What If Things Keep Getting Worse?

It seems to me that the Ukraine situation could potentially work out for Biden the way the Cuban missile crisis worked out for Kennedy. According to this article,

President Kennedy’s handling of the Cuban missile crisis significantly contributed to his strong overall job approval scores. From the fall of 1961 until the spring of 1962, his approval ratings held steady at almost 80 percent (table 10). They then slowly, but steadily, subsided, dropping to a low of 61 percent in mid-October 1962. The Cuban missile crisis then pushed approval up to 74–76 percent from November 1962 to January 1963.

Should Biden manage to appear strong and decisive and then manage to look as if he'd forced Putin to back down in some way, he'd achieve a reset -- though as the link points out, Kennedy already had high job approval, well above Biden's. On the other hand, Putin isn't Khrushchev, who was in power for about a decade before being removed, while Putin has been de facto chief of Russia for 23 years so far, continuing to rule via both elections and other political maneuvering. His final term could theoretically end in 2036.

Khrushchev was reckless and not entirely stable; in Cuba he overplayed his hand and was removed largely in consequence. Putin is a more careful opponent who is focused on methodically reassembling a traditional Russian empire. I don't need to repeat Obama's own reported assessment of Biden's abilities. As a result, I think a Cuban missile crisis style outcome isn't likely for Biden; something like his existing precedent in Afghanistan seems more probable.

But an Afghanistan style outcome would be just one potential further disaster for the party in power. Another, as I've been thinking about since last week, would be new focus on Hunter and Joe's financial arrangements with him. As of last night, new allegations are emerging:

The Biden family scored $31 million from five deals in China, all with individuals with direct ties to the Chinese spy apparatus, according to a bombshell new book.

Multiple financiers with direct ties to Chinese intelligence partnered with Hunter Biden during and after his father’s time as Vice President — including the former head of the Ministry of State Security and the head of foreign intelligence recruitment — and some of those relationships remain intact, according to Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win, by Breitbart News senior contributor Peter Schweizer.

. . . “The hazard of a Chinese businessman with close ties to the top ranks of Beijing’s spy agency conducting financial transactions with the son of the U.S. vice president cannot be overstated. How this did not set off national security or ethics alarm bells in Washington is a wonder in itself,” Schweizer writes in Red-Handed.

Another problem is that Ukraine was also a major sphere of Hunter's activity, and the potential fallout from events there could also prove extremely damaging to Joe. Just one potential angle also came out yesterday:

Former Trump aide Sam Nunberg believes that President Joe Biden essentially gave Vladimir Putin the green light to invade Ukraine because the Ukrainian energy company Burisma stopped bribing him after the 2016 election of former President Donald Trump.

Speaking with politics editor Matthew Boyle on Breitbart News Saturday, Nunberg expanded on a tweet he posted Friday suggesting that Biden abandoned Ukraine due to Hunter Biden’s corruption.

“Hunter Biden was paid by Burisma $80,000 a month to simply sit on the board,” Nunberg told Boyle. “Fortune 500 companies don’t pay $80,000 a month to board members . . ."

Beyond that,

Two Republican senators are demanding answers after the Secret Service refused to hand over details about Hunter Biden's trips to Kazakhstan, Russia and China.

Biden, now 51, was granted Secret Service protection while his father was vice president from 2009-17 - although he requested it cease in July 2014.

At the time, he was a globe-trotting businessman, and Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Chuck Grassley of Iowa are investigating Biden for 'his use of government-sponsored travel while he conducted private business.'

The senators have requested documents relating to Biden's travel, and so far have received 259 pages from the Secret Service. But in a letter to director James Murray, they said that they 'have serious concerns about the production'.

They note that the pages are heavily redacted, which they say is unnecessary for members of Congress, and they complained that they were missing entire years - 2010, 2011 and 2013.

I've got to trust that responsible members of both parties are recognizing how quickly things could go south and are mulling appropriate strategies for negotiating a Plan B. Even third-rate thinkers are now suddenly remembering Spiro Agnew.