the current level is right and 18% said it’s not enough.
The survey found that 48% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents said the US is already giving too much.
Those findings illustrate why Biden needed to make a major effort to change minds instead of merely saying that opposing the aid bill is Trump’s fault and plays into Putin’s hands.
It’s a president’s job to negotiate through differences in a divided government, something Biden promised to do but no longer even tries.
Instead, he makes scurrilous charges and counts on the left-wing media to beat the GOP into submission.
The latest effort is a Senate bill, stripped of border provisions, that totals $95 billion, with about a third targeted for military help to Israel, US military spending in the Mideast and humanitarian relief in Gaza.
Ukraine’s share would be nearly $61 billion, on top of the $74 billion the US previously committed through legislation.
But critics are focused not just on the enormous totals, which dwarf all other foreign aid, but how the money has been spent in Ukraine, a notoriously corrupt society.
Until now, oversight was largely overlooked.
Following the money
A breakdown by the Council on Foreign Relations on the $74 billion already gone shows just 62%, or $43 billion, went to the Ukrainian military.
It includes spending on security, weapons, training and equipment, and grants and loans for more military items, many of which are manufactured in the United States.
Much of the remainder, $26.4 billion or 35% of the total, is labeled “financial support.”
The analysis offers few details, citing only “Budgetary aid . . . loans, and other financial support.”
Earlier reports about US taxpayers’ money going to Ukrainian small businesses and civil servant salaries and pensions, even as Ukraine canceled elections and closed churches, have taken a toll on American support.
So, too, has the media cheerleading about all the good things a spring counteroffensive was supposed to accomplish.
But Ukraine made only minimal territorial gains, much of which was retaken by Russia, and the pattern of overpromising and underdelivering remains an obstacle to public support.
Although the European Union has mostly matched American aid, the prospect that the war could drag on for years is dampening enthusiasm on both sides of the Atlantic.
Politico reports that a survey spanning 12 European countries finds that only 10% of respondents believe Ukraine can win the war and majorities in some countries prefer a negotiated settlement.
That belief is almost certain to accelerate in America as November nears.
Trump’s claim that he could end the war in a day will give some in the GOP reason to wait out the election, although the former president also said he would do more to support Ukraine than Biden has.
Uncertainty about what Trump actually would do is all the more reason why Biden should make an immediate deal with House Republicans to close the border and fund Ukraine.
That’s the best option he has — and time is not on his side.
If he doesn’t act, Biden will be the one playing into Putin’s hands.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
