If I got a dollar every time someone told me they saw a commentator on TV parroting something I wrote in one of my commentaries, I’d be very rich indeed. I’ve seen this phenomenon myself. As it happens, I felt moved to write about one such occasion just yesterday in “Writer Paul Auster Says Tea Party to Jan 6 All Backlash to Obama. But I said It First” December 7, 2021.
So imagine my surprise when I saw it again last night. This time it was no less a commentator than Thomas Friedman, the celebrated columnist and foreign affairs correspondent for The New York Times.
He was on CNN’s AC360 discussing the virtual summit President Biden and President Putin held earlier in the day to ease growing tensions over Ukraine. After saying what every pundit has said a thousand times about his war games and brinkmanship, Friedman quipped that Putin’s untenable strategy amounts to saying to Ukraine:
Marry me or I’ll kill you.
An apt bon mot – even if I do say so myself. And, sure enough, I did.
In this case, though, the title alone to one of my previous commentaries incriminates Friedman:
- “Russia to Ukraine: Be My Valentine or I Kill You!” February 14, 2014
And, just in case that title and my arguments were not persuasive enough, I included this unmistakable and unforgettable image:
That said, it’s déjà vu all over again. Because, just as Putin used the Beijing 2008 Olympics as cover to invade Georgia, he’s betraying intent to use the Beijing 2022 Olympics as cover to invade Ukraine.
Except he has overplayed his hand this time. Not to mention that Ukraine is of far more strategic interest to NATO. And so Putin faces a dilemma:
- Beg Biden for a face-saving way to deescalate the tensions he pugnaciously created, so he can declare victory and retreat from the border; or
- Invade and, given how NATO has armed Ukraine, suffer the worst casualties by an invading army since the Germans lost over 400,000 forces trying to invade Russia during WWII.
I suspect that Putin spent much of yesterday’s meeting huffing and puffing, but ultimately begging. And, the statesman that he is, that Biden was happy to oblige, magnanimously.
Related commentaries:
Be my valentine… Ukraine border crisis… Ukraine/Belarus border… Ukrainians, my favorite ex-communists…