Sunday, October 9, 2022

Biden Gets Spanked Again

In this post, I advanced my theory that, as a result of the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal followed by the public disagreement over sending Polish Migs to Ukraine, the lizard people through the agency of Antony Blinken told President Brandon that he was not to interfere in Ukraine policy, and in addition, he was not to say anything about the conflict that had not been previously drafted and approved by Secs Blinken and Austin -- and in addition, when he delivered any such approved statements, he was to deliver them without deviation. (A normal president, even a Donald Trump, would understand this implicitly. The problem with Brandon isn't medical, it's the Dunning-Kruger effect -- he thinks he's the smartest guy in the room.)

A data point emerged yesterday that, at least for me, confirms this:

Canadian [sic] socialist tyrant Emmanuel Macron is spending the weekend in Prague, attending a European Union summit along with other NATO leaders. During one press gaggle, Macron was asked about Joe Biden’s recent comments where he invoked the image of “Armageddon” if Vladimir Putin deploys any tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Macron took the bait and decided to criticize Biden, saying he needed to display prudence and “choose his words carefully.” Oddly, Macron also made a reference to not engaging in “political fiction” when it comes to Mad Vlad and his stockpile of nuclear warheads.

Leaving aside the truly awful standard of copy editing on display at Hot Air, this stikes me as a calculated response to Brandon's violation of his orders. On Friday, I noted my own discomfort with the Armageddon remarks and the implication that he knows more than anyone else about what Putin might do, or more importantly, what his actual capabilities are. In fact, I privately wondered if this was in fact a violation of the hard carveout he'd been presented with, and what the outcome might be.

I think we've got our answer. As best I can read the tea leaves, Secs Blinken and Austin -- who were in business together as global strategy consultants while out of the government after 2017 -- appear to have worked out a strategy to cover Putin's nuclear threats. The US would say nothing directly. A "knowledgeable" third party, in this case Gen Petraeus, would speculate without attribution about what the response might be and what may have been conveyed to Putin through channels. This no doubt was also throroghly reviewed and massaged among NATO leadership, including President Macron.

And suddenly Joseph R Brandon jumps in with all four feet at a Deomocrat fundraiser to yap about Armageddon. On one hand, this is understandable -- I've got to assume this is an event with a clubby atmosphere of heavy hitters where the tone is entre nous, and in return for their open checkbooks, they're expecting some sort of unique insights the plebs won't get. But this is dangerous to the candidates. It's where Mrs Clinton made her "basket of deplorables" remark that helped lose her the 2016 election.

In fact, the problem with the event was that it fed Brandon's ego, which didn't need feeding, and he felt the need to preen before his audience about how well he knows Putin, precisely the sort of thing he should not have been doing, and my guess is also that it was just the sort of thing Macron and others had been assured Brandon would not be allowed to do. I also assume that Macron was previously on the phone, not with Brandon, but with Blinken. Things working the way they do, words to the effect of prudence, careful choice of words, and political fiction were incorporated in that discussion some hours previous to Macron's public announcement.

I went to school with these people.

Biden and the results of the 2020 Götterdämmerung strategy, defeat Trump at all costs with promises to the extreme fringe, are coming back to haunt the lizard people, whose current priority, in the spirit of Nelson Rockefeller-Averell Harriman centrism, has been to defeat Russia in a proxy war in Ukraine and open the former empire to Western markets. One of their key problems is that Biden is proving even less controllable than Trump, while other aspects of the fringe agenda are also in conflict with their aims in Ukraine -- will Zelensky be on board with having Ukraine in the EU if the EU imposes radical reductions in agriculture, as it's tried to do in the Netherlands?

However, whatever else occurs, I think it's more certain that Biden will be told what his decision on whether to run in 2024 will be, irrespective of what Dr Jill or anyone else thinks. The lizard people will need to find a credible replacement, but I assume they're on it.