The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

Do you want an example of the unbelievable stupidity and parochialism of the media? Because it doesn't get much better than this!

Peter Savodnik, late of "Vanity Fair, as well as GQ, Harper's, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Wired and other venues" conflates Tucker Carlson's naive interview of Vladimir Putin with the attitude of the entire American Right. Never mind that there has been significant criticism on the Right of Carlson, and widespread mockery of Putin's interminable lecture disguised as an interview.

Savodnik is too stupid...too lazy...too entrenched in coastal smugness to understand that there is a huge difference between being skeptical of our involvement in Ukraine, and giving Putin tongue baths.

Why Is the American Right Pandering to Putin?

It isn't. And Tucker Carlson does not represent the American Right. And if Savodnik had paid any attention he would have discovered deep disagreement with Carlson's foreign policy opinions. Yesterday is a great example. Ceasefire in Gaza above all other considerations is not a mainstream opinion in conservative America, and the philosophy behind it is suspect. Carlson's pie-in-the-sky ideal of America as some quasi-religious force for good has never existed, except in the abstract.

The Right is far more interested in what is best for America, and its rational calculation that Ukraine is most assuredly not good for America does not mean that America should support Russia and Putin. My guess is that "A plague on both your houses" is probably the most popular sentiment!

But Savodnik's stupidity also exposes the weakness in the globalist left's support for Ukraine in its border war. They speak as if it is axiomatic to support anyone and anything against Russia and Putin, yet there is no articulation of the geopolitical necessity for that support. PUTIN BAD is not a political philosophy.

Is Russia going to continue on into Poland or Romania once it conquers Ukraine? No. First, Russia is having a tough time just with Eastern Ukraine. They have a long way to go before they hit the Western border (if they even want to try). Second, Poland is a much tougher opponent, and along with Romania is in NATO. So feckless as NATO has turned out to be, an attack on a member state will elicit a martial response that is more significant than America and Europe's support of Ukraine.

Oh...where are the clarion calls for a ceasefire in Ukraine? The scale of destruction and death dwarfs that of Gaza, yet the American and European left is conspicuously silent. I wonder why?

posted by CBD at 11:00 AM

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