What's The New Narrative?

I saw a headline on one of the aggregators this morning: "NYT wonders: Is Putin still rational after two years of pandemic isolation?"

It’s one thing to use the madman theory of foreign relations as leverage. It’s quite another to actually have an insane man in charge of a very large, modern military. For years, people have operated on the assumption that Vladimir Putin acted on a coldly rational basis, and based on his pre-pandemic track record, that assumption not only proved safe but accurate.

As far as I can see, Putin's strategy in Ukraine has been in place since 2014, when he effectively seized Donbas and Crimea from Ukraine via separatist proxies. As Tucker Carlson put it,

But if there’s one thing you absolutely must know about Russia, if you’re going to navigate this world, that thing is that on February 16, 2022, Vladimir Putin is going to invade our closest ally in the world, Ukraine. So write that down — February 16, 2022, Ukraine invasion begins. That’s the day.

Joe Biden has been very clear about that, so were the Intel agencies and of course, their stenographers in the news media. As Politico put it, quote, “Russia will start a physical assault on Ukraine as soon as February 16, multiple U.S. officials confirmed.” A physical assault.

The Ukrainian state media outlet Ukrinform, however, offered an opinion from the scene:

Russia has been waging war against Ukraine for eight years already. These are the eight years of daily reports of deadly shelling, IDPs, and casualties among our military and civilians.

So, my first questiom is why anyone at the New York Times thinks COVID changed anything if Putin actually made his Ukraine move almost six years before anyone had even heard of COVID. A second question would be whether anyone, even at the New York Times, thinks any world leader has been locked down like ordinary people have been, such that it would make him crazy. Heck, Biden is the one who stays locked own.

President Biden, meanwhile,, is still giving the same message:

President Joe Biden warned Thursday morning a Russian attack on Ukraine could begin in the coming days, casting a new incursion into the country as all but certain and warning Moscow could stage events in the lead-up to generate a pretext for war.

. . . Pressed on whether he believes an attack will happen -- and when -- Biden said: "Yes. My sense is it will happen in the next several days."

So does he have a new invasion date? I've got to conclude that so far, Biden is looking ridiculous. Meanwhile, Putin has risked nothing, and he's lost nothing. He's effectively reinforced the status quo in Donbas and Crimea, someting Ukraine acknowledges. How is he insane?

The existing narrative isn't working. Someone needs to come up with a new one -- even if we accept that Putin is crazy, it simply means Biden is being jerked around by a crazy guy. Actually, for that matter, it's too bad neither Biden nor Speaker Pelosi got the name of Putin's plastic surgeon.