Funky Red Lines, Maybe Pink

I normally take a dim view of Obama making threats and issuing “red lines,” but the ones he drew at the NATO meeting in Wales don’t bother me much. He said that we would “not hesitate to protect" one of NATO’s members against loss of its independence. He did not specify what might cause that loss of independence, but he was looking toward Russia when he said it.

"We’ll be here for Estonia,” he said. “We’ll be here for Latvia. We’ll be here for Lithuania.” Pretty easy words, since he knows that there is precisely zero chance that Russia will invade any of those countries. It was a little awkward when hi got to the end of the alphabet and had said nothing about “being here” for Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden's rhetoric addressing a different theater of operations about how, "after a proper period for grieving" we will "follow them to the gates of hell because that's where they will live" suggests to me that Joe may be showing his age a bit.