In the late hours of Wednesday night and early hours of Thursday morning in the United States — as Russia began a full-scale invasion of U...
In the late hours of Wednesday night and early hours of Thursday morning in the United States — as Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine — Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio was tweeting updates about the deteriorating situation in Eastern Europe.
Left-bubble Twitter, however, didn’t want to hear it — and promptly jumped at the Republican senator for pointing out the reality of the situation.
A series of replies — including one from the disgraceful Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell — indicated the left was more interested about deflecting blame from President Joe Biden’s administration than facing the reality that the administration couldn’t prevent the invasion of Ukraine.
Rubio began tweeting about the situation by noting explosions in Mariupol, a major Ukrainian port city:
He continued tweeting after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced what he called a “special military operation” in Ukraine — a cold-blooded euphemism for a full-scale invasion of a neighboring country.
“Its goal is to protect people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide… for the last eight years. And for this we will strive for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine,” Putin said in the announcement, according to Reuters.
“And to bring to court those who committed numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.”
Any country that tried to interfere, Putin warned, would face “such consequences that you have never encountered in your history.”
On Twitter, Rubio warned that Putin would conduct air strikes on Ukraine’s defense systems, move to cut off the capital of Kyiv and attempt to cleave Ukraine’s military forces:
He also noted Russia “has carried out a few targeted operations uncomfortably close to the Polish border.”
So, as Vladimir Putin was invading a sovereign country as part of an incipient offensive to potentially rebuild the old Soviet Union, what was left-bubble Twitter worried about?
Well, there was a 5-year-old story that a Ukrainian-born billionaire who was close to Putin, Leonard “Len” Blavatnik, had donated to GOP campaigns, according to a Dallas Morning News story from 2017:
There’s no evidence this has influenced Rubio’s policy decisions, of course, but it’s helpful to muddy the water.
Also muddying the water: Frequent reposts of a clip from former President Donald Trump on Wednesday saying that “Putin is smart. He’s taken over a country for $2 worth of sanctions. I’d say that’s pretty smart.”
Which is … the brutal reality of the moment.
It’s not praising Putin’s moral character to accurately describe how he took advantage of a rival’s weakness. It’s merely stating a fact.
And when the rival Putin took advantage of is the president of the United States, and the weakness is in the Oval Office, that’s a fact Americans need to start facing — even Americans on the left.
On Tuesday, speaking from the White House, President Joe Biden said the United States has “no intention of fighting Russia.” Instead, it would apply “additional sanctions.”
Not only are these sanctions coming late, but, as The New York Times’ Max Fisher noted in a Feb. 3 article, Putin “has restructured his country’s economy for the specific purpose of withstanding Western financial pressure.
“Russia has drastically reduced its use of dollars, and therefore Washington’s leverage,” Fisher wrote. “It has stockpiled enormous currency reserves, and trimmed its budgets, to keep its economy and government services going even under isolation. It has reoriented trade and sought to replace Western imports.”
So, yes — if sanctions are the only pressure Russia faces, it’s in good shape.
Also, pointing out Biden’s weakness apparently counts as rooting for the other side — at least to some Twitter users:
And then there was Rep. Swalwell, always around for comic relief as the Shakespearean drama enters the fourth act.
“Hey Marco — unless you can condemn Trump and Pompeo rooting for Russia NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR FROM YOU,” he tweeted.
“Do you get that? We don’t need your play-by-play. Who are you? John Madden? Why don’t you choose America over a cult?”
This is from a man who cannot confirm whether or not he had sexual relations with an alleged Chinese spy who was close to him. Despite his refusal to be upfront about what he did or didn’t do with Christine Fang, the spy in question, he remains on the House Intelligence Committee and has faced no public consequences for the scandal. If only John Profumo had party leadership that was so indulgent.
None of the people mentioned here — not Trump, not former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and certainly not Sen. Rubio — are rooting for Russia.
Rather, they’re pointing out that this invasion is the fruit of a poison tree planted by Democrats during the Obama years and nurtured, as of late, by the Biden administration.
But at least on Twitter, the left isn’t interested in the events of the Ukrainian crisis. They’re more concerned with how they can be spun into something that isn’t Joe Biden’s fault.
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