Cheap Seats 2024 By Rich Trzupek
Misdirection - 03/20
By Rich Trzupek
The legacy media described President Biden’s latest State of the Union address as “fiery.” You’ll be hard pressed to find a story in the mainstream media that does not use that particular adjective when describing doddering Joe’s remarks. Coincidence? Or perhaps the result of multiple lazy, liberal news organizations depending far too much on press releases issued by their favored candidates? You be the judge.
Whatever the case, let’s focus on one particularly ridiculous claim that President Dementia read off the teleprompter during this year’s State of the Union: "My predecessor, a former Republican president, tells Putin, ’Do whatever the hell you want,’" Biden said. “A former American president actually said that, bowing down to a Russian leader.”
The real story is this: Bad Orange Man has consistently – and for some reason controversially – called out our allies, and especially our NATO allies, for not paying their fair share for mutual defense. Not sure why that is a problem, but among some of our allies and many in the MSM, it seems to be just that.
Trump spoke at a rally in Conway, South Carolina on Feb. 10. As part of his remarks, he addressed this issue, considering a hypothetical case in which a NATO ally who declined to fully support the alliance financially asked the US to step in. Here’s how he described the situation, according to USA Today.
“One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ’Well sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’" Trump said. “I said, ’You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’ He said, ’Yes, let’s say that happened.’ No, I would not protect you.”
Trump added, “In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.”
A part of our agreement with our NATO allies obliges them to contribute to our mutual defense by certain monetary minimum, expressed as a percent of the nation’s defense budget carved out from the country’s GDP. Currently, my ancestral homeland of Poland contributes the most to NATO by this metric, with the USA coming in a close second.
Yet, there are many of our allies who don’t meet the minimum. What to make of them? Trump has consistently maintained that there should be no freeloaders in the NATO alliance. But, if there is a freeloader who wants help, America is not obliged, either legally or ethically, to provide it. It’s no different from telling a lazy, jobless adult child to start paying rent or to move the hell out of your house.
Selectively using a part of the that message to make it sound like The Donald wants to give Vlad the Invader a free hand on the world stage is not merely misguided, it’s corrupt. It’s also insulting, for it assumes that the target audience – loyal Democrat voters – are so blind or so stupid that they are incapable of discovering the truth and/or won’t care if they happen to stumble across it.
Both sides play this game of course. There’s no denying it. But this example is more egregious than most for a number of reasons. First, because it attempts to continue to propagate the “Russian collusion” myth that has been thoroughly debunked. Second, it’s not merely about twisting a message, it’s about using a portion of a message to directly contradict the intent of the messenger. Unlike President (Let’s go) Brandon, Trump has made it clear that he would use our vast energy resources to replace Putin as the primary energy supplier to our European friends. That would do more damage to Vlad’s empire than any number of missiles we might ship over to Ukraine.
Last, but not least, Old Joe offered this deception as part of a State of the Union address, an event which is meant to be – and traditionally has been – as dignified and non-partisan as possible. It’s sad to find that Biden’s handlers care so little about the traditions of this remarkable nation that they would stoop to such infantile tactics. Sad, but not surprising.
Email: richtrzupek@gmail.com
