Congressional Leftists Wobble on Ukraine (UPDATE: Then Try to Un-Wobble)

Note: this post has been tweaked to reflect the letter being withdrawn.

Donald Trump’s pathological hatred for Ukraine, likely a result of his allegiance to Vladimir Putin, has turned much of American foreign policy upside down. While the center-right still largely supports the Ukrainian people’s gutsy defense of their country, it is the center-left that joins in that cause.

Meanwhile, the Republican “right” is going increasingly all-in with Putin from Kevin McCarthy to our own KGBob.

The Democratic Socialists of America, however, have retained their willful blindness from the Cold War. That has led to some discomfort with some on the left of the party. For thirty self-styled “progressives” in the House of Representatives, this presented a choice between democracy in Ukraine and the DSA tankies just to their left.

Seeing that fork in the road, they took it, resulting in a word salad of contradictions in a letter to President Biden (WaPo).

If you want to know how well it went, consider this. Within hours, the lead signatory of the letter was trying to walk it back. She was not alone either. Within the party, it was branded (and not without cause) as an “olive branch to a war criminal” (Politico).

In the end, they simply withdrew the letter and blamed it on “staff.”

I’ll leave it to others to discuss the political effects of all this.