The Slowest-Moving Fast-Moving Story
PUTIN WORDLE
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This is the slowest-moving fast-moving story in the modern history of fast-moving stories.
Every morning, we wake up in the United States and expect some major change to have taken place.
Instead, for reasons I shall reveal in Tuesday’s edition of WWoN, not much has perceptively changed since Day 3 of the war.
Here are today’s eerily familiar headlines:
* Vladimir Putin is ruthless, plus increasingly isolated, unstable, and angry at the lack of progress on the ground.
* U.S. government officials simultaneously mock Putin for his lack of progress on the ground and/but suggest it is only a matter of time before he takes Kyiv and the rest of the nation.
* Volodymyr Zelensky is charismatic, sleepless, and brave, plus a master on social media.
* The Ukrainian people are as courageous and badass as the Ukrainian military.
* The Russian military effort seems highly flawed, but it moves inexorably forward to encircle more and more Ukrainian cities; the Russians fire missiles at a lot of buildings, causing fires and destruction.
* The number of Russian casualties is deeply in dispute.
* There are negotiations between the Ukrainians and the Russians which the international media treat as hopeful and doomed simultaneously, as the last, best hope and as pure cynical theater.
* Ukrainian refugees continue to flee, especially over the Polish border.
* Ceasefires on, ceasefires off, ceasefires on. Ceasefires off.
* Putin and his spokespeople deal out bull propaganda that would make Vladimir Pozner nod in approval.
* Secretary Blinken is on the move, on the phone, and on the hot seat.
* Responsible executive and legislative branch officials must patiently explain the expensive, complicated, and dangerous modalities of enforcing a no-fly zone – and why instituting one over Ukraine would be akin to declaring a nuclear World War III.
* France’s Macron and Israel’s Bennett sure talk to Putin a lot.
* The United Nations is outraged and ineffective.
* The sanctions are strangling the Russian economy and/but speculation abounds about Putin’s threshold for pain.
* Putin is cracking down on dissent of all types, but a few brave Russians defy him (but to no obvious or immediate effect).
* Western Europe is holding together to a surprising degree and/but not including on being willing to fully bite the energy bullet.
* China is the wildest of wild cards in so many ways.
* The price of gas in the U.S. is very high and likely to go higher.
* The Iran nuclear deal is in limbo, either more or less likely to happen because of Putin’s invasion.
* Capitol Hill reporters continue to suggest that of course Congress will pass a budget (including new monies for Ukraine and the pandemic) by this week’s deadline because, well, because they have to; Capitol Hill reporters continue to ignore history.
* And it isn’t just the Ukraine story that is like Groundhog Day II. The White House keeps looking for the right way to sell “Build Back Better, The Remnants.” The Democrats keep thinking that press releases touting various sources of support for the president’s Fed nominees will cause Pat Toomey to cave.
I would predict that at least some of these storylines will unstick this week, but as the political philosopher Yogi Berra once said, “Prediction is difficult, especially about the future.”
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ESSENTIAL READING
* The Associated Press looks at Macron’s Putin gambit, with a fine account of their most recent communications, and all of this, which I for one did not know:
There is no other foreign leader that Macron has tried to bring closer to his corner than Putin. Macron, a staunch European, was confident that a mixture of personal charm and the splendor of France’s past would convince Putin to keep Russia within the European security habitat.
Macron first hosted Putin in the sumptuous Place of Versailles in 2017. Two years later they discussed stalled Ukraine peace talks in Macron’s summer residence at the Fort de Bregancon on the French Riviera as Macron tried to build on European diplomacy that had helped ease hostilities in the past.
* The Washington Post fact checker determines that there is not a lot of evidence that Zelensky ever said he needed “ammo, not a ride,” but also sort of determines it doesn’t matter if he said it or not.
* The AP has absolutely perfect pitch in analyzing the Senate battlegrounds, with the right balance in looking at both sides of the ledger; the reality is that Democrats could in fact keep control of the body, even with a medium-sized Red wave. This stands out:
Democrats are pressing their cash advantage on the ground in key states, even as GOP campaign committees in Washington report record fundraising hauls.
In Nevada, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, one of the nation’s most endangered Democrats, reported $10.5 million cash on hand at the end of last year, compared to Republican former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt’s $1.7 million.
Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock finished the year with $22.9 million in the bank, while likely Republican challenger Herschel Walker, the former football star who has been endorsed by Trump, reported $5.4 million.
And Arizona Democrat Kelly, a former astronaut who won a 2020 special election to serve out the final two years of the late Sen. John McCain’s term, reported $18.6 million in the bank. Arizona’s Republican state Attorney General Mark Brnovich, the best-known Republican in a crowded primary field, reported less than $800,000 in the bank.
Warnock and Kelly pressed their financial advantages by launching an initial round of television ads in recent weeks as Republican candidates in both states focus on fighting each other. It’s much the same in New Hampshire, where Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan placed $13 million in initial TV and radio advertising reservations for the fall, much of it in the expensive Boston media market, while two Republicans will be locked in a primary through mid-September.
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