something Biden said had to be walked back, cleaned up, clarified or refuted.
Joe Biden’s call-to-arms speech
in Poland was long on soaring rhetoric about the virtues of democracy
but woefully short on what more the West will do to help Ukraine defeat
the Russian invasion. But by the time he got to the finish, most of that
was forgotten.
What mattered most and what will be remembered for a long time was a single line the president of the United States said about the president of Russia: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
In the context of the speech and the slaughter of Ukrainian civilians,
it’s impossible to understand that line as anything other than a call
for regime change, a move that would dramatically raise the stakes with
Russia at a time when Biden has been at pains to lower them.
It also raises the question of whether toppling Putin, a subject
never before mentioned by the White House, is suddenly the new policy of
the United States and NATO.
Ah, no.
Shortly after the speech, a Biden aide told pool reporters that “the
president’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power
over his neighbors or the region. He was not discussing Putin’s power in
Russia, or regime change.”
No, American troops in Poland are not headed to Ukraine, despite what Biden told them." NYP
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