Man Up, Man

Has Senator Diane Feinstein suffered a mental break from reality? I think that’s a fair question to ask after the Senate Intelligence Chairwoman said the following to CNN’s Candy Crowley:

“The issue is, where is Putin? I would say, Putin, you have to man up,” Feinstein said. “You should say if this was a mistake, which I hope it was, say it. Even if it was a mistake, it was a horrendous mistake to make. And I think it points out the futility of what’s happening in the Ukraine.”

Man up? That man, Putin, already seized Crimea, and his strategy is making eastern Ukraine ungovernable is working so well that an airliner with nearly 300 aboard was shot down over the skies there late last week. Putin has shown that he can, in what is basically a local dispute, crank up the violence to a degree intolerable not only to Kyiv, but to the entire world.

And what will the world do? There are only two parts of the world that really matter here, outside of Russia. One part, Europe, will wring its hands and then go right back to buying Russian energy. The other part, the United States, will probably slap some more sanctions on Moscow — yet another an act of “petulant impotence.” on our part.

Put Putin next to Feinstein. One of them is using a new form of warfare to get exactly what he wants; the other goes on national TV to make outrageously and demonstrably false claims. One is so unserious it beggars belief; the other is deadly serious about taking what he wants.

Feinstein is correct however when she says our relations have reached “Cold War levels.” What she failed to mention is that is in large part because we have a Jimmy Carter II enjoying the fruits of his second term “flexibility.”